Les said, the better II

Every day that I’m in America, I thank god for divinely inspiring congress to avoid the godless Communism of socialized medecine. Imagine if you will the horrors of the french system:

Waiting: Nicole had to wait nearly 36 hours for her appointment with a specialist and after that nearly 16 hours for surgery.
Costs to the taxpayer: As far as I can tell, a French person would have paid 18€ for the whole thing. X-rays, prescriptions and surgery. As a non subscriber to the Social System thingee here, Nicole paid about 100€, maybe a bit more. Of course, we all know that treating a problem that’s minor is much less cost effective than waiting for it to become an emergency and require more extreme treatments.
Bureaucracy: It took nearly 10 minutes to have all of her data entered into a computer, but to be fair, about a third of that was because of language problems.
Invasive government databases: Every time Nicole saw a doctor, they gave her all of her X-rays, forms, etc to take with her when she left. That way, she had control of her file at all times. Fortunately, they told her what to bring to every subsequent appointment.
Smokers get the same medical treatment as everybody else: It’s true. I don’t why this is bad, but Bill O’Reilly keeps brining it up, so it must be terrible.
My major complaint is that I don’t want to go to school at IRCAM and I should probably get the advanced degree to make myself more employable. At least Berkeley has dental. I’m sure it’s just as good as being in France on a tourist visa. Almost. Maybe. Probably not.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

When I last posted about Cola’s teeth, her normal dentist was stumped. An extra revealed a dark spot below the hurting tooth. He gave her antibiotics which did not stop her face from swelling up and so he reffered her to an (anglophone) specialist.

So I went with Cola to see the specialist because there are anglophones and then there are anglophones. He looked at her xrays for a while and then took a few new ones. Then he started poking her. Does this hurt? He pressed on her swollen gum. Does this hurt? He got out a pointy, stabby thing and started batting it against her cheeks. Does this hurt? Then he got out a ver small hammer and started hitting her teeth with it. Does this hurt?
Indeed, except for the first part, it didn’t hurt. There was numbness. He diagnosed a legion in her jaw. It must be removed or biopsied or something. “I want to emphasize that your life is not in danger.” Finally it was determined that the english word for her condition is “cyst.” There was a cyst growing next to the nerve below her crowned tooth. First, it caused pain, but then it caused numbness and swelling.
The schools have yet another holiday, however, which started friday. The doctor was going on vacation the next day. So he instructed Nicole to come to the hospital the next morning for surgery.
So the next morning, we went to the hospital, where a team of dentists discussed Nicole’s condition and then one of them, not her original specialist, finally operated on her jaw. I waited for her in part of the dental wing of the hospital. I’ve since heard it explained that they do even minor operations in hospitals just in case anything goes wrong there’s a lot of doctors and equipment near by.
In the room in which I read months old celebrity gossip magazines (in French) there was a framed picture on the wall. It was of a mime, with a tear drawn in hir eye. Ze wore a bandana tied around from the top of her head to hir chin. Ze held hir hand to hir cheek and hir mouth formed an “ouch” shape. A mime with a toothache. In america this would be there to mock the patients. No question. But in France, miming is an ancient and respected art. I bet dental patients feel relieved to be around such cultured dentists.
The waiting room I sat in was for anesthesiology. I wasn’t really supposed to be there. They didn’t really have a waiting room. There was no front desk to check in. No “this way” signs. Apparently, when you go to a French hospital, you wonder around until you find your doctor and then you sit in a chair in the hallway until your doctor has time for you.
So a while later, Cola emerged from surgery. Feeling in her jaw is supposed to come back in around a week from then. In the mean time, there’s a lot of soup being consumed in this house. Her face is less swollen at least. Almost back to normal. She gets her stitches out next week, but it’s not strictly speaking necessary because they’re the kind that are supposed to dissolve.
And so far, nobody has mentioned anything about insurance, costs, money or anything. Apparently, in France, if you have a cyst growing in your jaw, dental insurance isn’t an unnecessary luxury. I think I like it here.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

My dad just left. He’s on his way to Spain and then home. We did a lot of touristing over the last week and a half. Yesterday, we went to Versailles. There is a project underway to restore it. The Hall of Mirrors is about half done. The half that’s finished is incredible.

The whole ceiling of that long hall is painted with the many achievements of Louis XIV, often with the aid of Roman gods. The rooms around the hall are full of statues of him. One has a giant portait of him. I’ll probably never have as much money as a past king of France, but it does give me some decorating ideas. How much does it cost to get a marble statue of yourself in roman battle armor anyway?
I speculate that a marble statue may be beyond my means, but there are other metallic and plastic materials available. Bronze would last a long time if it was indoors and furthermore, additional statues can be made form the mold. Why commission just one statue of Celestvs Avgvstvs, Roi de Berkeley? Why not many identical laureled statues? Heck, why not smaller versions that my subjects (or friends and admirers) can have in their homes?
Cola suggests that I build (or commission) small molds that can be filled with heated plastic or spray foam and thus generate statuettes on demand. Statue making machines could be coin-activated and placed in bars such that bar partons can have a statuette made of me on the spot.
Also, I want to be represented surrounded by cherubs. They’re just so cute. They can be helping me write notes or something.
Also: maybe in medieval armor like Joan of Arc and then perhaps in a hunting suit with my dog and then in a marching band uniform, playing the tuba. the possibilities are endless and ridiculous.
But seriously, if I were Bill Gates, I would have a marble statue hidden away somewhere of me as Cesar. Cuz why the heck would you make so much darn money if you weren’t interested in megalomania?
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Hypothetically speaking, if one were a professional blogger, ghost writing for a monkey, what would be the typical market value per post?

My dad has been here since Saturday. He’s here until the 8th. So we’ve been doing the tourist thing. So far, he’s seen two cathedrals, medieval buildings in the Marrais, the Arc de Triomphe, the world’s first flea market and has been to the shopping district on rue de Rivoli.

When did I start liking shopping? I’ve become downright conventional.
The gigantic soldes are drawing to a close, which means everything is marked down even steeper than before. I felt kind of weird taking my dad to the men’s section so that I could try on pants, but they do fit me better. Also, since I’m rather scrawny for men’s pants, my oddball size meant that there was a much wider selection of things that fit me on sale. So I got two pairs of pants. All I have left now on my list is a nice stripey scarf and a suit. Maybe with a vest.
There’s a restaurant around the corner from me that specializes in wine, lamb and string beans. And oh my god do they have a fantastic goat cheese. (Have I mentioned today that I love the food here? I love the food here.) So I took my dad there. I really like that place. They recommended a Haut Medoc wine. Any Bordeaux appellation is good. Haut Medoc and Graves are especially good, probably along with every other one. Every time I try a new Bordeaux, I think it’s the best wine ever until I try the next one.
My dad is growing out his hair. It’s at the awkward length between chin and shoulders. He’s also growing out his sideburns to comb backwards with his hair. He looks grumpy most of the time, so he’s really got that biker-about-to-smash-you look down. It’s a little alarming. His hair is stringy like mine (which is also much too long). I would suggest we go get haircuts together, but he wants it as long as possible. Kids Retirees these days!
With his hair, he looks completely unfrench. As non-french as somebody could get. Not that it really maters because he doesn’t speak a lick of it anyway. I taught him how to order coffee after introducing him to the proprietor of the local brasserie.
You may have heard that it’s impossibly to become a regular at a Paris café unless you’ve lived on the same block for 20 years. This is not the case. Five years will do. This particular brasserie, however, opened within the last few months, so I became a regular sort of by default. It also helps that the two guys that work there are exceedingly friendly and wave and whatnot when I walk by. The proprietor seemed extremely pleased to meet my dad. He’s a bilingual guy, but was speaking to my dad in French for some reason, I think to make a joke. Have I mentioned that my dad has never been to Europe before? He hasn’t even been in a non-English speaking country (Mexico) since his childhood. So he gets a little bit panicked when people speak french to him. I can relate. I felt exactly the same way the first week or two that I was here. Of course, the majority of my conversations were with the Prefecture de Police, trying to get registered.
In other news, Cola’s toothache has been referred to a specialist, who, thank god, is an anglophone. Why she needs a specialist rather than a normal dentist has not been made clear. Dental stuff in Paris is just as annoying as dental stuff in the US, but much much cheaper.
My dad wants to go see the Mona Lisa soon. I don’t think he realizes how small and unexciting it is. And then the Eifel Tower, which at least is as big as he expects. If Cola’s tooth recovers, I want to go Armagnac tasting. It’s super-fantastic brandy. One of the main Armagnac towns is called Condom. (No really.) Maybe I don’t want to go with my dad . . ..
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Every time I’ve riden the metro lately, there’s been at least one passenger in obvious distress on the train. A few days ago, I saw an empty car. Score! In retrospect, I should have made a more careful note of the fact that the woman waiting to get off of it was holding her nose. Yeah, so this guy, who was now rocking back and forth dazedly, had been sick. Oh my god, the smell. Me and another woman got on, sat for a minute, looked at each other and went to stand by the door to change cars at the next stop. But what to do about the guy?

Today, I was riding the 11 line to Chatalet and I saw another guy sort of swaying as if he were sick. I noticed that one of his shoes had been decorated in a really weird manner. He splattered it with brownish red paint. Soaked it, really. And it was on his pant leg too and oh my god, his shoe and pant leg are covered in blood! Chatalet is the terminus of the 11 line, so I got off at the end, but he didn’t. He stayed swaying in the metro car as it drove to park in the tunnel.
I was on my way to see Michelle (the secret girlfriend of the soon-to-be-famous Cynthia) and asked her what to do when I see people in distress. She told me that if it’s an emergency, I can pull the emergency break, but I should do it when the train is stopped in the station with it’s doors open. Alternately, I can go talk to the station agent when I get off the train. I can picture myself waiting in line for a while and then “Excusez moi à vous déranger mais il y an person avec un problem dans un train qui ummmm le train est sortie um… dix minute ummm…. un person malade….”
Coming home, I don’t know what was going on at Place d’Italie, but it was bad enough that a bunch of metro workers were standing at the top of a staircase, not letting anyone down it. Meanwhile, hundreds of people were pouring into the station from other trains and from the street above, trying to get home and waiting in a pedestrian tunnel that I was trying to make my way through. There was an “accident” the metro workers explained. Oh my god. So I got on an escalator to go towards my line, which, fortunately, was not effected. You know, it’s a really bad idea to get on a moving surface that ends in a crush of people. What are you going to do at the end, walk backwards on the moving surface? What about the people behind you?
The moral of this story is complex and multifaceted: never get on an empty metro car. Notice if people are holding their noses. Learn how to summon help. There are a huge number of homeless and sick people in Paris. This morning, it was -4C outside. Médecins du Monde has distributed tents, but it’s not enough. The cold drives people indoors, into the metro, where all the commuters ignore them, just like they do in the summer, when these people are in the streets rather than on the subway. I don’t know about life in the big city. How can we just step over and ignore somebody who obviously needs help?
When I got home, Cola was in crying distress from her toothache, so I walked her over to the dental x-ray people and arranged an earlier appointment. But it was late friday, so that means monday. Then I took her to the pharmacy and got her some better pain killers.
My dad gets here tomorrow afternoon. Maybe I’ll go buy some pants before then. And read the Burroughs that I need to read. And mop the kitchen and generally clean and buy groceries and send a mandat to my landlord’s mother already, it’s only, what, 3 weeks late.
It’s really goddamn cold, by the way. I’ve heard the cold front blew in from Siberia. Oh sure, you get your cold snaps with air from Alaska or Canada or the Arctic, but we get fucking Siberia. Who sounds more damn cold and desolate now?
Every bad thing that happens in Paris also happens in Middletown Connecticut, only there it all seems much much worse somehow. And there’s no metro there.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Please take a moment to email or call your senators and ask them to filibuster Alito. I just sent two emails and it took all of ten minutes. (Not willing to call from France, alas.) Do it for choice. Do it for queers. Do it for people of color. Do it for you! (Even straight white men need the privacy rights.)

I’ve had a lot of school recently last week and again this week. Also, I wrote a vocal piece. Latest project is writing a little presentation on my music for La BarBare in English and in French. I’m trying to explain what I’m up to by quoting William S. Burroughs The Ticket That Exploded. (There’s nothing that clears up confusion like a few well chosen run-on streams on consciousness from Burroughs.) The french title for this books is Le Ticket qui explosa and it does not appear to be indexed by Google books or anything (or maybe the Chinese government asked them to remove it). So I might go looking for a quote in The Electronic Revolution instead, because it’s also posted in translation. Yay for copyright violation. You know, since I tend to end up periodically quoting The Ticket That Exploded I should just go buy the damn book instead of just using Google Books to find the relevant phrases I remember from when I had it checked out of the library. But I’m not buying it in French. Anyway, this very nice conservatory student is helping me with it, so I’m going to send her a draft after I figure out which Burroughs to quote.

When I’m not busy going to classes about Stochastic theories of statistical whatever, I need to write the flute piece that I forever talk about and never write. I was just listening to some piano something by Messiaen. (Ah, I was trying to listen to the Radio Vatican podcast on my ipod while riding the metro because they speak french very clearly, but I accidentally turned it to something that didn’t give me hives.) It’s sparse and lovely with a lot of open sounding chords that I think have 6ths in them in the manner of modern harmony and heavy metal. What was especially wonderful was the dynamics. The pianist would hit a phrase pretty hard and then follow immediately with a much softer, lighter variation, like an echo. So repeated variations with dynamic differences is definitely going in the flute piece.
I intend to actually write the damn thing down while at the same time writing a SuperCollider plug in to do waveset distortion. The plugin will analyze a waveform to find zerocrossings and the peak and minimum of one period of the waveform between two zerocrossings. It can then introduce distortion by replacing the real waveform with a sinusoid which conforms to these shape parameters of the pre-existing wave form, or a triangle or a square or just zeros of x out of y wavesets. This form of distortion was invented by Trevor Wishart and as far as I know, is not in SuperCollider currently.
Speaking of Trevor Wishart, he’s playing this weekend at The Lab in San Francisco and I highly recommend going to hear it.
Tomorrow, I’m going to help Michelle sort out CD burning on her new laptop (she’s the secret girlfriend of the soon-to-be-famous Cynthia). Saturday, my dad comes into town and stays for a week and a half. He’s staying in the hotel next door and he’ll probably want to see a bunch of museums that I’ve already been to, so it won’t be super-intense 24/7 with Dad time for the whole stay. It’s been a darn long time since I’ve last seen him.
Last weekend, I saw two concerts. One was a free concert at Radio France. I showed up too late to get into the show I wanted to see and ended up at the one immediately following it, which was a little disappointing, but still free. They played some Prokofiev and another early 20th century work by another composer. Both pieces tended to have melodies where short notes connected longer ones. da duuuuum da da da duuuuuuum da duuuuuuuum da da duuuuuuuum. Then, in the second half they got much more recent and the melodic lines tended to feature faster runs of short notes da da da da da da da with nice chords like Messiaen, which is the kind of music I tend to write for instruments. I felt validated.
The other concert was on a boat! It was called something like “Chicks Who Rock” in english. All these feminst/lesbian rocky things feature signs in english. Because english is sooo kewl!! Or not. I have no idea why that’s so. Anyway, one of the bands, called Anatomie Bousculaire, was exceptionally awesome. They were really tight and the drummer had a very nice groove in which she would introduce, say, a slight delay in a particular beat in a rhythm and play that way in every bar, giving things a nice synchopated and slightly off feel. The bassist and the guitarists also sang and both had very nice voices, although disturbingly, they looked like twins… sexy twins. They sound great on their CD too, which I bought. Check them out.
I went to see both those concerts with Autumn and Stephen who were being tourists here for the last few days. I dig hanging out with folks from CA, it’s nice to get visitors. Also, I drink much nicer wine when I have guests over. 🙂
In my last bit of news, a leetle record company contacted me saying that they’re doing a compilation of solo analog synthesizer music, would I like to be on it? Oh, heck yes. The only catch is that the piece must be under 2 minutes. Um, I wrote something under two minutes once, but it was a choral, which doesn’t exactly fit my image as a noise musician and also Sophie said it sounded like it was written for a class. Problem! Solution: I played a solo show in May 2004 which was webcast with a laptop and a room mic. I have a copy of the file created by the webcast. I just need to edit a nice 2 minutes out of that. It’s a quicktime movie file type, so I need something like protools to open it, which we have at school, so as soon as they get the internet back up there, I can download it and work on it.
I don’t think I have anything else to report. I haven’t seen my conversation partner in like 2 weeks, which is too bad. I should have scheduled him for this evening, but I blanked on it. Um, and I set one of my gmail filters too tightly and it was dropping messages into a subfolder where I didn’t see them until too late. arrrgh. Anyway, I’m keeping relatively busy.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

My previous version os a program note has been described as insufficient (I think the word used was “meaningless”). Therefore, I am trying to write a new one. It’s hard to say who you are and what you’re about in two sentences. Especially since I can barely talk about my music anyway. I can talk about materials and processes, but not so much the sound. Anyway, this time, I’ve got a genre, at least:

Celeste Hutchins is a Californian composer who uses the words of right wing pundits as found musical material. She uses a computer to to cut their speech into phrases and rearrange them as text-sound compositions, both to explore the sounds of the human voice and to highlight the words and meanings in political speech.

And in bad french:

Celeste Hutchins est un compositeur californienne qui utilise des mots des hommes politiques à la droit comme objets trouvés de musique. Elle coup leur discours en des phrases avec un ordinateur. Elle les réarrange en poésie sonore, pour examiner les sons de la voix et la signification des mots politiques.

I know that pundit is not the same as homme politique, but the words the dictionary is giving me back for pundit (expert, érudit, pontife = expert, learned, pontiff) are not right.
the person who needed this stuff yesterday seemed a bit pissed off when I ran into her tonight. alas.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

I’ll be playing March 11 at 9:00 at La Barbare. That’s at 46, rue Gambetta 93100 Montreuil. Metros: Croix de Chavaux and Bérault. Tél: 01 48 59 71 76

So I went to their meeting last Sunday and talked a bit about my music. I was able to actually talk about myself in French, which was good. I had been provided with a translator who speaks French fluently and English very well. However, at one point, I think she missed that I was speaking in French and proceeded to repeat what I had just said. Funny! Must also mean that my french wasn’t too awful, or it would have caught her attention, I think.
No men can come to my show. This means that none of my colleagues or teachers at school can come. Also, they have rules against using male voices in music. Um, well, errrr, I said. Fortunately, they have decided to make an exception for me. But I must first speak about my work, to tell people what the english words mean and why I use male voices. I can’t just surprise people with radio announcer guy voice saying “And now! A message for the president of the Unites States! George W Bush!”
This generated a discussion of why they ban male voices. They seemed happy to consider the meaning of this policy and the discussion was lively, although I didn’t catch all of it.
I talked a bit and they decided they wanted me, and then they asked to hear my stuff. They apologized kind of. Hearing music is NOT part of their decision making process, but they were all very curious. Thank you for the indulgence.
I’ve been assigned somebody to help me prepare my presentation and make a flyer. I waited until today to send off my program note, which apparently was a problem. damn it. Last week, I had class from 10-18 every day but friday and then came home and worked on my vocal piece until I was too tired to move. I didn’t meet with my conversation partner either. My french degraded somewhat. I tried to make up for it by listening to french language podcasts from the Vatican radio while riding the metro, but thank god this didn’t work. I can’t hear the podcast over the noise of the train. Anyway, yesterday I did nothing chore-like because I was tired, but I prolly should have written the barbare woman. However, the email address she gave me had an error in it, so I would have had to call her, etc etc etc. the moral of this story is that I need to have a site which is at least somewhat bilingual. I maintain it to act as my press kit and to be able to tell people where to find bios and notes and stuff. (see previous post)
I hope that I can make some connections through La Barbare and maybe get some gigs that my classmates could come to. It would also be nice to play with some of them. If two of us play a gig, then both of us might be able to make connections that we can use and share and then we all get more gigs.
Anyway, I also agreed to join the collective or whatever it is. Tonight, they’re having a “Méga brocante SOUTIEN A LA BARBARE” which is shortly going to send me to a dictionary. The “méga” sounds promising though, assuming it’s a cognate. So I might go over so they don’t regret programming me. Also, I want to feel out whether it would be ok for me to do a Sarkozy piece. I kind of hate that guy and he’s probably going to be the next president. but I’m not French, so maybe it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it too much? Anybody who wants to clean out the suburbs with high pressure water hoses deserves some censure.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh