Les said, the better II

what would you do? I have no fucking clue. The recorder player seems to want me to have a sampler, which I don’t. I have supercollider and trying to generate a sample loop is causing me mad timing problems and also, wtf is with this “live” stuff? who does things live? ok, aside from everybody else on earth. jesus god, i have like 5 days (practically) in which to pull something together and almost nothing in the way of a clue.

Last night, I dreamt that I had to pass an exam in order to get some sort of certificate from my school (have I mentioned that I got confused and missed the last class?). The exam booklet was like 100 pages long and nobody told me I only needed to do the first few pages, so I skipped over them to do the easier problems first. Also, doing the test required me to wear these headphones in a weird stretchy helmet which was squeezing my head with great force. Anyway, I got no credit whatsoever and they told me to leave. Also, the school doubled as a bike shop and Stephan, our tech guy was also a bike mechanic.
Hey, I have an idea. I could break up a recorded stream into long grains and scramble them! oh, no, wait, that sounds like shit with a recorder. no, i could learn an entirely new thing like bbcut of fft in record time only to have it (A) exhibit unexpected behavior which sounds like shit. (B) no, wait, A sums it up.
Fast solutions = fast hacking, right. I’ll have something in the next 2. 5 hours, i’m sure. @#@#%%@#Eg3tt675rfvhjksvDhjkvsdfhjkgsdfhjkfsd
Tag: Celesteh

I’m trying to learn bbcut extremely quickly, so I can use it in a fast-approaching show. However, the learning curve is unfriendly and help files are probably much more useful to people who already understand the idea. Has anybody out there got a tutorial or cookbook? Also, can anybody tell me why all the name buffer classes don’t have a common ancestor or something to make them interchangeable? I mean for god’s sake, how many classes does one need? Why does SF3 not understand a bufnum message? I know people like their files, but I like delay lines and live audio and I ought to be able to do the same things with it than I can do with recorded audio. I have my own Buffer classes, but I’d like to be able to do bbcut-ish things and anyway, my classes all broke when I got a more recent build. I know I shouldn’t have upgraded right before a gig. arg.

Update

Yesterday’s SC build from Wesleyan was messed up, but today’s is ok. If you want to use BBCut, don’t just grab the most recent build, as it’s a universal binary (huzzah!!) but does not include extra libraries like BBCut. You can put them in yourself, of course, but if you’re lazy and not on an intel platform, grab the 10.3 version.
The mystical helpfile that explains all is called BBCut2Wiki. Huzzah for explaining all. But now it’s 5:30 and I have ten million things to do and no working code yet. I’m not sure doing glitch processing on a recorder (non-transverse flute) is really a good idea anyway. It’s just not glitchy. Although the performer likes loop processing, so maybe there’s hope. I just need to travel back in time a month (or two) and everything will work out great.
Tags: SuperCollider, bbcut, Celesteh

I can tell that my effort to generate publicity about my upcoming concert (June 9, 8:30 pm Paris click link for details) is working because I have been getting a lot of attention lately on my podcast, via comments left by spam bots. Yes, the online poker world is abuzz, as are mortgage brokers and those who claim to have cures for male impotence. My concert will be as exciting as texas hold ’em, as . . . (I’m going to stop this train of thought pre-emptively). How much buzz you ask? Over 120 comments since this morning! I’ve never before been so popular with software agents.

However, I’m annoyed that the software agents are so self-centered. It’s as if they never even listened to the mp3s. Plus, I have it on good authority that none of them are planning to, nor are they planning to coming to my concert, so I’m testing the spam blocker Bad Behavior. If it works, I won’t need to know where to get cheep (headache) painkillers without a prescription.
P.S. If you understand the significance of the post title, you’re a big geek. The first person who can identify it will get comped in to my next show in their region. EDIT: Aside from it’s presence on the Bad Behavior page. Why do they reference it and where does it come from?
Tags: Spam, Celesteh

Link to me, add me as a friend, mock me in chat rooms: http://www.myspace.com/celestehutchins

Incidentally, while trying to sign up to post content on mp3.com (woo, they’re back), I found out that I’m in the All Music Guide. At least, I think that’s me.

Tags: myspace, AMG, Celesteh

In the grand spirit of internationalism that so pervades American society, mother’s day is celebrated on a different Sunday in May than every other country on earth. Which means I have yet another set of Mother’s day crap to endure, although since I mostly still consume American media, there will be less of it.

I feel a little nostalgic and not violent this year. Well, a little violent. Anyway, if you have a mom, go make nice with her even if you have some long-standing disagreement, cuz she could fall sick and die faster than you can say “hey, what just happened?” and you might never have a mothers day again. Well aside from the one a week or two from now in every other country in the world.
Tags: Mothers Day, Celesteh

This post is designed to enlighten those who would like to come visit me. One such person will be coming soon. I always love it when people visit because it’s fun to show people around and I actually get to those museum exhibits on my list. Plus, they tend to buy me food sometimes. Staying at my place and buying me a nice dinner is cheaper than a hotel!

If you come by plane to one of the major airports, you’re going to want to hop on the RER train and take it to the Gare du Nord. You will buy a ticket at the airport RER station. That same ticket will take you (almost) to my door. You do not need to buy a new ticket to transfer to the metro, but you must keep your RER ticket with you and be prepared to run it though the ticket machines a second time.
If you take the Chunnel, it will drop you right at the Gare du Nord. Therefore, these instructions start at the Gare du Nord.
Go to the metro. Buy something called a
carnet. (Tell the station agent “zh-uh voo-dray uh kar-nay, see voo play” and hand over 10.70€.) It’s 10 tickets all together for about 4€ cheaper than buying
them separately. Then, using one of those new tickets (unless you already have an RER ticket), get on the 5
line towards Place d’Italie. Get off at Jacques Bonsergent. When you
come out of the metro, you will be either in a little square with a
press or across the street from it. That street is called Magenta.
Go to the Presse and buy a map of paris. He sells a nice one with a
light blue cover and a pull-out map. It’s got many colors of
printing. It’s a good map.
Anyway, then turn around so you have your back to the presse. Look
down Magenta. On the left hand side of it, there is a street. Walk
up to that street. It is Pierre Chausson. I’m on the right hand of
the street. You will see just a large door and a keycode thingee. My
door code is [ask for it via email]. Go through that big door. I am the stairway on
the left. There is a list of names next to the door. My buzzer is
labelled Hutchins/Wilkins or vice versa. I am on the second floor (if
you start counting at zero). My door is on the right.
I’ve got the place until August 1st. So you could some stroll by the lovely canal, eat some crepes and some chevre, drink some wine, look at a museum or listen to a concert or just bike around.

I’m back in Paris after going to the Joan of Arc Festival in Orléans. There was a medieval faire and lots of spiced meade and wandering bagpipers and silly costumes and cannon demonstrations and battle re-enactments and religious processions and horses and drums and armor and more Scots than one might expect. It turns out that something like a third of the soldiers defending Orléans during the siege were Scottish. They were making a huge deal about the Scot thing.

Unfortunately, Le Pen and other right wing types have though Joan of Arc would make a good symbol for them. She drove France’s enemies out of France. Similarly, they argue, we should get rid of all the immigrants. However, Joan showed up with a bunch of Scots. She fought with them. Some of them died beside her. It’s extremely likely that some of these Scots really liked France. Maybe they liked the wine. Maybe they liked the cheese. Maybe they met a local girl (or boy). Maybe they were injured and had a long convalescence and stayed after their comrades had gone on and became part of the local community and thus never went back to Scotland. My point being, Joan wasn’t opposed to people coming to France. She was opposed to an armed foreign invasion. It’s more than a little bit of a stretch to say that economic migrants are more like the English invaders than they are like the Scots who came to help out and may have stayed because of opportunities.
Parisians I talked to seemed concerned that the festival would have a strong reactionary contingent. There were a few people there who I suspect may have been such. But most seemed not to be. This morning, the mayor of Orléans made a long speech about Joan of Arc and her message today. Clearly, a modern Joan would be against the Precarity (read: CPE) and in favor of equitable development and protecting the environment. He said it a lot better than I just summarized, but the point is that there was an effort being made to claim Joan on the left and to remind people of her international friends and comrades at arms. Huzzah.
Anyway, I spent the whole weekend eating. Bread made of nothing but honey, flour and spices. Medieval “faggot” bread (cooked over wood!). Sheep’s cheese. Fermented honey beverage. French food galore. I must now go offline and eat more faggot bread and sheep’s cheese.
Tags: Orléans , Joan of Arc

I have a concert June 9 in Paris near Belleville. Woot, I will actually play within the city. It will be an hour long and contain music which has not yet been written for recorder (non-transverse flute) and cornetto (but not at the same time) and computer. I must now tear out my hair trying to figure out what to write. Send your ideas to ______________

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Dear Honorable Senator Feinstein,

I am writing to oppose the PERFORM Act. As you know, this act would outlaw MP3 streaming, as the MP3 file format contains no DRM. I am a musician and composer. I prefer mp3s for many reasons, including the universal level of access. MP3 players are available for every operating system, free of charge. When I stream an mp3, I know that I’m reaching the largest possible audience. DRM-laden streams can never possibly achieve the same level of market penetration. By their very nature, DRMs must be secret and proprietary. That means that a private company has to write them, which they do for windows and then possibly Macintosh as an afterthought. Linux is supported even less often. Should I choose to stream via a DRM-burdened format, I have to pay a third party company and in the end, I reach fewer people. This doesn’t help me as an artist. It doesn’t help me as a fan.

We already have copyright laws. Webcasters already pay royalties. From a practical standpoint, I know how to capture and record DRM stream as easily as a non-DRM stream. This law is unneeded and unnecessary and doesn’t solve any problems. It does, however, create problems for webcasters and listeners, especially ones on older systems or using linux.

Please withdraw the PERFORM Act.

Sincerely,
Celeste Hutchins

Tags: DRM, PERFORM, Celesteh