Les said, the better II

Letters from mom

Posting emails my mom sent me.

Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 19:12:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: friendly hello
Dear Celeste and Christi,
How are you? Hope everyone is OK.
Did I tell you that Dad is in Tempe now? He got her into a place in
Sunnyvale. They are coming here on Monday so she can check the place
out.It is not at all like the one where Grandpa was. She can come and
go from this one, as long as they know when she’s leaving and
returning. Everyone seemed to be friendly and nice;they were all
nicely dressed, and most are ambulatory. I saw a couple of walkers and
one wheelchair. The only problem I could see is that there are so many
ancient ladies. They make the Ladies of Carmel look like spring
chickens. But, the place is NOT dead! There was an elderly couple
embracing in the hall. It seems they met there! Everyone calls them
The Lovebirds.
Why do museums use volunteers as docents? Because they are cheaper by
the docent.
Keep in touch. Love, Mom

My grandma lived in Tempe, Arizona, but got sick, so my dad went out to get her and found her a place to stay in Sunnyvale, CA that was assisted living…. and my mom was a docent at the San Jose Historical Museum

Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 06:17:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Eileen Hutchins
Subject: have a good trip
dear Celeste and Christi,
I hope you have a wonderful trip to Portland. Please call me (collect)
when you arrive. I think it will do you both a lot of good to get away
for a few days into a completely different environment. Work
situations can really get to be the pits. Celeste, I’m praying for you
to get into a job that is something you can enjoy and take a pride in,
not stressful. Work related stress is a primary source of emotional
and physical health problems. Anyway, drive carefully and be careful!
All I hear about on the news now is those three women who disappeared
on the road between Yosemite and Stockton.
Three of them! So much for safety in numbers.Don’t get friendly with
anyone on the road, even if ther’re nuns! Anyone can rent a nun’s
outfit (habits, I believe they’re called) The old advice about not
speaking to strangers is taking on new meanin , especially where women
are concerned.
Are you bringing your bowl-shaped sled in case there’s snow? Please be
sure to say a big hello to Christi’s parents.Have a great time! Love,
Mom.

My mom was funny… I miss her

Explination of how pitches are picked for avant-happy song

Why? Because it’s homework

There exists an overtone array: [ 2, 5, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23]

notes can be constructed from this array as overtones:

2/2 5/4 3/2 7/4 9/8 11/8 13/8 15/8 17/16 19/16/ 21/16 23/16

or the inversions:

2/2 8/5 4/3 16/9 16/11 16/13 16/15 32/17 32/19 32/21 32/23

the three notes played are always adjacent to each other, for example:

17/16, 19/16, 21/16

Melodies are formed by taking a triad, picking one of the ratios to be a pivot, inverting it and then picking adjacent ratios. For example, if
we pick 19/16 as the pivot from the above triad, we would invert it to get 32/19. We then pick adjacent ratios. We can take the two ratios above the pivot, the two below the pivot or one on either side. 23 wraps around back to 2 in case we go off the edge of the array. So we could pick

32/19 32/21 32/23

as out next set of triads. then we would pick a pivot from that array, invert and pick adjacent ratios.

Each set of rhythmic patterns for the marimba sound goes through this process and saves the result in an array, so the marimba plays the same triads every time it plays a particular pattern.

The pivot ratio is played a bit louder than the other two. It is also sent to a sustained baseline tone. The adjacent frequencies played by the marimba and are put into another array for the counter-melody.

The counter-melody gets it’s pitches from the array created by the marimba routine. It treats this as a FILO queue. It does not play when the marimba is playing or if it’s current rhythmic pattern calls for a rest. The length of the note played is the length last used by the marimba.

Some patterns, especially in the first and third section, add more notes to the FILO queue than they leave space for the counter-melody to play them. the patterns in the middle section have a lot of space (and long durations) and the FILO queue may empty by the end of the section.

Signs of spring

So first things first, we’ve got the current status of my todo list. I’m filing an extension on taxes. My floors are clean. My two short papers are done. woot. still left:

• Write up description of tuning + algorythm for avant happy music (due thursday)
• Write more lab tutorials (asap)
• Ask advisor for resume advice, figure out where to send resume, send it off (asap).
• do paperwork for out of department course (should have done this weeks ago)
• installation idea for first weekend of may symposium (due?)

I went to class this morning and it was lead by Jess because the teacher is still sick and might be out for most of the rest of the semester. We listened to music and discussed it. Some of us brought in stuff to play. One of the two undergrads brought in a CD by a Canadian pop artist called Peaches. It is so low-fi. Her drum beats were cheesy, as were her baselines. Her lyrics were tawdry, but it was still somehow compelling. I was ready to dismiss it when she started singing over and over again “fuck the pain away.” Oh my god. right fucking on. Seriously powerful statement, something worth pondering. Deeply angsty. It resonated a deep and powerful chord within me. So I give a thumbs up to Peaches. And I am ready to officially proclaim that angsty music is better than non angsty music almost all of the time. something trvial can be made awesome through use of angst.
Went out later today to do Deep Listening meditation. http://www.deeplistening.org/ I had a hard time getting into it because somebody was playing some bass-heavy music that my heartbeat kept matching, so I kept focussing on it instead of the whole sonic world. But then we went outside in the cold but pretty weather to do something called the Slow Walk. you walk as slowly as possible with your eyes closed while trying to listen with your feet, sicne they’re sensitive to vibration. The turf was uneven and rough. My feet felt like they were gripping the ground, even through my shoes. They listened their way along the uneven path. I felt grounded for the first time in forever. when we stopped slow walking, I tried my pagan trick of visualizing tree roots growing out of my feet and a beam of light out the top of my head (connecting to the universe or something). I’ve been trying this periodically since December. I would end up imagining all the space between myself and the ground, if I was indoors. there were many meters to traverse. And outdoors, well, the ground is really hard. There’s prolly cement buried right below the surface. but today, I tried for a moment, and it was right there. I felt like throwing my arms up over my head in joy. Seriously.
Then Angela and I went to Dunkin Donuts. Ironically, this is something to write home about. I said earlier that I’d never been to one, but that was wrong. I went once when I was 16 to buy coffee for folks doing clinic defense at the Sunnyvale Planned Parenthood. they do exist on the left coast, but only in suburban areas.
And finally, there was a seder at my house this evening, lead by Aaron. Much food was made and consumed. Many folks came over. Every dish in the house was eomplyed. Mchu wine was consumed. All good.

Pictures

That’s my house in Connecticut. the thing sitting in front of it is an oven. You may wonder where there is an oven sitting in front of my house. I did too. My upstairs neighbor said he thought the landlord left it there. There’s always trash in people’s yards left out like that. I asked a local woman why folks did that and she said, “because they’re renters.” but now I know it’s the owning class using our yards as temporary dumps. Eventually, it will be big trast pickup day and then and only then will the oven go away. Seriously. Anyway, I live on the first floor of that house.
That’s Tom in a customary pose. For some reason, he shaved his head. His thesis is coming very very soon. Maybe he wanted to save the time he used to spend washing and combin his hair?
And lastly, you can acually buy this stuff here. I saw it while going out to get Manischewitz.

Confess

Celeste Hutchins
Mystic Voices
Foucault, Sexuality and Solitude
Foucault makes the point the identity is formed through repression. The self-examination of thoughts required for Christians to confess their sexual sins, including impure thoughts, lead people to develop strong senses of self and sexuality. During her trial, Joan of Arc frequently asked that the bishop hear her confession. However, peasants during her time did not confess frequently. It would have been normal for her to take communion only once or twice a year, thus necessitating few confessions.
Although the correct thing for her to do when she first had visions would be to seek the advice of her confessor, she did not. She heard mass with unusual frequency for a person of her class and took communion frequently enough that it was discussed at her trial. It’s difficult to guess how often she went to confession before she decided to “go into France.” We know she learned religion solely from her mother, so it may be unlikely that she confessed often.
Nevertheless, Joan of Arc seems to have a complicated gender identity, where she takes on male traits, while retaining female traits. Gender and sexuality are clearly linked. While we can see the technologies of the self that she uses to assume her chosen role, but how she got there remains mysterious. Perhaps her dialog with her visions was a recreation of her dialog with her confessor. When asked about jumping from the tower while in prison, she reports that she was doing penance for the sin of jumping, a penance assigned by her voices. Therefore, she does seem to have a confessional dialog with them, which may have facilitated her forming of gender identity.

Binary Oppositions

Celeste Hutchins
Mystic Voices
Cixous, Sorties
Cixous starts with binary oppositions, such as “Sun/Moon” to “Father/Mother.” She makes the point that binary oppositions are heirarchical and patriarchial. One side of an opposition is always ranked better than the other and that side is identified as male. The most tangible duality that humans see everyday is male/female, but for some this is not a binary opposition. Transgendered people may switch sides or may reject the idea of an opposition altogether. Their actions are met with hostility and sometimes violence. Transgendered people now are more likely to be victims of a hate crime than any other group.
When Joan of Arc was young, she started to have visions, which told her to dress as a man and take up arms. Freud wrote that, “One may observe that it is just those girls who in the years before puberty showed a boyish character and inclinations who tend to become hysterical at puberty.” In class, Professor Zieman remarked that at puberty, Joan of Arc became a boy. In this reading, Joan crossed sides of the binary opposition from female to male, and from weakness to strength.
I would like to argue that she did not cross the opposition, but rather straddled it. While she did start to dress as a man and take on a male role, she made no effort to hide her identity as a woman. She did not change her name. In fact, she chose a title for herself that was explictly female and feminine. “Pucelle” is a word like “maiden.” Furthermore, during her trial, she bragged that she excelled at all the womanly arts. One of the charges brought against her had to do with her telling a comrade that she would have three sons, one of whom would go on to become Pope. She did not transition fully to male, but held on to, and was proud of, her female-gendered activities and traits.

Just downloaded GIMP

Can’t decide whether or not I like it. And, for the benefit of wesleyan students and Amy, who ended up with a copy of Digital Performer by accident: A DP Tutorial. All images manipulated with GIMP.

East coast style, west coast girl

Look at this picture of a puddle. what do you notice? Nasty cigarette butts. Good start. Lots and lots of folks smoke here. what else? It’s frozen! That’s ice on top of it! I took this picture on my way home right now to illustrate that it’s still damn cold here. And the wind is blowing like crazy. brrrrr. this post is image heavy for the benefit of any left coast folks who wonder what my world looks like.
So Ron (see photo) noticed that I haven’t done any TA work since the start of the semester. This is because he didn’t tell me to do anything and I didn’t think to ask for a long time cuz I was distracted and then when I did think to ask, I was scared of what might happen. I must now photo document the procedures for using the electronic music studio (see photo) and how to use Digital Performer and write a suite of small SuperCollider applications useful for testing the setup. And I need to be able to explain to the class the algorythms for my tuning pieces with handouts on thursday. A bit of work. At least, on my pre-existing to-do list, I called the tax guy and arranged to file for an extension.
this next picture is the CFA = the Center for Fine Arts, where I spend all my time. this view is from the south and is most of the music buildings. The whole thing is in this cement block style architecture. some folks love it. some folks hate it. I kind of think it’s nifty, but the insides of classroom are a little weird, especially acoustics wise.
Lastly, here we have Charlie and Angela. Charlie is a composition MA and a mighty fine viola player. Angela is an ethnomusicologist MA and a mighty fine clarinet player. They’re good folks.

7 concerts in 6 days

was my week last week. tonight, there’s traditional Irish music, but i’m going to skip, since it’s not really my thing and while I saw a lot of great music, I got little work done. Yesterday, from whence the picture comes, was Anne Wellmer’s going away concert. She goes back to Europe today. It was 44 minutes of music, starting at 4:00 on 04/04/04. Lots of fourishness. Nice concert. I showed up late, so I don’t know why the fava beans are on the piano, but I did see some of them get blown off with a battery fan.

I don’t really have anything to say, I just wanted to document the kind of abuse that the piano in the student center is forced to endure. Last Tuesday, it had an encounter with wasabi peas instead of fava beans. And blocks stacked in it.
There was a little party after the concert to say goodbye to Anne W. and to wish Anne Rhodes a happy birthday. The concert goers were made up of the usual suspects. some of the people that come to every concert are not in the music department. We get undergrads from all disciplies and some science grad students. As things were winding down, some of these folks sat at the piano and in the style of Rythm and Blues, started a group piano piece. But these are fans of experimental music, so they were playing something 12 tone. Someone remarked, “I can’t tell if that’s a real piece or not.”

To do

• Call tax guy
• Clean floors beofre seder tommorrow
• Two one page papers
• Do reading for class. all of it. really.
• arg, everything that was on the todo list before is still on it!
• having a great time, wish you were here!

My Fabulous weekend

Ok, so around 11:00 Friday, Jess and I hitched a ride to New Haven and took the train into New York. We got off in Harlem and rode the bus to the Coloumbia University area, where Jess’ friend Yvette lives in student housing. She gave me lodging. We dropped our bags there and then all went for lunch. J & Y decided it would be faster to get a cab and would cost the same as the subway. Jess hailed a cab by standing in front of it as the light changed from red to green. One thing I thought I learned in Europe was to never step in front of a taxi, but she told me how to tell if the taxis have people in them. If the number is not lit up, then it’s full (and if you love life, don’t step in front of it), otherwise, you can hold them up at will. So we hopped in the cab and the driver drove like a maniac. I remained calm. If I were in another car, though, I would fear the irratic actions of the taxis. I think they create market for themselves by scaring other people off the streets. When you’re in NYC, it’s not uncommon to a street full of taxis, maybe one delivery vehicle and no private cars. But why would you need a private car when the subway is so good? Anyway, we were in a taxi headed for lunch when my life did not flash before my eyes. We got out and went to pseudo Japanese fusion food. It was pretty good, but east coast food is pricey. It was next to a chain store selling popcorn. the idea of starting a popcorn chain store is so ludicrous that it makes me think of capitalism as performance art. suddenly, there was a beautiful moment amidst all the turmoil and people could buy overprices bags of popcorn.

After we had food, we went to a coffee house, named the Mozart Cafe, which was covered with Mozart kitsch and only played his stuff and was full of conservatory wanna-bes. It’s odd to think an establishment could survive catering soley to dead music snobs, but there you go. I mean, KDFC (Your radio concert hall in the sf bya area) lives, but it has a wide broadcast range and this is just a cafe. We spent too long in both eating places and didn’t get to the Kitchen, but the galleries are free and will have their current exhibits up until school gets out, so I can go at a later date.
Jess and I went to times Square to see, or hear rather, an installation by Max Neuhaus. (I don’t know if I’m spelling his name right). So we walked up towards the bright lights. It’s better than Vegas, I think, although the one time I was in Vegas, I barely cruised the strip. what’s nice about Times Square is that you can cruise it on foot, whereas Vegas requires a car.
However, like Vegas, times Square is owned by the Disney-idied corps of the world. Disney store. MTV store. Planet Hollywood. chain thing. Chain thing. Chain thing. I got there a few years too late to see any real debauchery. We walked around a bit looking for, or rather listening for, the installation. Jess didn’t remember exactly where it was, just that it was unlabeled and under a grating by 42nd Street. We walked around and found the grating where all the tourists get their picture taken. Jess took my picture. My camera’s flash is such that it causes blinking more than half the time. We were walking around that pedestrian island, bent over double, trying to hear anything that sounded installation-y coming up from the grating. Such is New York that nobody even noticed us peering intently into the grate or wondered about us in the slightest. I heard later that it’s nice to go the installation in the summer, because you can lie right down on the grating and hear it. Again, presumably, with no notice from anyone. We wandered around the wrong grating for a while and then left and bought popcorn from a chain store and then came back and still coudl not hear anything, when Jess had a flash of insight and we crossed the street to the smaller pedestrian island and we stepped on to the grate and suddenly, like crossing into another world, we heard the installation. It’s based on the overtones series of bells. It was put in in the 70’s, so it’s not digital, whatever it is. and it sounded like a bell, so it’s not analog oscilators, since they would be way out of tune by now. It had a pipe-y sort of sound to it. Like white noise sent through several long pipes. The frequencies beat against each other like bells do. I could hear different beating patterns by moving around. things fell in and out of phase with each other. It was always the same and always changing. It’s a wonderful thing to have there in the midst of everything of Times Square. All the people and the traffic and the Andean Flute Band were all still making noise, but a wonderful new sound was added to it and somehow didn’t compete with the other sounds at all. Jess said, “Watch these other tourists. They’ll walk over it and not notice.” so we people-watched for a long time and nobody noticed. I wonder if I would have noticed if I hadn’t known about it. I know that I’ve been walking along sometimes and hear a resosnance and stop to listen to things, but Times Square is so full of sounds… The installation sounds intentional to me. The tuning is too interesting to be machinery noise, but apparently, that’s what people think they’re hearing. after a while, we went on. We stepped off the grating and into the street and the sound that had surrounded us faded to nothing within steps.
We hopped on the subway for a bit and then walked through Alphabet City, which is a neighborhood with some amusing grafitti, towards a club called Tonic. a band calleed the Jazz Travellers was playing. It was the Village Voice pick. We bought tickets to the 10:00 show and then went in search of food. All the restaurants were prohibitevely priced bobo (recall that bobo is slang for bourgeois bohemian) or sketchy pre-gentrified restaurants which Jess reistsed and which didn’t have much in the way of vegetarian fare anyway. We walked for a while, searching for food when we came upon a burrito shop offering a vegan burrito, so we went in. I noticed a tie dyed piece of fabric on the wall which had a picture of a street sign on Haight on it. Hrm. the menu said it was San Francisco Mission District-style mexican food. Be it ever so hunble, there’s no place like home. I couldn’t stop laughing that I went to a big city far away from home and ended up at a place imitating the big city at home. I think California oozes out of my pores. In true Mission district style, the burritos were good and cheap.
We went back to Tonic and heard the fantastic band. they played stuff that was either standards or standards-y, but then in the solo sections, they got pretty free-jazzy. the music was really good and really fun. And then, after a few songs, the band leader asked for a singer to come up from the audience. a woman pushed past me, saying “excuse me.” and got up on stage. It was Debbie Harry from Blondie. she sang for the rest of the set. Yes, she’s still hot. She was wearing an untecked tuxedo shirt, black thigh-length pants and leppoard-print boots. she is a fantastic singer and sung a bunch of jazz tunes with the band. The band had a xylephone player, a drummer, a standup bassist, a sax player, a trobonists and a violinist. At one point, the sax player was playing a tenor and soprano sax at the same time. He had both of them in this mouth and was playing the keys of one with one hand and the keys of the other with the other hand. And it sounded good. Good tone. Totally amazing. They played a bunch of jazz tunes and then did an encore of a Blondie tune and all marched out and then back in like they were the Archestra or something. It was awesome.
Then we went to one of NYC’s two lesbian bars, the Meow Mix. It was relatively empty. I had a beer and Jess had some girly mixed drink. She was tired, so we didn’t stay very long. It’s a tiny tiny club, with a stage. A band was packing up to leave. I imagine it emptied when the band finished, but I don’t know. We caught a cab back to Yvette’s place. Tried to sleep in strange bed. Woke up very early and then had sleeping-in like disturbing dreams. Got out of bed when Jess was hitting the buzzer to get back into the building in the morning. Our plan was to have brunch and then head back to New Haven, where we could get a ride no later than 3:00. Best laid plans of mice and men…. J & Y & I walked towards the brunch place, dawdled at burnch, and walked back. New York looks very European in parts, but it is self-consciously so. We went to Coloumbia to get computer access to check train schedules. The train we needed was leaving in 15 minutes, so we took a much later train and took the bus back to Middletown. Since there was nothing to be done, we went to visit John McGuire, the Coloumbia professor who addressed Alvin’s class last week. Jess knows him from her Ivy League days. He’s a really cool guy. We talked in his office for a while, where he was working on Saturday and then walked to a tremedously pretentious coffee shop., where we met a real artist, whose name I don’t remember. He’s a woodchooper, a manly man, like Hemmingway, he explained. I went to the bathroom and people had scrawled poltically appropriate Shakespeare quotes. Jess was trying to explain how the coffee shop was emblematic of the neighborhood. I said “yeah. We’ve got nothing like this in Berkeley.” The coffee, though, was dismally bad. the place was packed. It would never have survived in Berkeley. after more dawdling, which was delightful, despite the coffee, we walked around to a Radio Shack, where I bought a bigger memory stick for my camera and then went to the cathedral of St John the Divine, which is the largest cathedral in the Americas. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t catholic. It was Episcopal. they’re a lot like catholics, but without the desire to return to the 14th century. But no prayers to Mary. I would miss rosaries and Haily Marys if I were going to catholic-like church. The church wants to look centuries old, but it’s not even finished yet. Part of it burned down a year or two ago. More attempt to self-consciously ape Europe. Catherdrals, in my opnion, should be timesless but also timely. Like the Gaudi Cathedral in Spain. It’s not trying to look like it was build in 1509. Nevertheless, St. John was very nice. I love the resonances of huge cathedrals, and this had it in abundance. Also, a lovely looking pipe organ. I want to hear it played. It’s huge. Pipes around the choir area but also trumpet-like pipes in the very back of the church. Pipe organs were invented by Ancient Romans, by the way. It’s surprising how old some ideas are.
Jess and I then headed to Grand Central station. It’s large and impressive. We got on our train to New Haven, and sat next to a nifty geek named Jen, who goes to 2600 parties in the city. I showed her supercollider stuff. I want to check out these parties. I miss being surrounded by geeks. They’re my people. Jen was talking about an Electric Kool Aid Acid Test-like novel for our generation and how it might be tied to blogging. She’s on to something. For long time, I’ve been day dreaming about writing a novel made up on instant messenger conversations. This is actually part of the reason that spies on my Moos keep logs: so I can analyze the conversation to see how to mimic them, either for AI applications or for art. Maybe we’re all writing the great American work of our generation right now as a blogging work in progress.
Jess finally gave me the CD with me singing on it. It was just the “is this thing on” part of recording something else. but Jess spent all day friday singing my own songs back to me. Apparently, she’s been playing it to other folks. I think this is silly.
Got back to Middletown at 8:20. Ran to tim’s senior thesis concert and caught the last 20 minutes of it. Nice, droney, angsty music. angsty music touches a deep and resonant chord within me. But the fun jazz band did too, so maybe just good music touches a deep and resonant chord. Most happy music is banal and stupid, alas, so that might create an illusion of favoring angsty music. anyway, Tim’s thesis touched a deep and resonan tchord within me. It was nice. Went to the after party at tim’s house and drank Pabst blue ribbons. I am no longer a beer snob. Got kind of buzzed and then went to see an undergrad blues band play at a bar in town. I was surrounded by very drunk undergrads, a huge number of which were music students. fortunatately, despite drinking 2.5 beers, I sobered up enough by the time the bar closed to stay out of trouble. Undergrads: oh so cute and oh so young.
The grad stipend just got increased by 4% (woot), but music grads are paid half what science grads are. And the music stipend is below the federal poverty line. Some music students are having a lot of trouble because of this. So there has been much traffic on the grad email list about this. Talk of unionization has come up. but some math student was complaining, saying that he might get more money, but he had to lie and say he was a music student to impress women. Grad students complainign about lack of money and lack of sex. How classic is that? If you try going to a woman from connecticut and explain that you study experimental music, she goes looking for a math student. But with undergrads, he is so right. I tell undergrad chicks that I’m a music grad student and they look really impressed. they flirt with me, but then they run away. Which is good. I gave up drama for Lent. I’m thinking of giving it up forever.

I’m back.