Category: Uncategorised

I could not wake up today at all. I finally went out after 7:00 and got some coffee. Now I’m wide awake. Which is just as well as the dog has an upset stomach and keep wanting to go outside. Just to eat more and more and more grass. Lovely standing outside in the cold while my dog grazes so she can induce barfing all over the living room after I finally go to bed.

One of the coffee jerks (what’s the male version of “barista”? Can I just modify the term “soda jerk”?) was a Catholic seminarian but is now considering his options. He seems to want to go back, but he’s having a crisis of theology. Talked to him about theology until a quarter to midnight. The coffee shop closed at 9:00. (It’s funny that I’ve read more theology than a seminarian, but he wasn’t very far in when he dropped out, so it’s not really fair of me to say this even as an aside. (I want to post something later about God’s status as an alien other (crit theory thoughts from the aptly named Scarry)))
All human institutions become corrupt. They get past some certain size and then they become more about maintaining the organization, maintaining the hierarchy and service to power. It’s funny. I was talking to the seminarian who seemed to beleive that the church ought to be an exception. And then a communist I know explained that labor unions are somehow exempt because they’re serving the proletariat. (If you’re at the top of a union that’s been established for a while, you’re not the proletariat anymore. You’re a bourgeoise bureaucrat. But that’s neither here nor there.) It’s funny how faith and pseudo-religious ideas make people think they’ve found an exception to human nature. Power corrupts. This is why I’ve got anarchist leanings. You can’t fight human nature, so you have to find structures that are harder to abuse.
I defend my thesis tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Tag: Celesteh

Remember that Onion article during the 1996 election, “Bob Dole Pledges to Build Trench to 19th Century” parodying Bill Clinton’s (real) campaign slogan of a “bridge to the 21st century”? The pope likewise continues the farcical battles of the past. Rock music is bad!!!! “‘Rock’ . . is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship.” Also, new art music is bad!! “Modern so-called ‘classical’ music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter — and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings.” My so-called music is 2 1337 4 u, 14m3r! He doesn’t mention jazz, but I’m sure that it leads to promiscuity and racial otherness.

The article I’m quoting actually has a kind of an interesting history of liturgical music, although I question some of its assertions and some of the “problems” it poses are not at all new. For example: how to keep a “Christian” music while expanding the church beyond Europe. Can unwestern music be holy? They’ve had solutions to this “problem” since Spain and Portugal colonized the Americas. Perhaps the Church could look to how Christian music (godly) was mixed with native music (ungoldy . . . oh sure, he doesn’t say it, but if it weren’t ungoldy, why would this even be an issue?) then and know how to do it now.
The new pope: fighting the battles of yesteryear!
Apparently, he’s a good pianist. Of course, he only plays german composers from the eras of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. I just made that up.
Tags: Celesteh, Pope

Played Braxton large ensemble concert last night. It went very well. It was maybe the longest concert we’ve done in the two semesters I played in it. I got a solo, which was nice. Afterwards, we went to Eli’s. Phillip says that Jagermeister is an old lady drink in Germany, but he likes it anyway, on the rocks with a lemon wedge. At Eli’s that’s a brandy glass full, which is kind a lot of Jagermeister. It causes a feeling of happiness more than other kinds of beverages do. This is why Phillip likes it. It makes me feel kind of confused and overly friendly.

I just got an estimate from the movers. They will pick up my stuff on May 9, 10, 11 or 12. They tell me which the day before. And the me, xena, my tuba and a bass guitar hop in my car and drive to California. I’ve been considering taking a passenger. Want to cross the country, perhaps stopping periodically at Zippy the Pinhead type attractions? I can offer short term lodging at either end of the trip. You must make your own way to Connecticut and back from California. A flight from CA to CT will generally run around $100. No drugs or drug paraphernalia in the car. Send a 250 word essay on why you want to go and what you’d want to see.
Tags: Celesteh, Jagermeister, Braxton, Road Trip

I put printed copies of my thesis in the boxes of my committee members today. I am disturbed to note that network printing technology in the world is getting worse instead of better. Also, ITS does not support my font of choice in Word. Alas, but I got it printed anyway. Next time I’m using a PDF file. This gives me time for fun things like catching up on my favorite TV series.

Tonight, I watched the first and second episode of the new Dr Who. The best thing about the old series was the music, especially the incidental music. Alas, I must give the new series a poor musical review. Somebody added orchestral instruments to the theme song. I’m not against change, but this is not an improvement. In the Tom Baker years, the incidental music was awesome analog goodness. The BBC studios were state of the art and some of the best places to get access to equipment. Now, anybody can do all sorts of things on their computer, so equipment labs aren’t as necessary anymore. This democratization is a good thing. However, the culture of cutting edge experimentation that surrounded the BBC and especially the Dr Who series has apparently been lost. The incidental music has suffered, but the sound FX were really really good. The sound design is top notch. But the incidental music is X-filesish and bland, even while being obviously well produced and large budgetted. Worse, the incidental music in the first episode was mostly all derived from the series theme music. Blarg. Inspector Gadget alert! However, there were some nice cinematic conciets. For example, the introductory sequence was playing a sort of poppy track. While the character Rose was at her job in a department store, the music switched to being the piped in muzak in the store. When she was out of the store, it went back to being acousmatic (not heard by the people in the plot. aka: “score.” When the people in the plot hear it, as when Rose was in the store, that’s called “source”). Nicely done.
the special FX have a bit of computer generated cheesiness about them, but what would Dr. Who be without cheesiness? Overall, I would compare the new series to the X-Files in terms of production values, but with better sound FX. More like the X-Files movie than the TV show.
The second episode is a fairly brilliant parody of The Wizard of Oz. It references the munchkins brilliantly and most especially, a brilliant twist on the death of the wicked witch. It contains pop songs! What’s up with that? The second episode takes place in the very distant future and is full of aliens and explores Rose’s discomfort with alien others. An explicit reference to racial otherness is made when the Dr makes a comparison to the deep south. He does this to shame Rose for her close mindedness. Ironically, the most alien of the others is the last human. A flat sheet of skin suspended in a frame above a brain in a tank, the last human brags about how much plastic surgery s/he has undergone to get so flat and skinny. S/he is the classic bitter queeny character, saying things like “My that was fast! . . . A lot like my 5th husband!” This sort of genre humor continues until s/he is confronted by Rose who draws her/his humanity into question. The last human becomes more distasteful during this scene by calling other mixed species of human descent “mongrel.” the subject turns to how many operations s/he has had. S/he reminisces about his/her boyhood in the Los Angeles area and without pausing suggests that Rose get a chin tuck. Rose, overwhelmed with revulsion, tell the last human that s/he isn’t human at all and storms off.
So you see, I learned that being uncomfortable with alien others is bad UNLESS they’re genderqueer and then it’s ok, because they’re just freaks. So let’s get that down: racism bad. Queerphobia ok. Some alien others are just a little too alien. And it’s an old standby to be able to make the perverseness and otherness of a disliked group clear by calling them metaphorically queer: gay / trans / whatever. Does the BBC realize they’re playing the same game as Fox news?
Ok, so despite seeing my sexuality used as a metaphor for utter despicableness, I still give high marks to the show. Because I’m a metaphor everywhere. Because it’s the times we live in. Alas.
Um, and in these new installments, Gallifrey is no more! No more Master! No more Ronan! No more TimeLords except the Doctor. So the classic timelord bad guys are all gone. I think the Master ran out of regenerations anyway, though.

Update

The incidental music on episode 4 is much improved. also, you can download episodes from http://tracker.shuntv.net/. You’ll need a bit torrent client. I got mine from http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/ and I use VLC to play the AVI files.
Tags: Celesteh, Doctor Who

Daily Kos is saying the the new Santorum / Kerry / Clinton bill isn’t so bad. He says the Times editorial is bunk. However, I’m not entirely convinced of this, especially given this Letter to the Editor of the NYT signed by Santorum and Kerry. It states, “If the bill becomes law, a pharmacist who does not wish to dispense certain medications would not have to do so long as another pharmacist is on duty and would dispense the medications.” (this text verified through LexisNexis) If another pharmacists is on duty, the original pharmacist can preach to rape victim and tell her she’s a hell bound harlot. Isn’t that special. And how long before a court rules that if there’s another pharmacy within a few miles, well, it would also be ok to send the woman on? Pharmacists are lisenced to perform a service. We give them a special status and in exchange, they provide a needed function. If they refuse to provide their function, why are we giving them special status? If we grant a special tax status and limitted liability to a business whose function is to dispense healthcare, then why do they get those benefits if they refuse to fill the function for which they were granted? Corporate charters should be revoked and business licenses should be confiscated for pharmacies that won’t do their jobs. Walmart should lose it’s license to dispense drugs.

Also, the ACLU is opposed, which is usually enough to convince me that something is a bad idea. People are already suing to overturn workplace tolerance pledges based on it infringing their religious freedom. It is already true that in states where there are no nondiscrimination laws in place, that companies have a hard time forcing employees to take down “god hates fags” banners, because those employees often sue. If the law protects expressions of hate and makes no provisions for the rights of the hated, then it is explicitly legalizing discrimination and workplace harassment. And Kerry is sponsoring it.
I think we need to stop to consider that Kerry signed a letter saying it would be totally groovy for pharmacists to hassle women, queers and anyone else they can’t “in good conscience” serve. In the old days, serving blacks was a matter of conscience. How long before that’s true again?
Tags: Celesteh, Kerry

My politics and my music have strongly informed and influenced each other during my foray into Text Sound. I’ve found the ability to work with words directly to be freeing. However, it is also limiting. The words I use come from Americans, discussing American politics. The US political process is important to the world at large, due to our economic heft and tendency towards warfare. However, there is a danger of arrogance and over-estimating the cultural capital this might carry abroad. This is a concern as I go abroad next year.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels end The Communist Manifesto with a call for workers of the world to unite. (Marx) International solidarity remains a valuable goal for progressives. However, by using the words of the American political milieu, I’ve made my music inaccessible to non-English speakers. Information accessibility requires multilingualism or non-word sources. I believe that Esperanto is a key to solving these problems, however, currently more people speak English and politicians seldom deliver speeches in Esperanto, thus reducing the amount of source material available.
In order to be a more internationally oriented musician, I can find non-verbal ways to articulate progressive ideals or I can make my works multi-lingual, perhaps mixing together politicians of similar stripes from many countries. It is also possible to create different languaged versions of an idea or to use subtitles. These multi-lingual approaches seem especially suited to installation environments where perhaps the friendly experiencers could choose the language with which they would engage the piece. Installations may also provide a way to model a political idea or a human interaction in an experiential and non-verbal manner.
I feel that there is an inherently political aspect to just intoned pieces, especially ones with low tuning limits. Giving people a space to calm down is restorative and counters whatever fear their governments may be sowing. In some sense, all music is political, as Susan McClary makes clear in her book Feminine Endings by analyzing indicators gender and alien otherness within “Absolute Music.” (McClary) Defining a term too broadly, however, takes away its meaning. I look forward to negotiating a non-English-specific understanding to political music during my coming time abroad.

Your thesis isn’t done until you quote Karl Marx.

Update

Please leave feedback if you’ve got it
Tags: Celesteh, Thesis

While I was working on my political works, I became concerned that my music was too negative. I was pointing out error, but I was not offering counter-proposals. I used pitch, especially just intoned pieces, to give friendly experiencers breaks between Text Sound pieces. Proponents of just music note the lack of meditative music in western culture. They blame this on the tuning system. Kyle Gann writes, “Most cultures use music for meditation, and ours may be the only culture that doesn’t. With our tuning, we can’t.” (Gann) I hoped the meditative qualities of my tuning pieces would help serve as an antidote to any angst incurred by listening to political Text Sound. During my concert, I routed all of my just pieces through the architectural speakers, to give them greater authority than voices coming through the smaller speakers on stage.
Many of my tuning pieces use a set of algorithms taught to me by Ellen Fullman, who I studied with during breaks. These are expressed most easily mathematically. Just tuning uses whole number ratios. The fractions values are between 1 – 2. To keep fractions in this range, they can either be multiplied by 2 or divided by 2. Remember that a doubling of halving of a frequency changes the octave, but not the note. 220 and 440 are both A.
If we call the numerator x and the denominator y, both those numbers may be 2 or an odd number greater than 2. Just tuning systems are typically described by the largest odd number that the use. My tunings are usually 21 limit tuning, so in my pieces x and y can be 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, . . . 21. Tunings that are next to each other in a tuning table from a chord. A chord may be otonal or utonal. In an otonal chord, all the ratios have the same denominator, however, the numerators are adjacent values of x. For example: 3/2, 5/,4, 7/4. In a utonal chord, all the ratios have the same numerator, but the denominator changes. For example: 11/12, 11/10, 11/7. When a proposed chord involves a number greater than the limit, the chord wraps around back to 2. For example: 19/16, 21/16, 2/2 is a valid otonal chord.
21 is an unusually high number to use as a limit. Often tunings have a 5 or a 7 limit. The high limit allows combinations with large relatively prime numbers that have a greater amount of beating. That is, it sounds less in tune. This makes my just pieces microtonal and gives them a certain harmonic logic without necessarily making them overly relaxing.

I just want to be doooone
I think I need a conclusion. I’m quoting Marx. This is not a good sign.
Tags: Celesteh, Thesis

Worse, I gave him money.

We hoped to never write these words: John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are cosponsoring a bill with Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum. Its name is deceptively harmless–The Workplace Religious Freedom Act. But the practical effect could be an enormous boost for an emboldened religious right.
. . .
As a New York Times editorial points out, pharmacists can “berate, belittle or lecture their customers,” refuse to guide them to alternative supplies of medicine and pressure other pharmacies to do the same when large megastores like Wal-Mart already refuse to stock the morning-after pill. . . . “Employers would have serious difficulty resolving instances where an employee posts a sign reading ‘God hates fags’ in his office or cubicle; where workers proselytize on the ‘sins of the homosexual lifestyle’ over lunch,” the Human Rights Campaign wrote in a letter to members of Congress.

read the article
I’m going to France next year. France is secular. Have fun in Jesusland without me.
Tag: Celesteh

I posted very early this morning that Jesus said mean, fucked up things. Some of you are offended, I’m sure. Heck, I’m offended. How could I say such a thing? Well, I was reading the Westboro Baptists Church FAQ which posts much theology which is at least as logically consistent as Catholic theology and in some ways more consistent. I mean, isn’t God loving everybody sort of inconsistent with the idea of hell? I love you so much I’m going to torture you for all eternity? They’ve got it all figured out at Westboro.

If you want to cite that FAQ in a research paper, your bibliography would look like:

“Westboro Baptist Church FAQ” God Hates Fags Assessed April 23, 2005. <http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/faq.html>

I’ve been thinking more about the apocalypse. Apparently, sometime around the time all the fundies get beamed into outer space, there exists years of peace under a one world government. The economy is controlled and cushioned from ups and downs. All government is secular. Ummmmm . . . so in the coming times, we have no fundies, a secular government, a universal brotherhood of man/ universal sisterhood of women, economic prosperity and a secular government. . . . and this is bad.
One the one hand, you have really easy to understand, really clear principles expressed in a straightforward way by the foremost authority on the subject: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” On the other hand you have a confusing, coded account of persecution, which is difficult to decipher and written down by lesser authorities: Book of Revelations. And which do we go with now?
One interpretation is that Jesus was actually sent by Satan! And that’s why Christianity is so screwed up, because we were fooled by a false prophet. This is not an avenue of thought I want to pursue. Besides, I can’t imagine Satan blessing peacemakers.
The Catholic hierarchy used to try to keep bibles out of the hands of the unwashed masses. They believed that it was necessary to be in a state of grace and to have an education to understand what the bible is trying to say. Not everybody could just pick it up and understand it. You needed some context and some theology and some knowledge of the historical context in which it was recorded. Popularly, this prohibition is now seen as a terrible tyranny. But, you know, there’s something to it. So, another interpretation is that Satan is misleading people by making them concentrate on, and misunderstand, a part of the bible that is weird, instead of going for the very clear, straightforward pronouncements.
Haliburton might be the Harlot of Babylon, but I can’t see Bush as the antichrist, because I can’t see him managing to bring about peace or a stable economy. (I know stable doesn’t always mean good, but I think that gross inequality is neither stable, nor peaceful, so I’m going to rule it out.) In the future, we’ve got a secular, peaceful, stable government coming. Sign me up. I really can’t see that as bad. Also, no fundamentalists. The apocalypse will be a coming golden age. Where do I get my mark of the beast?
I’m going to hell
No, seriously, I’m so confused by this type of religion. I see it as intrinsically disordered. fundamentalists are objectively disordered. But with help, they can change. It’s best to avoid support group sort of situations because they might be overcome with temptation and fall back into fundamentalism. they should be kept separated and avoid contact with each other as much as possible.
I can’t stop being sarcastic for one minute. I’ve done too much paper writing.

Bibliography for this post

DeMarinis, Paul, “Cincinnati.” Music as a Second Language, Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 3011, 1991
“Laughter Yoga a Break Through in Stress Management,” Laughter Yoga: Laughter Club International / Dr. Katari’s School of Laughter Yoga Assessed April 23, 2005. <http://www.laughteryoga.org/>
91Angels, Online Posting. No longer extant. <http://www.livejournal.com/users/celestehblog/66886.html?thread=15686#t15686>
O’Reilly, Bill. The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly, Westwood One, April 13, 2005. “O’Reilly again warns that same-sex marriage could lead to calls for nuptials with goats” Ed. Marcia Kuntz. April 15, 2005. Media Matters for America. Assessed April 23, 2005. <http://mediamatters.org/items/200504150005>
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, dir. and prod. Robert Greenwald, Carolina Productions. 2004. Transcript Assessed April 22, 2005.
<http://www.outfoxed.org/docs/outfoxed_transcript.pdf>
“Rush Limbaugh.” April 22, 2005. Wikipedia. Assessed April 22, 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh>
Stevens, Dana. “surfergirl: TV and Popular Culture” Slate Jan. 27, 2005. (Interview with Jeanne Hopkins half way down the page) Assessed April 23, 2005. >http://slate.msn.com/id/2112706/<
“Theory Behind BrainWave Generator.” Brain Wave Generator. October 3, 2004. Noromaa Solutions Oy. Assessed April 21, 2005. <http://www.bwgen.com/theory.htm>
Tag: Celesteh

St. Malachy, hundreds of years ago had some prophesies about all the popes. He gave them all nicknames. And then after they ran, out, why, that would be the end of everything. We’re on the last one right now.

Gloria olivæ
The Benedictine order traditionally said this Pope would come from their order, since a branch of the Benedictine order is called the Olivetans. St Benedict is said to have prophesied that before the end of the world, a member of his order would be Pope and would triumphantly lead the Church in its fight against evil. While the Holy Father chose the name “Benedict”, this does not seem enough to fulfil the prophecy. Nor is it clear how Benedict XVI (a Bavarian) is “Glory of the Olives”. Since he is said to have remarked in the Conclave after saying he would take the name Benedict that it was partly to honour Benedict XV, a pope of peace and reconciliation, perhaps Benedict XVI will be a peacemaker in the Church or in the World, and thus carry the olive branch.

In like 1998, one person posted a long long long speculation of what this running out of popes might mean. He gives a bunch of scenarios. My favorite:

A possible scenario, but the most distasteful for the Catholic Church, is that the original prophecies of St. Malachy (111 popes) are correct and at the passing of John Paul II the college of Cardinals elects a Pope who is not a true believer and he becomes the false Prophet. This could be devastating to the Catholic believers between the election of the Gloria Olivae Pope and the Rapture. This would indicate that the prophecies of Malachy were not from the Lord. If he (the Gloria Olivae) is a false pope, it will be extremely detrimental to the marginal or carnal Christians. A large portion of the Catholics (968 million) will accept the Gloria Olivae Pope as the Vicar of Christ and if he is the false prophet, he will turn them to the Antichrist and indicate he (the Antichrist) is the Savior of the world. This would be the False Religion of Revelation 17, Babylon the Harlot.

Now, I’m note really down with all of this “the rapture is coming stuff.” But I did find myself wondering the other day if the Pope even believed in God. I mean, what if you were a priest and lost your faith? You can’t just quit. The reason I wonder this is because his faith seems to mean spirited and exclusionary and so willing to let others suffer for doctrinally shaky points, like condoms being bad. I always thought faith was bout doing good, rather than pointing out bad in others. You know, mote in your eye, plank in mine. Although Jesus did say a bunch of screwed up, mean things. so maybe he believes in the mean Jesus.
The last pope was highly concerned that George Bush might be the anti-christ. (No, I’m not making this up.) The new pope was the instigator of the Kerry being denied communion scandal. He issued a letter saying that it would be evil for Catholics to vote for Kerry. You can’t pick a single deciding factor for an election, but without this guy, Bush would have lost. (No, I’m not making this up.) So, if Bush is the antichrist, and Benedict (who picked a name fitting to a prophesy he was certainly aware of) steered people towards Bush, then the rapture is coming and all of us secular humanists are doomed. (It also means that all of the new pope’s gay-baiting is actually the work of Satan, so maybe we’re less doomed than you’d think.)
The problem with this “interpretation” is that it has a saint receiving prophesy from Satan. Saints don’t usually relay words from the devil as that does tend to disqualify them from sainthood. But this guy was sainted so long ago, maybe they did less checking back then. Also, why should the rapture be all at once? What if it’s just the slow death of faith?
Tags: Celesteh, Pope