Les said, the better II

Kerry debates much better than he gives speeches. His speech at the DNC was inspriring . . . it inspired me to sign a petition to get Nader on the ballot. But his debating is awesome. Maybe instead of having him give speeches, he could just argue with some tool for ninety minutes. It would have made the convention speech much more exciting. And man, Bush is a tool. Nothing to say. A smug shrug. A repeated and overused line. the only thing he’s good at is sounding dumb and invoking god. Now, he’s not dumb. He knows voters are intimidated by smart people. So he’s trying to look dumb. Then he can talk about how ivy league and eilte John Kerry is. And how godly and regular Bush, a Connecicut billionare, is.

So Kerry = clear winner. I feel better about voting for him now.
This is a tight election. If you’re not registered, get registered. For those of you who are students, it’s totally legal for you to register in the state where you’re going to school. there’s been a supreme court case about this, even. Your school is legally required to help you register, which some of them are faling down at. But there’s undoubtedly a Democrat group or other political party group on campus that would happily help you register, which you must do SOON. NOW NOWNOW. You can register any party and vote any party. Register Natural Law. Register Green. Register Peace and Freedom. And then vote for any candidate at all. But, esp if you’re in a swing state, vote for Kerry.
Bush clearly has no idea what he’s doing with foreign policy. He has no plan for Iraq. He has no plan for stopping nuclear proliferation. Quite the opposite. He shitcanned the ABM treaty right after taking office, saying we need to build “tactical” nukes to drop them on rouge nations. Actual nuclear warfare. How are we supposed to stop other countries from getting nukes while our president is planning to start dropping nuclear bombs? It makes me want to hide under my bed. Or in my basement with two weeks worth of water and nonperishable foods.

Fox News Analysis of the First Presidential Debate

Well, by fluke of a coin toss, Kerry got to make the opening gestures, in which he tried a trite shirt removal and howl. Now, we’ve seen this before, most notably, in 1984 when Walter Mondale tried the same opening move. And Kerry was a little better at it than Mondale. At least he didn’t momentarily choke himself like Mondale did, haha. And then Kerry followed that with something like, would you say maybe a cat sound? Some sort of high tenor roar, maybe. This is a typical opening for liberal challengers.
Bush then quickly contered, taking the offensive. He quickly displayed his stronger upper body muscles and then made a terrfying and loud sound. It was . . . I don’t even know how to characterize it . . . unearthly.
Then, after his strong opening rebuttal, Bush quickly used his opening strength to his advantage by pouncing on evil she-devil vixen mutli-billionaire liberal elite heiress Theresa HEINZ Kerry. Unfortunately, she summoned some of her dark and evil black magic to escape from Bush. Now, this wasn’t necessarily good for Bush, but it wasn’t good for Kerry either, because it showed that he is clearly in league with Satan. Looking at that, I think it was clear that Bush came out ahead in that exchange and was thus still far in the lead.
Bush, then, victoriously lept upon his podium and then again made that . . . sound, striking fear into the hearts of terrorists around the world.
Kerry tried to copy Bush, it was immediately clear that it was nothing but an immiative attack, like in 1980 when Jimmy Carter tried throwing the tree stump back at Reagan but just completely missed. It’s what we’ve come to expect from Democrats in debates.
Then, seemingly infuriated, maybe at loosing, Kerry then ran over and toppled Bush’s podium. It was a cheap shot and it was unfair and it just shows how Democrats, when they can’t win will try anything. And it shows the complacency of the liberal media elite. Jim Leherer, who is from PBS did not call foul and that is, I beleive, why Bush then demonstrated complete dominacy over Lehrer. Lerhrer is not badly hurt, except for his pride which must have suffered when Bush urinated on him, but I think it shows just how far Bush is willing to go not only to defend himself, but also defend this country when it’s attacked.
He will strike evil wherever it lurks, whether in other competing band of primates or in the dark and inscrutable heart of Theresa Heinz Kerry. And he will find those repsoncible for crimes, like Jim Lehrer and demonstrate his unwillingness to back down, to let them get away with it.
There is no questuon that Bush was the clear winner tonight. Also, since you know, we don’t expect Bush to be much of a debater or a critical thinker or exhibit “leadership” qualities, he’s clearly greatly outperformed expectations and thus is completely, overwhelming, unquestionably, factually, totally in the lead. If enough voters were watching, he’ll clearly be our alpha male again for the next four years.

Kerry made a strong start by ripping off his shirt, pounding on his chest and emiting a roar sound. Bush followed suit in his rebuttal, but it was weak immitation of the Kerry opening gambit. Bush’s first offensive attack seemed like a sure thing, when he lept upon Thersea Heinz Kerry, but the way he lept back in pain from her devistating bite really knocked him down a few pegs in stature. Speaking of which, Kerry is quite a bit taller than Bush and was wearing a more powerful tie, at least as long as they were wearing ties. Bush seemed more muscular overall, but his shortness combined with his defeat in hand-to-mouth combat with the candidate for first lady both made him appaear weak. He tried to regain lost ground by jumping on on his podium and howlind at the top of his lungs, however once Kerry climbed on to his own podium, he was, once again, taller. Also, it was brilliant rebuttal on Kerry’s part to then rush over and topple Bush’s podium.

Bush then tried to retake the offensive by attacking Jim Lehrer, the lowest ranking male on the stage. However, I think most viewers quickly realized that this attack, while it will require Lehrer to get seven stiches, was Bush essentially ceeding the role of alpha male to Kerry.
Thus, after the first debate, Kerry has proven that he has strong alpha capabilities and would make a good potential mate and will act to protect the tribe from attack from hostile bands of other primates.

so, um, somebody um noticed the bandwidth of concert streaming and so it got cut off. but you’re internet radiostation could stream our next concert / social event! woot.

folks drank most of my bottle of compari. i didn’t even know other people liked compari. my class mates are clearly quite distinguished and trefinied individuals. next time, i need some cynar.

please check rtsp://129.133.2.23/gradconcert.sdp quicktime stream

I just got back from It’s Only Natural restaurant (“ION” for those in-the-know), where I played an 11 minute exerpt from my Ann Coulter reshuffled piece. I was on last. Yeah.

About a third of third of the people there just got up and left. Many just sort of looked disturbed. One guy afterwards, trying to give feedback, was explaining to me that regular people sort of expected music to have a conflict and a climax and a beginning and an end and some sort of structure connecting those things together. He also told me an anecdote about how he was learning tape music stuff, somebody from U Conn (University of Connecticut, not an Alaska institution) gave his class feedback about what would work and what didn’t and how they were trying to build sounds into something and this guy talking to me was doing something with sped up voices and the teacher said, “get rid of those Mickey Mouse voices.”
so everybody there clearly hated it. Except for Deborah, the MC, who is also a grad student at Wesleyan. Deborah is dedicated to the hammer dulcimer. She loved Old Time Music, because it features dulcimer. And she loves Turkish music, because it features dulcimer. And most of the music I’ve heard her praise is part of the dulcimer world.
Deborah loved my piece.
I dunno whether to feel The Hub-style elitist glory or to abandon my Ann Coulter efforts. I do know that it was an extremely long eleven minutes.
Did I mention that I get terrible stage fright?

Alan Keyes, GOP candidate for senate in Illinois, had to leave the RNC in disgrace after he said that all queers, including Mary Cheney (Dick Cheney’s daughter), were selfish hedonists and bad people, etc etc. Gays bad. Hets good. Well, today, it was revealed that Maya Keyes keeps a blog and she’s an out lesbian.

Yeah, I went and read her blog. Then shen put up a security thing, making it a private blog. She’s not on LJ. the security she uses appears to be defeatable. So I was all set to put up an image of it someplace, so as to to peer at it. She’s quite a good writer. There are still snippets of it up on other websites, relevant bits, where she refutes her dad’s politics, etc.
But then, I thought about bloggers with too much time on their hands picking apart blogs of opponents . . .. Maya Cheney is not an opponent. She’s a person who has a homophobic relative who condemns her, and that relative happens to be running for senate. I don’t want my blog picked apart.
Today’s golden rule lesson brought to you by a profound desire to procrastinate

I’m supposed to be preparing for the SuperCollider introduction thing tommorrow, so what better time than the present . . . to sweep the living room? Now, it needs sweeping, no question. There’s going to be a concert here Wednesday Night (you should come, if you’re in the area). If it were Wednesday afternoon however, I would feel suddenly inspired to work on my SuperCollider notes. Because the most interesting thing to to do is the one with the most distant deadline. Althought, if it had no deadline at all, it would not become interesting unless I had a paper due and a house concert and had to prepare notes.

I want a maid. Is it classist fo me to say that? The school-run houses get maids. However, one is not in my finances or in my future. But what is more music grad school than sweeping the living room while listening to Schostakowitsch’s opera, Lady Macbeth von Mzensk at top volume? I hope I am annoying my upstairs neighbors because their shower leaks into mine and they start showering at the same time I want to shower, but I’d rather not have their effluent drip on me. I know it’s not their fault, but I feel resentment regardless. And they were pling sing-a-long music or something yesterday while vacuuming, so . . . um, I don’t know what my point is. My bathroom will be repeaired and/or torn to shreds Wednesday morning.
I’m getting a lot of work done. Too much. I need to make sure to leave the house every day.
Um, I have nothing else interesting to say. But lots more interesting to do. Like, get caught up on email! And mop! And figure out if my Wednesday piece will play on my computer!

Just went to see the movie Goodbye Lenin which is about a guy whose mother is dying and who goes to elaborate lengths to hide from her the fal of the Berlin Wall, as it would upset her. The mom dies at the end and the movie turns into sort of a homage/memorial. I wish I had not gone to see it. Um, other than that, it’s funny.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sit through much of the movie at all. Now, I got all the way to the end before I started crying, you know, which is kind of embarassing, as the lights come up and I’m crying at the end of a comedy.
There are things you do when your mother is dying. The last birthday party. The attempt to hide some sort of truth about the situation and how the world is changing. Trying to somehow make things stay the way they were. The uncertainty of how long it will go on. The denial.
Everything in my life changed when my mom was sick. So many things ended. Everything is different now. In the movie, everything about East Germany changes. But everything that momentous happened on a personal level to me.
When my grandma died, my mom was deeply upset for five years or so, if I recall. I remember explaining to my dad that I was worried about my mom because she had been mourning for over a year. Heavy mourning. She wasn’t able to deal with stuff. And here I am, almost two years later, crying in a movie theatre. Crying while recording Chpoin’s Funeral March. Still mourning my mom, my grandma, my cousin, my past relationship. So many endings. I used to worry last year that we would have to listen to a recording of Hank Williams in my Proseminar class and it would make me cry. I played it for my mother when she was dying because she recognized it and liked it. By the time Hank got played in class, I was more ok. I’m awlways getting more ok, but not all the way. How can you ever fully recover from life? You can’t. Your wounds scab over and turn into scars and still hurt when something pokes them, maybe less and less over time. Maybe I’ll slowly forget. I don’t want to forget tho. I want to hold every moment in my brain as sharp as it is now. As sharp as it used to be. As burned in as it felt when it happened. Because I don’t want to forget her. because my memories are who I am. Because my catholic culture puts a premium on suffering and so it seems good to have suffered.
three weeks of classes over. this semester is just flying by. And I have no idea where I’m going to land.

I burned through insane amounts of material. I started with “hello world” and ended with “and this is how you declare default values for arguments to functions.” whoah, yeah. I wonder if I’ll see any of those kids again.

I think next week, I’ll talk about some other stuff, like say what “integer” means or order of operations in math expressions.
Standing in front of 20 people, writing on the blackboard, trying to explain what a SynthDef is (an definition of a synthesizer architecture that runs on the audio server. ok, let me define all those terms.), god it’s exhausting. i feel so burned still and it was hours ago and i ate half a pumpkin pie and drank a cup of tea. I think I need some compari or to go to sleep.
I’ll post my notes later. All 7+ pages of them. Aaron said, “you’ve got the first chapter of a book there.” Look out for SuperCollider for non-programmers coming out sometime later in my life. In the mean time, I’ll be taking non-programmers and throwing them into the deep end of the pool , , , that’s shark infested.