Category: Uncategorised

So apparently, a group of unhappy undergrad trapped the college pres in his office today and demanded he meet with them tomorrow. this got media coverage good for them. I don’t think they will get listened to any other way. Folks in power need to remember that people will find a way to be heard. If you brush them off, they will amp up their tactics.

anyway, so the “emergency meeting” tomorrow is going to be held in Crowell Hall. At the same time that mic checks are supposed to be happening for Braxton’s small ensemble concert, which I’m playing in. the meeting is supposed to end at 6:00. There is no way that it will actually end at 6:00. why didn’t they scedule it for the chapel? It holds more than 200 more people and Braxton doesn’t need it.
why are they angry? glad you asked:

• WESU/NPR deal: negotiations made behind closed doors

• The RIDE
• FUNDING for the QRC and the UOC (SBC)
• Chalking
• Gender neutral housing
• Hostile Financial Aid Office
• Where is my money going?/Transparency in spending/Trustees/Tution
  increase

• Senior housing/off campus housing
• Student voice outside of the WSA
• X-house
• Hate Crimes
• Community Relations
• Worker’s Rights, Janitor’s abusive & racist supervisor, upcoming strike
• Veto power of administrative decisions
• Voice in creation of classes and our majors
• Ethnic Studies
• Tenure (who gets it?)
• SOC quotas, decrease in recruiting
• harrassment from Public Safety/ usage of facilities
• lack of transparency
• General respect from the administration
• Long Lane Prison and Wesleyan $ supports it
• Spanish dept funding
• Disassociation of Wes from Middletown and the harrassment of Middletown
  community members by Public safety

I dunno what all of this is about. SOC stands for students of color. They’re pissed. I heard some of them at a speak out and they’ve got reason to be pissed. Chalking is some fake issue where students aren’t allowed to chalk the sidewalks. they do anyway. Gender Neutral Housing refers to something where a bunch of people sat down and hammered out some compromise to allow co-ed dorm rooms for students who selected it or students who didn’t want gender to be taken into account for dorm assignments. The folks on the comittee went to 21963918234674 meetings and made a million compromises and came out with a carefully worded policy, etc. the administration first accepted it and then tossed it with no comment, reassigning a bunch of dorm rooms just days before school started.
WSA is student government. X-House is a “program house” for african american students. I understand that a few white students live there too. I dunno anymore about that. It’s constantly in peril, apparently. It used to be the only program house that first year students could occupy, but the rules were abruptly changed without student input. The WESU radio station becoming an NPR affiliate was also without student input. If you’re starting to see a pattern here, you might be on to something.
Hate crimes: a few students get fag bashed every semester. It’s scary. I don’t know what they want the school to do about it. One time, they figured out who did it and the penalty was being banned from campus, according to public safety. Terrorize a community and you never get to hear Braxton play again! I think jail might have been more appropriate.
I dunno about community relations other than local residents kind of hate us. the school decided to fix that by building some sort of art center for children in the north end. They didn’t ask anyone what they wanted first. So they have this center with a bunch of school people and volunteers and no kids. (patterns . . .)
Worker’s rights. heard a rumor that monolingual spanish speaking employees are being called epithets by their bosses, who also serve as their translators when they talk to the school about stuff, so they can’t complain. Don’t know anything more about it. I am not a relaible source here.
Respect from the university, well, if I were smart, I would not make a comment. But I can’t resist noting that it’s very easy to dismiss the concerns of anyone you’re actively calling “kids.” That has got to stop.
This seems like a radnom laundry list of comaplaints, but they’re unfied by a thread of feeling voiceless. They do all fit together.
This blog post will come back to haunt me when I try to apply for teaching positions. Look, students are what defines a university. No students. No university. Therefore, it’s logical to assume that they must be an important part of the university and that their concerns matter. some students of color feel like they’re being used as a prop to promote the diversity of wesleyan to it’s “real” traget students (white) and are getting no instituional support. the stories they told back up that claim. that has to change. some of the changes the students are demaning are impossible. You can’t compell a tenured professor to attend diversity training. Nobody has told them that. The administration just brush them off and say it’s unnecessary.
I hope the students and the president can come to an agreement where the school agrees to not just roll over the students and make imperial descisions. I hope they come to that agreement quickly. By 5:00 pm would be nice.

Somebody wrote a short history of the piece Come Out by Reich and they link to an old post of mine here. I’m kind of chagrined, actually, as the post they link to is the thinking-out-loud variety (as so many are) and it’s clear that I have no idea about anything I’m talking about. I got Come Out confused with Its Gonna Rain, for example. However, since that time, I did do some research.
One of my questions was wether or not “come out” had a possible double meaning at the time the piece was written. It did not. That phrase as a signifier for visible queer identity originated in the 1970’s or 80’s. Instead Reich’s text a very effective loop where the words “come out to show them” and then just “come out” are plucked from their original context and by repetition gain their own meaning of protest. Reich transforms the words from a statement of victimhood to a statement of protest. (according to Four Musical Minimalists) The words originate from a group of young african american men who were beat by the police in Harlem. One of them is describing how he was injured and wanted medical attnetion but wasn’t visibly bleeding, so had to open is wound to allow some of “the bruise blood to come out to show them.” The blog cited above points out that the piece was written as a fundraiser for the victims of the police brutality.

Come Out is clearly beyond reproach. It is a lasting piece of political music (although it does require one to read the program notes to understand it) and it comes out of fund-raising collaboration, making it just the sort of piece of music that Jesse woud be interested in for his Kent State paper. What’s kind of interesting is how the words “come out” gained additional meaning in the interviening years and how the piece might change or gain meanings because of that. However, the opening context of the piece, I think, prevents that.
I really like Steve Reich. His work influences mine. I think there are some issues surrounding his work that have to do with changing ideas about liberalism. His piece It’s Gonna Rain is a tape loop piece. It’s before Come Out, from when he was at Mills and I don’t think it’s as good as his later tape piece. He went to Golden Gate Park and recorded a famous preacher who liked to give sermons tere. The preacher was talking about Noah’s Ark. Reich felt that the message of impending apocalypse resonated with the angsty zeitgeist he felt around him. Four Musical Minimalists also explains that he was really into the rich timbres of African American voices.
Reich was actively working in anti-racist projects, some with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, for example. I want to do more research on this and who their target audience was and whose minds they might have changed. Were the urban audiences of San francisco racist, or were they energizing their base? Also, very importantly, how many black people were involved in this effort?
there is an unfortunate tendency for peple to fall into the social roles that they are comfortable with. Feminist groups sometimes spend a lot of time listening to men in their midst. Sometimes men even become the spokespeople. Equality groups must also gaurd against the social tendency to give away their voice to white men. I don’t know when this became an issue that people were aware of. Certainly by the 60’s, there were black-led civil rights groups and black people began assuming leadership role in pre-existing organizations.
Right now, speaking for black people and saying that you’re fascinated by the timbres of their voices would be extremely problematic. (I was surprised to see that the book had a very recent publication date.) But this all took place in the 60’s and it’s appropriate to judge his intentions only according to what was considered progressive at the time. He was on the right sinde of things. However, when one is trying to learn from this to figure out what to do now, one has to take into account current notions of progressivism. I would not make those statements. I would not have written the piece It’s Gonna Rain. I’m a timid sort and I’m afraid to speak for other people. (In modern political discourse it’s perfect acceptable to declare yourself a spokesperson for whatever group you claim to represent. I think that’s fine. But I don’t want to speak for a group that I feel myself a member of or that nobody else would recognize me a member of.) In fact, when I do tape loop pices on text, I seem to always end up using people who I strongly disagree with. I have no timidity distorting their voices and re-ordering their words. Also, the temptation to illuminate their voices like gilding on a medival manuscript is not present as it would be with words I agreed with.
So, I still have not done enough research on Riech’s tape pieces to write that chapter of my thesis. I have a few lingering reservations about It’s gonna Rain. But I can say, unequivocably, that Reich was a progressive, on the correct side of social isues and he did good work. It’s inspiring that it makes lasting music that’s still worth listening to. I would characterize Come Out as a sucessful piece of protest music, one that is not easily co-opted, and continues to have political and musical significance.

Sunday Comic. (If you see this monday, hit the “previous comic” arrow) The Salvation Army is a religious Organization. they used to have a contract with the city of San Francisco to deliver meals to AIDS patients. But they lost that contract when the city passed a rule saying all contractors must provide domestic pertnership benefits. Because the Salvation Army thinks being gay is a big sin. So for years, I guess they dilvered those meals with a friendly, “here’s dinner, you sinning fag.” or what? So when the salvation army santa in the comic says, “I want to see an end to intolerance, injustice and prejudice.” He means, against some people, but not all people. Some predjudice is a-ok. Boycott the salvation army. Give your money to a group that’s really against prejudice instead. (Like the National Coalition for the Homeless or Food Not Bombs. Or a church that doesn’t discriminate.)

SuperCollider does not reliably convert floats to integers even when you ask nicely. sure, it rounds for you. but does the type change? nooooo. can you use it as an array index? noooo. does this cause my code to fail in impossible to fix ways? yes. does it cause unreasonable levels of frustration? you bet. Has this been fixed in between the version where i noticed the bug (from september) and yesterday’s version? nooooo.

grrrrrrrrr
update work around: when you do float.floor or float.ceil, put an asInt at the end: float.floor.asInt float.ceil.asInt .

I have just finished reading Lynne Chenney’s terrifically auful pulp novel Sisters. Yes this is the “lesbian” romance that you’ve read about. I don’t want to blow the whole thing for you, but there are no lesbians. Only sexless female victims. And one very male-dentified female lead. I could identify with her, maybe, [spolier!! skip to next paragraph if you don’t want to know the ending] except for her over willingness to marry a xenophobic, poor-person-hating, vigilante-justice-(against poor folks for being poor)-supporting profiteer (who is male). But if her agreed with her on everything, that would be so boring. ahem. yes.

I did not find my copy of sisters on amazon.com. Nor on ebay. Not even at the Middletown library used book sale. I downloaded it from the internets and you can too: word document or PDF. Be forewarned that there’s no hot juicy sex and it has all the pulp novel crap you would expect from V. C. Andrews. On the one hand. On the other hand, the heroine is 100% blue state, which is kind of interesting. She’s even multi-racial, although how that ends up being treated by the end is . . . um . . . proplematic. The alien other is just not bound by conventional sexual mores, is she? too bad jazz music hadn’t been invented in the time period of the book, or she could have listened to it.
bah
well-written review from the democratic underground

Mobilize to stop Operation Rescue!  This far-right, fundamentalist anti-abortion group has had the nerve to announce a march in San Francisco on January 22, 2005 — the anniversary of Roe v. Wade!  Join Radical Women and feminists of all stripes to organize in our own defense against an emboldened rightwing that wants to smash reproductive rights and keep women as second-class citizens.  We say NO!  Call 415-864-1278 or email rwbayarea@yahoo.com for coalition meeting times and to get involved. 

I remembered reading about a very effective method of screwing up anti-choice protests, and thanks to the internet, I found it here. Scroll down to the “eat a queer fetus for jesus” picture for the protest part. the idea is not as radical now as it was when that newsletter was first published, as more groups have started to use it. It’s the same idea as billionares for bush. Dress up like your enemy. act like your enemy. mangle their message. So if you showed up with a copy of one of the Church of Euthenasia’s Pedophile Priests for Life signs, there is still a smidgen of a chance you could start marching with Operation Rescue and sew confusion. At the very least, you might offend somebody. (i’m offended.) It might be nice if Billionares for Bush planned to join the march. Do they still exist?
Of course, on the other hand, Operation Rescue has lost a lot of ground since they branched out into homophobia and violence and just desperately want some attention again. The more we respond to them, the more attention they get. Which seems to mean that confusing their message is the best idea.

I submitted 2 proposals to Kent State, which are the two previous posts. Jesse also submitted a paper proposal. I like his better than mine, because it’s more concrete and I like knowing what action to take. I think our papers might go well together, actually. Here’s how to do it. Here’s how to keep Nike from stealing it. (“The revolution will not be televised. Buy this sweatshop shoe.”)
I have a final exam in conducting on monday. I’m d00med. alas. But then, I just have a few more days of class and two concert and I’m done. Except for the million more concerts I must record. Speaking of concerts, I played tuba last night for an hour and got paid $10. w00t. I think that’s a living wage in CT. Except that there’s no way in hell i could play tuba for 8 hours a day in performance and i don’t think anybody would want me to. Actually, I’m not in it for the money, which I was surprised by. My plan to blow it all on Krispy Kremes was thrawrted. I’ve turned into a New Englander insofar as like donuts goes. But I think I liked them before. I used to go to Colonial Donuts in Oakland. You can tell they’re colonial pecause the powdered sugar donuts are opressing the chocolate donuts
As I was falling into a sweet, blissful, i’m-so-tired sleep last night, I decided that I’m currently the happiest I’ve been since my undergrad days. I clearly like school a lot. I deal with what I’m interested in. I get a lot of creative freedom. People care about what I’m doing. I get instutional support. I can spend all day thinking about whatever issue is currently on my mind and transform it into music somehow. I spend so little time goofing off. Well, I think I’m goofing off, but then whatever I’m goofing off doing turns into something. Sometimes a bit slower than it should, but whatever.

Performance Proposal

I propose a program of politically themed electronic music pieces interspersed with just intoned pieces, similar to those on the accompanying CD. The work is realized in real time, and is somewhat different at each performance. I use right wing pundits and political figures as source material for text-sound composition both to explore the sounds of the human voice and to highlight the words and meanings in political speech. I focus on the right wing so as to create pieces that are a form of protest music. The text-based pieces consist of one or more samples and a computer program that I have written to manipulate them. Processes include granular synthesis and tone generation. The non-text-based pieces use just intonation, a form of natural tuning where all the notes are perfectly in tune with each other. I like mixing pundits with just intonation, because the meditative nature of the just tuning counteracts the stress of listening to lying weasel pundits.

Instrumentation: Laptop Computer. I will supply my own.

Time: 30 – 60 minutes. (Length of performance can be tailored to available time)

Technical requirements: stereo speaker arrangement.

Paper Proposal

The 20th century produced many politically active leftist composers. In the early part of the century, some, like Aaron Copland and Woody Guthrie achieved mainstream success and reached large audiences. However, in the years since, the meaning of their pieces has been changed. Thus Aaron Copeland, a gay communist who was too radical to be allowed to play one of his symphonies at Eisenhower’s inauguration, came to be the theme music for recruitment ads for the Armed Services. Woody Guthrie’s song This Land is Your Land was changed, with the omission of a few key lines, from a call for communist collectivization, to a ditty about manifest destiny, suitable for third graders. Their work has been co-opted by those to their right politically and used against their intentions.

This paper will explore strategies used by composers in the latter half of the 20th Century to create serious leftist works that resist co-option. For example, after the tape recorder was invented, composers invented a new genre called tape music, where the finished product is the recording. Therefore, if a piece of tape music has words, they cannot be altered, edited or deleted. Some composers, especially text sound poets, used tape music to create pieces with fixed words and meanings. The anti-Vietnam War text sound poem The Glorious Desertion by Sten Hanson is unlikely ever to be turned against his intentions. This paper will look at a number of experimental composers including Steve Reich, Sten Hanson, Paul De Marinis, and Christian Wolff and how they created politically themed works that resist co-option.

I’ve been asked if there will be an internet stream of today’s concert.
I have no idea at this point, but if we can find a connection in the
chapel it’s looking pretty likely. Check out this page:

http://cooper.wesleyan.edu/~david/composer-concert.html

Concert starts at 4 EST (1:00 PST), if it’s being streamed you will see it there.

My solo glockenspiel piece Variations on Two Anthems will be performed. Along with work by all of the other graduate composers (except Walter) and David and Will.