"No, you're the cow fart" "No, YOU'RE..."

Fuckin' A, does that cow have a jet pack? That's fuckin hella! Where's my jet pack cow? I'll ride that bitch to the laundromat fuckin' space cowboy style, yeah. Yeehaow! And those cow garter belts are HOT!

So, you can look here to see one patent for a cow fart collector, that will save the world, because apparently cow farts = arnie geddon. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/patent_issued_f.php

So we have that whole HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING THING that broad scientific consensus confirms. Especially important is that "human caused" bit.

But everywhere I look, people are denying it. And somehow a lot of them are using this FOX "news" cow thing as some sort of proof. For an example, look at a recent story at Slashdot where dozens of folks cited this FOX story about cows. Here's one example:

"Who can even make heads or tails of all this global warming stuff? We get reports like this, within a day of getting reports like cows cause more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together [foxnews.com]"

Yeah there was a bit like that in a UN report, but then right wing news orgs take it all out of context and use it like: "gee folks, what are these environmentalists thinking, cows are worse for the environment than we are! Stupid scientists!" And the worse is FOX "news" who ran the story with citations to OTHER RIGHT WING NEWS GROUPS creating a profound echo chamber of dumb.

What the UN report really said was that the WHOLE of industrialized bovine agriculture, when you figure in LAND USE ISUES (for example clear cutting of rain forest in South America and Africa and other land conversion issues) and industrial processing and feeding and shipping and such accounts for 9% of global CO2 emissions. Which is slightly bigger than some average car DRIVING emissions numbers....

Cow farts my ass.

AND, seriously though, US style industrial agriculture is a MAJOR bad problem for a dozen reasons, to play it up as "gee folks cow farts hardy har," really gets my goat.

Lame "I haven't been posting" post

Here it is the lame "I haven't been posting" post-- so lame that it even repeats the title in order to fill up space with words to make it look like I actually wrote something here.

Alas, I'm sure that I won't actually write anything worth reading here.

But then again, I haven't done that in a long time.

Oddly, I have TONS of stuff to write about these days.

BUT, I'm using different outlets for that expression. I'm trying to get an easy english reader published. And I'm writing a novel. And singing some, though I've been sick for about a month and that puts a damper on the whole singing thing. I'm really bringing a lot of creativity to my teaching right now, and that's satisfying too.

When I started this blog I declared it an experiment. I wanted to learn about blogging. What do I want to write about? I wanted to eventually have a well focussed blog about... well, something. But what do I want to write about?

So, here's what I've learned:

Happy is boring. I'm pretty dern happy. Yawn.
Sordid sex blogs that deal with the cruelties of the modern dating scene are REALLY interesting.
My love life is happy and stable. Yawn.

I enjoy writing about singing and music in general. However, the things I'm interested in are too controversial to have a large audience and too academic for a blog. BUT I might find some ways to make some of these things interesting....

I enjoy discussion. However, a personal blog is not a good place to have discussion. It's not neutral territory....

I enjoy writing about ESL. Again, small audience, and I'm writing a textbook, so I have another outlet for that.

I have a whole big ball of related ideas about evolution, creativity and the meaning of life, but a blog is not a very good outlet for that.

SO in the near future, I'm going to be rethinking this whole blogging business. And probably it will cease to exist. BUT, in it's place I will probably start some new things.

Such is life.

Morning in America

In my classes, all of my students for the first time feel free to share their feelings about politics. They're all saying the same thing-- it feels like morning in America, but for real this time. I've heard stories the last few days about reoccurring nightmares of terrorist attacks and nuclear war.... That even the bluest of blue skies has a certain overcast to it. And why should the sky seem blue? We're reminded constantly that we're in an "unending war" or at best a "long war"-- one that it seems we have no chance to win. How can we win a war when we haven't even defined what winning would look like? And everyday we hear "terror, terror, terror" and I realize now that each time I hear that word something perceptibly tightens inside me. And people just want it to end. "The people" see that "the people" all over the world just want peace. A few nut jobs at the top and at the right of the international spectrum want war, but THEY are the crazy ones, not the rest of us! And after this election it's a little easier to see that. And the dark in the sky got a little lighter. And America feels a little bit of hope for the first time in 12 years.

Constitution? We don't need no stinkin constitution

Thank you "crooks and Liars" for posting this!
Keith Olbermann is one of the only real journalists left. CLICK THE PICTURE to see his take on Habeus Corpus.

Or cut and paste this:
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Olbermann-HabeusCorpus.mov

Jesus camp anyone?

I think I'll stick to chocolate jesus.

School Shootings

Well, I hate to blog on such a topic, but events will happen....

So I have several mixed and jumbled thoughts about this-- I'll try to organize them as best as I can.

Firstly, as to the Pennsylvania executions, why the Amish? A while back, I got to spend a bit of time with some folks in an Amish community-- they welcomed me into their homes and shared their music with me... Truly, these are the most innocent and decent folks I can think of. They lack the bad Karma that we all create with our violent culture-- and still they must suffer this tragedy.... And so this attack has saddened me more than any other in my memory.

Given that, I offer this up as a second course: I often say that I'm a conservative forced by circumstance to play the role of a liberal, and yet I suppose I'm now a true liberal. And as the definition of a liberal is: "a person so fair-minded that they refuse to take their own side in an argument," I've taken this opportunity to question my beliefs. Namely, my belief that capital punishment is wrong and that it is as horrible an act of murder as any act it is intended to punish-- no in fact it's worse, because it is carried out with the cool self righteousness and calculated self justification of a popular tool of political gain.

I've never understood the popularity of capital punishment. Not until now.

There are no valid "reasons" for CP that have stood up to the test of evidence. Far from a deterrent, it is pretty consistently statistically linked to a rise in murder and in crime in general.

During the Newt Gingrich revolution the major point was that it cost the tax payer less than incarceration-- proven even back then to be a fallacy--
(and since no one believes me when I say this here ya go:
A Duke University study found... "The death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of imprisonment for life." ( The costs of processing murder cases in North Carolina / Philip J. Cook, Donna B. Slawson ; with the assistance of Lori A. Gries. [Durham, NC] : Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, 1993.)

"The death penalty costs California $90 million annually beyond the ordinary costs of the justice system - $78 million of that total is incurred at the trial level." (Sacramento Bee, March 18, 1988).

"A 1991 study of the Texas criminal justice system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. In contrast, the cost of housing a prisoner in a Texas maximum security prison single cell for 40 years is estimated at $750,000." (Punishment and the Death Penalty, edited by Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum 1995 p.109 )

"Florida spent an estimated $57 million on the death penalty from 1973 to 1988 to achieve 18 executions - that is an average of $3.2 million per execution."
(Miami Herald, July 10, 1988).

"Florida calculated that each execution there costs some $3.18 million. If incarceration is estimated to cost $17000/year, a comparable statistic for life in prison of 40 years would be $680,000."
(The Geography of Execution... The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America, Keith Harries and Derral Cheatwood 1997 p.6)

Swiftly lifted from: http://www.mindspring.com/~phporter/econ.html

Anyway, to sum, there is no "reason" reason for capital punishment-- only a FEELING-- and that feeling logically is summed up like this: there are some things for which murder is a just response.

It has always been easy for me to point out the irony of this statement-- that ALL MURDERERS ALWAYS FEEL JUSTIFIED IN THEIR ACTIONS. There are very few broken pieces on this planet that sit around twirling their mustaches wondering what they can do in the name of evil that day. All people who do bad things think they are doing them for just reasons.

Anyway, the argument for CP then is always that it isn't about LOGIC, its about the FEELING that it would be cruel to take the possibility of a revenge murder away from victims. And of course, that I couldn't understand because I've never been a victim.

Well, for the first time, I find myself FEELING that if this guy hadn't killed himself, then he deserves to be brutally killed.

(But then another even more reptilian part answers: "no, death is too good for this guy-- too easy." In fact, I really resent that he killed himself. Such a cowardly way out....)

But for the first time I understand-- I intuit how easy it is to just say: a fuck the bastard-- hang em. It's so easy and it feels so good....

Finally, where's the big government response? I feel more personally attacked by this then by 911-- so where's my "war on violence as an appropriate response?" Because that's what I feel attacked by-- our cultural instinct to respond to any provocation with force. I'll bet we'll find out that whatever this guy was thinking-- he wasn't some monster. He was a decent family guy who was good to his wife and kids but he was infected with this idea that's very ordinary in our culture-- that violence is a justifiable response-- a JUST response even....

We go to movies and we're supposed to cheer when the bad guys get killed-- the more brutally the better. And people tell me all the time that Bush was right to bomb people and take revenge for 911, nevermind that the people who did it all died, and nevermind that justice was never even an issue: quoth Rumsfeld " we don't have enough evidence to convict, but we have enough evidence to bomb." So how are we supposed to argue when some fucked up guy thinks he's got to go kill some little girls for some messed up thing in his head? Hell, grab your gun buddy, it's the American way!

That is the fucked up shit we need a war on. We're makin' real bad Karma baby, real bad.

Chocolate Jesus

Quote of the Day:

Heard on my local NPR station this morning: "We will now suspend our regular schedule of "intelligent talk" to bring you the President's speech."

THIS JUST IN

Millions of 20-somethings spat out their morning coffee this week as composed anchor men and women announced in stony seriousness that Saddam Housein had declared in court: "I will crush your heads." The imprisoned ex-all-powerful-dictator, in apparent effor to prove he's "still got it" extended his forefinger and thumb in a menacing gesture known all too well to fans of Saturday Night Live.

According to witnesses Saddam, held up his hand, squinted and repeated in a sqeeky voice: "I will crush your head, and yours, and you too! Ha ha ha! 'Aaaaa noo not my head!' Yes you tooo!"

Saddam expert Nassredin Hodja, a witness, said of the defendant's tactics: "it was really weird."

In Washington, a triumphant Donald Rumsfeld announced "we've found them, we've found the weapons of mass destruction!!!!!" Officials used a projector to show these rare satelite photos proving once and for all that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction.

Others believe Saddam's tactic to have been a successful attempt to attack the homeland. 2o-something Jerald Snatch recounted his memories of the fateful event: "Yeah, I was just doing the crossword puzzle, and my girlfriend listens to NPR or some shit, and then I couldn't believe what they were saying: 'I will crush your head!' Next thing I knew there was coffee coming out my nose. And that was my last clean shirt."

There are still no numbers reflecting the economic damage done by this week's staggering drycleaning bills.

Oh, my dear little bloggy blog...

I so rarely feed you these days....

Pity.

Pity.

And so much to write too! But just so busy!

So first off, here's news in my world:

Just finished another run of Reagan's Children stuff. I think it went really well and I got a really bad picture of me in Time Out, which is cool. Tonight I'm singing in Milwaukee in another new work Karl Jenkins' Armed Man. I'm very excited about that! And on top of that, I start teaching again this week and I'm really excited about that!! And I just got a new beer (Fat Tire) and a biodynamic port ("Bouteille Call" the coolest name for a wine ever!) to try, and I'm excited about that!!!

So basically that's got me thinking...

Life is good. It's good on all fronts.

And now, this is the tiniest thing, but it's still there:

BUT

It's just this thininess of always wanting more, wanting this dream of something that can't exist...
or can it....
and if I make those perfect circumstances exist, will I want...

just a little


More.

In other news, today's listening:

Audra Mcdonald's Seven Deadly Sins. Very interesting pieces composed for the singer. If you want some tunes, look here. When you click on the link, it will be on the 1st hour installment. I could do without the bits of Audra explaining the pieces, but she IS charming. I'm still not convinced that she belongs on the Met stage.... The word is that she will be featured in a leading role at what used to be the benchmark opera house of the world. It is an interesting attempt to bring opera to a wider audience but I'm afraid a misguided one but I'll try to keep an open mind-- We'll see....

Wow. 4 opera clips.

So, I considered myself an actor long before I started singing, and it was as an actor that I came to be a singer. I was already getting paid to do straight theater when I went to my first opera. At that point, I hated musical theater, and I expected opera to be even worse. I hated that it was all mugging, and the movements lacked any purpose and there wasn't really any acting at all....

My first opera was a choir (which I was not in) field trip, and I only went because I had crushes on half of the girls in the choir.

I was blown away.

Not because of the music, which I didn't really get, but because of the acting-- real acting!

Later, when reading "writings in restaurants" I discovered that the guy who many consider the most important modern acting teacher agrees with me. As I read more, I learned that David Mammet writes over and over again that he finds the acting in opera today consistently better than acting on film or on broadway. This is because what most opera singers do is direct and simple and there is a reverence for the script and for the text. The good ones don't mug or try to show off their acting they just f@ckin' do the thing!

SATAN! I'll start with the most accessible one: Yep, this is Sam Ramey playing satan. Opera was often the Marilyn Manson of it's day. In this piece Satan mocks god, and even gives him an obscene gesture! How do you think this went over in ultra catholic Italy?




OTELLO. Next most accessible-- Placido Domingo is just plain exciting. English subtitles.


Old School PUNK ROCK! This clip is vintage punk rock to me from the costumes to the irony, raw emotion and open mockery of the audience. The clip is a play within a play-- the commedia dell'arte stock plot mocking the cuckold husband. The actors are husband and wife performing a show as husband and wife. In both cases, the husband has just discovered that the wife is having an affair. the actor no longer finds the show so funny, but the audience doesn't get that he's gone off script, "bravo!" The wife keeps trying to return to the show as if nothing happened.



OPERA REVOLUTION. For hundreds of years it has been opera that led the way. The two major revolutions in acting technique in the 20th century were led by opera singers. The first was Feodor Chalyapin, who was the father of what became known as the "Stanislavski Method" after the man who wrote down Chalyapin's teaching. The second was lead by Maria Callas. In the early 40s, Callas brought renewed realism and even vulgarity to the stage. Legends abound about the real-life touches she brought to scenes such as taking off her shoes after a party-- revolutionary at the time. Her controversial performances were to inspire a revolution in acting that would eventually reach Broadway in the late 40s and Hollywood in 1951 with Marlin Brando.

Though she was known for "dominating" an audience, here she brings simplicity and honesty to what was a "dead" repertory at the time:

THE REAGANS ARE COMING! THE REAGANS ARE COMING!

September 8th and 9th at 10:30 at night, and Sunday the 10th at 9:30PM. I'll be singing the role of Michael Reagan (! yep that one) in a cabaret featuring excerpts from a new opera called Reagan's Children. The picture above is from the premier of the show a few months back. I just got the recording from the premier and it sounds pretty good. Take a listen to the Michael Reagan aria: Meditation.

Webeyoo!

You know how when you're on vacation you work more than when you're "at work?" Right. Well I guess I'm not really on vacation at all, I just have a different work schedule.I just updated my singing web page. Because I find most actor/singer web pages to be really silly, I resisted certain design elements for a long time. But in the end, I decided that my page needed to look more "professional."

So I think this page looks more professional, but I've still managed to avoid some of the design elements (as well as some of the technology elements) that I hate most. The page is more definitely more "dramatic." Also, there are certain expectations of what a "classical singer" should be, and I've tried to "brand" the page a little more "classical" or "opera singer."

Take a look and tell me what you think. Did everything render well on your browser/OS? If the page looks like butt on your computer, I'd really like to know!

I have discovered the meaning of life and it is....

The quilt.

I have it on good hearsay that the creator of the universe really, really likes a good quilt. So much so that he created this little ball of quiltin' materials we call "Earth" just to add to his collection.

The Mysteries of Life Explained AT LAST:

When he created two of each animal, he had one of two things in mind-- 1. food for quilters. 2. Keep the quilter population down to prevent disease and famine.

Sharks were invented because the creator of the universe hates soggy quilts.

As for humans, he had one thing in mind-- makin' babies, and makin' quilts. In fact, my sources say that the reason for human frailty at the beginning and end of life is to provide an incentive for quilt making. Human suffering, to provoke comfort quilts.

All the rest of us here are just an elaborate support structure for the chosen ones.

Was Ronald Reagan right when he claimed that god created aids? If so, why would god do something like that...? hmm....

Old song do again

More of the same-- with more to come-- this bit moved to the front page from comments....

I recently read an article in some Music Journal about this (I'll try to remember which one.) It was a poorly designed "experiment" but their findings we're interesting none the less. Some Mid-west University Choral group made 2 recordings-- one where the singers sang with a good singer's formant response and the other with the singers formant taken out in the "choral technique" taught at their school. Then they did a survey and asked which people liked better. "Overall" (their methodology was deeply flawed) 55% or so of participants preferred the "choral" example. However when they broke down their findings:

Listeners with no musical training slightly preferred the "operatic" example.

Listeners with Instrumental training strongly preferred the "operatic" example. The more musical training they had, the more they favored the "operatic example."

Only Listeners that were trained in the "choral tradition" of that school (the vast majority of survey participants-- hence the flaw) strongly preferred the "choral" example. And the more choral experience they had the more they favored this example.

This would seem to suggest that the "choral" sound is a learned preference... and quite an "acquired taste."

Old song new again

On my new project: (this post is about getting some things straight in me cluttered head.)

So, I've rounded up a sextet of singers to get together and sing through some music, and I have to say, I couldn't be more excited. To start with, the singers are some of the best singers I've worked with, and they all have absolutely bee you tee ful solo voices.

More importantly, I've wanted to do this for a long time, "I've got artistic vision up the butt" and for the first time, I get to be as experimental as I want to be.

Firstly, I've really come to believe that while sometimes someone needs to call shots to get work done, centralized decision making in art crushes full artistic subtlety and color. So the most wildly experimental thing that we're going to do is allow all of us to be ourselves and make all of our decisions artistic and otherwise democratic. My feeling is that by encouraging and accepting everyones input we can make ourselves a truly unique group. And so completely democratic approach will be our guiding principle.

A second idea that flows from the first was one of the principles that helped me pick the singers. In addition to being great operatic voices, all of the voices in the group have something in common. I've noticed all of these singers "tuning formants" to achieve vocal colors. The overtones in a voice help determine the color of the voice. One way to categorize singers is by saying that they have "consonant formants" or "dissonant formants." "A singer with "consonant formants" will "tune" the overtones in the voice to enhance the fundamental pitch: so if they are singing a C3, they might have strong overtones at C4, C5 E6 and G6. A "dissonant voice" on the other hand would sing a C3, but tune the overtones to C#4, C#5 E6 F6 and F#6. Obviously, a dissonant voice has a lot of very obvious clanky ring to the voice that makes it very distinctive, while a Consonant voice generally sounds prettier, warmer and more pure and the ring sounds "blended in" to the to one seemless vocal tone. However there is a third group. Many of the greatest singers on record (Hans Hotter, Domingo and Nilssen are good examples) instinctively "tune" their formants to achieve different colors and effects. This is something else that our sextet has in common: though they generally tune on the consonant side, I've heard them change tuning to achieve effect.

Applied to ensemble singing the implications are obvious. If I'm standing next to a singer, and we are singing exactly the same pitch, and have exactly the same vowel sound we're still going to sound like crap if my strongest overtones are on a C# and his is on a C. If you're a singer you know exactly the feeling I'm talking about-- you can actually feel the overtones in your voices fighting with each other.

So, too often, especially in the midwest, "Choral blend" has come to mean taking all the overtones and hence all the color out of the voices. What you get is "in-tune," yes, but to me, utterly bland, each voice losing it's beauty-- the musical equal to the borg.

Instrumentalists talk about the same thing. In some symphonies, each member of a horn section is required to play the same horn, and with the same style. While in others, members play with their own uniqueness-- their own choice of instrument and style, each member taking turns giving their unique color to a phrase, while the others "shadow" to enhance that player's sound and let his color shine through. So in a way, I want to try to use a traditionally instrumental technique to a vocal ensemble.

With the voices that I've assembled I think we will instinctively achieve this-- beautiful blend and intonation-- chords that "pop" and rich beautiful, three-dimensional and unique vocal sounds.

Thurston, That's not apple juice!

For those of you who have ever been to Lake Geneva Wisconsin, I'm sure you're familiar with the old tales of "Thurston," the zany sea monster the locals just love to hate. FOR RARE ACTION FOOTAGE OF HOT THURSTON ACTION, CLICK HERE

Not content with your run-o-the-mill sea-monsterin', Thurston has a penchant for light hearted gags that have kept lake Geneva chuckling for over a century now. Some locals can even remember back to the early 20th century when "T" dressed up as John F Kennedy and attended a swank LG party. When he came, he brought 13 hookers, but when it was time to go home, there were only 12 left! The next morning, party goers overheard Col. George Williams himself chuckle: "Thurston, that's not my bath towel, that's a dead hooker, now how am I supposed to get dry!" Thurston's knack for clever costuming and hookers has left others wondering if it was really the ex president who spoke those famous words, "ich bin ein Berliner," or if there could have been a certain sea monster behind the humorous blunder.

New visitors to lake Geneva may wonder about the many "lake boats" that never seem to move. (Such as those pictured here.) Residents say that these "lake boats" are actually large scale fishing tackle, designed in hopes of catching a glimpse of Thurston in some real authentic sea-monsterin'.

Finally, if you're lucky enough to get a first hand glimpse of Thurston, just take my word for it: if he offer's you a cup of apple juice, and it's warm, and tastes like sea water, do NOT drink it.

still more vintage footage of Thurston, is that a cup of apple juice?

Research

So I was doing some research, obviously, and found this...

FORM ELVIS!

Has Fowltron met his match?

Can the world handle this much chicken?

Coming to a computer near you....

Laptop Lambshmop!

Check out the new Eurotech Zypad. One step closer to that iSkin implant I've been waiting for....

Office Space Wouldn't Take Me

We had office space. The movie about the life draining suck-jobs that my generation got stuck with: waiting tables and the big cube florescent light bath. I had a few of those jobs. 6 bosses. 2 of them were named Kenney and Denney. MS excel melted my face off all day long. One time, My Big boss, the boss of all my bosses came up to my office (at least I had a private office...) and said: (and this is gods honest truth)

BB: "Look at what Denney did with this spread sheet, this is good."
Me: "erm, actually, I uh... I did that."
BB: (not hearing me) "yeah, Denney, he does good work, try to do it like that from now on."
BB: "And Friday is "jean day," do you know what that means?"
Me: (stunned by the obviousness of the thing) "it means I can wear jeans?"
BB: (slow and inarticulate, again not hearing me) " It means you get to wear jeans... it you want to."

What frightens me is that we (talking 'bout my generation) may be the lucky ones. With all the ultra-crap life sucking cubical jobs going over seas, what work will future generations hate doing?

Whole generations of kids coming of age in fast food and Walmart?

Maybe this MSI video gives an idea... is it any surprise it's so angry? EDITED FOR A BETTER VERSION OF THE VIDEO

Innocent When We Dream

Speaking of the conflict between our public and private selves....

I'm getting near done with the novel I've been writing for a couple of years now. Though I'm taking a brief break from writing, the novel is now fully conceptualized and mapped out and it's about 300 pages right now-- I still have a couple of important scenes to write, including the climax, but those are already fully imagined in my noggin. But basically, I expect to have a draft to burden willing friends and loved ones with by the end of the year (if I can get a break from singing work....) And, I'm really enjoying writing it- or rather, watching it write itself at this point. For a long time, I wasn't entirely happy with how the initial idea was playing out as it grew in complexity-- then quite suddenly, everything just fell into place, so that almost every word is a reflection of the 1 deep theme. I like my characters. They surprise me. But most of all, I feel like I wish someone else would write this story, because I'm really excited about reading it.

When I started this book, it was a sort of Zen Meta-technique to free my singing from the burden of self criticism. Like a straw man for the inner bully: "hey me, look over there-- that piece of garbage really sucks!"

But now, I think I might try to get it published.

Which brings back the conflict. Basically, I satirize just about everything in crass fashion. So I'm wondering about the consequences of having my name on it.

Is it different because it's fiction? There are a lot of people who put their names on controversial works of art....

And what about what I say on this blog? Where is the line of acceptability for public discourse? Our society's unquestionable "givens", Emotion, Sex, the inner machinations of human instinct? I once heard a famous singing coach explain the subtext of an art song to a class by explaining that "I think we all have rape fantasies, that's what a lot of music is, a metaphor for rape fantasy."

What about the "just plain weird?"

Now believe me, it was completely a-sexual, but last night I had this dream ( I blame this on the video for "Danger! High Voltage!".... All I can remember is this: I discovered I could tell the future with my penis, and I was really envious of Ted Danson, because his penis was a better, erm, divining rod than mine.

Just remember what Tom Waits says:

"We're innocent when we dream, when we dream we're innocent..."

Jack White is the man

The punk rock formula: Energy + simplicity= awesome.

Heard it last night and knew immediately it was a JW song-- but I thought it was a new Raconteurs song. Looked it up. really cool video to boot.

This song is sure to be a big hit.
Edited to add:
I;m a huge dork. Yeah, it's going to be a big hit, in 2004. In England. Apparently this song came out in 2003, and I just never heard it until last night. But I'm not alone, it wasn't added to youtube until this spring. And I guess Detroit rockers "electric six" deny the involvement of Jack White with their band, which is classic Jack White. From what I understand, Both parties, Jack and Electeic 6 deny even knowing who the others are "Jack White, who's he?"

Blog identity crisis

I think that more people are going to be experiencing this....

A conflict between their public person and private and how that plays out on the internet. A friend recently felt the consequences of this conflict, and it's made me ask a lot of questions. I've always wanted my blog to be an extension of who I really am-- no border between the private and public, and even professionally I've always felt free to speak my mind. Lately, however, I've started writing several things, and then stopped because I'm not sure what some future prospective employer might think-- what if they aren't above judging me unfairly?

In the meantime, I've been publishing on a VERY anonymous public blog that to my knowledge, (thank you site meter) I'm the only one to ever have seen the page. I think because of some of the content, blogger has chosen not to list it.... so what's the point of that. And as for blogger not listing it, I just don't get it-- it really isn't much worse than the "monkey sex" thing on this blog-- the obscenity is purely philosophical, and yet it's not included in the blogger directory or the "next blog" list. Oddly, if I just wrote a pornographic sex blog it would have had 700 hits by now! Go figure.

what to do what to do.

won over

I admit it. I've been won over by the Student Prince. Who care's about the plot, and that the jokes aren't funny, the show is just plain cute, The music is fun fun fun. What else do you need in a little musical. The chorus is awesome. THis should turn out to be a great show!

And easy.

Quick note on politics

Ok, so I've always tried desperately to to avoid talking politics on this blog. I used to have a political blog, and it just stopped being interesting to me.

However, in the post below, I got on a slightly political tangent, and now I think I need to clarify my political position, so here it is:

I consider myself to be a sort of conservative, but I feel the modern "conservative movement" has been nothing less than a national disaster.

1. The "religious conservatives" in the movement are radicals. They wish to rewrite American history and American law to build a fundamentalist state. It seems quite the opposite of "conservative" to make such radical changes.... Furthermore, it is far from libertarian and anti-governmental to have such government involvement in religion.

2. The Republicans have created the most aggressive redistribution of wealth in human history-- in the upward direction. Far from capitalism, the economic platform of the Republican party is Corporate Mercantilism, (better known as fascism, though that word is now defined as "not the US.") Capitalism is the absence of government involvemnt, corporations and monopoly. The Republican party favors a strong concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the government construction of strong corporations and monopolies as an instrument of stability and security. This is not capitalism and it is not conservative.

My earnestly conservative opinion would favor returning to a more capitalist model, getting the government out of peoples lives, eliminate deficit spending and avoid non-humanitarian "nation building" which is almost always simple exploitation. Here is a Libertarian party idea (VERY CONSERVATIVE!) that I love: Replace welfare and all non-education social programs with a $10,000/ year check for life for every citizen. This includes ending corporate welfare, right down to tax payer subsidies of the business costs. Corporations make bigger demands on our infrastructure, pollute more, use more resources and create fewer jobs than small business. If they were forced to pay the true costs of their business, they wouldn't be able to compete with small localized economies. Returning to a more capitalist model would create more jobs, keep wealth local, reduce tax payer burden, keep prices lower and clean up the environment in one shot. On the personal side, it would encourage people to act more responsibly and save their government checks or at least spend them wisely.

So in some ways I'm quite conservative. At the same time, I'm not an unseeing ideologue: For example, I believe in increasing education spending, as it's an important investment in our nations future. And though the conservative in me likes a strong military as a deterrent, our current military spending is mostly a wealth redistribution scheme- giving tax payer money to corporations with little practical return. How much firepower do we need to deter other nations from an unprovoked attack? Enough to destroy the whole world 100 times? 1000? What the heck? I think once you reach the whole "destroy the world 100 times over" line, there isn't a country on the planet that would attack us without there being a reason worth dying for. From that point, the best defense is a foreign policy that doesn't give people a cause to die for-- and right now we're losing on that point!

So current movement conservatives make me into a radical... but who are the real radicals? And that's where I stand.

The Alpha Male: just an idiot?

You know I fancy myself a philos'pher. I think about things.

So, I've been thinking about how monkeys have a lot of sex.

Now, stick with me, because this is something I spend A LOT of time thinking about, and let me tell you it's amazing how much sex monkeys have. Amazing.

So maybe you don't know this, or maybe you just spend less time thinking about monkey sex than I do, but Bonobos, the type of apes most closely related to us humans, are dirty, dirty funky-love-rocket rollickin' primates. In fact, it seems they are "obsessed with fornication!" as the likes of Pat Robertson might put it.

And we're not just talking your manual-approved "'peg A' in 'slot B'" stuff, we're talkin' all types of sex--no lists here folks, because you people have imaginations, but bonobos seem fond of just about every kind of "jungle boogie" that the most imaginative and unrestrained of us humans can think of and then some.

Got it? Monkey sex. lots of it. I think I got that point across pretty well, so I'm going to leave it for a little bit, but don't go anywhere, we'll soon get back around to Bonobo-bangin' and that's a promise.

So something that really annoys me is when I meet some earnestly cool, smart, philosophical dude, and, because it's clear that I spend some time thinking about things too (mostly monkey sex) they decide to inform me about their own great "philosophy of strength." This is usually a mesh of Nietzsche and Darwin... some Herman Hesse novel from college and whatever they read last all thrown together. The history of western thought, they inform me, is all a grand tribute to the Ubermensch that the dude obviously represents. Through my college days, I often heard this type declaring himself an "Alpha Male," for his "ability and willingness to conquer and dominate, while others will only follow."

To me, this Alpha Male philosophy is a just a complex justification for a selfish, nationalistic, ethnocentric world view. Historically, this "philosophy" of "social Darwinism" was based on an illiterate misreading of the writings of Herbert Spencer popularized by a Calvinist preacher with a political axe to grind. If you want to get into the history of it check out the wiki page on Social Darwinism. However, it's unnecessary for further exploration of our topic at hand:

Monkey Sex.

A misreading or no, the basic expression of this "philosophy" is Darwin's "survival of the fittest" applied to humans and human systems--both as a governing philosophy and as a personal philosophy. On the social end this "philosophy" was and is a justification for the violent European expansionism and world domination: "by wiping out the weak, we were doing nature's work and making the human race stronger!" I've heard plenty of Alphas say. Of course, many Social Darwinists have believed (and many still do) that this European conquest was proof of the superiority of the "white race."

Today, this "philosophy" has had a tremendous rebirth with the "conservative movement," a movement far from being conservative. Strangely, it's newfound popularity is due to its necessity as a binding agent between the two waring factions of the modern American "Republican Party:" the pro-corporate mercantilists and the religious fundamentalists. Though Wacko Religious leaders refuse to admit evolution in the biology classroom, they see Darwin as some extension of "Gawds Own Justice" on the street:

"Nature's remedies against vice are terrible. She removes the victims without pity. A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness."

-- William Graham Sumner, propenent of Social Darwinism, Arian superiority, "free trade" and overall idiot.

Newt Gingrich: Monkey or just monkey-brained?

More recently, Newt Gingrich used to regularly invoke this idea in his "contract with America" stump speech, saying that in the old days there used "hammer and anvil which would fall on the unwed mothers (and apparently other vagrants of society, though Newt really seemed to have a thing for unwed mothers...)" the goal of the republican revolution in his view was to destroy the social safety net and "bring back the hammer and anvil."

As a personal philosophy, it works the same way: by "kicking ass and taking names" and being the Uberdude, you fulfill your natural destiny and make the race stronger or some such nonsense. And since it is "human nature" to try to dominate, it's better to be the wolf than the sheep....

Now, I don't know anything about any of that, but I DO know about monkeys. And sex. And let me tell ya, ya just can't keep the lil' buggers out of the nookie jar!

That is, at least when you're talking about the smartest and most human-like of the super-monkeys called Apes, the Bonobos. The Common Chimpanzee on the other hand, would rather spend their time in the sort of aggressive behavior engaged in by the likes of English Soccer fans, but the Bonobo follows the dictum of the 60 hipster: "make love, not war, man."

And that's what's so interesting about monkey sex, or at least bonobo Sex: they make love not war. Researchers say it's now clear that they actually use 'doin' it' as a way of building community and resolving conflict! And from what modern mathematics and evolution theory tell us, it was jism that acted as their social cohesion and supplied their darwinian "fitness." And it was likely the same behavior that paved the way for modern man: the intellectual marvel of an animal that created the pet rock and "Goonies."

Truly remarkable.

For more about that you can start here: http://williamcalvin.com/teaching/bonobo.htm.

See, here's the truth about humans; dude, we're like really, really wimpy animals. Tony Soprano, naked in the woods V a Grizzly Bear: ain't even going to be close. But, put the Grizzly against Tony and a bunch of his burley mob buddies and you got a hit "reality" series.

Anyway, it clearly isn't aggressive dominance that led us to the top of the food chain.

Modern "game theory" has explained that the "fittest" often refers to the party "fittest for cooperation." Models repeatedly show that the old axiom "the nice guy finishes last" just ain't so! In fact, it seems that aggressors usually end up losing first! For a primer on modern game theory, check out the great book: The Universe and the Tea Cup. Or just go play a multiplayer online strategy game like "Wesnoth:" as a mater of basic survival, everyone teams up on the most aggressive players first.

So here's the problem, its not that there isn't social evolution, the problem is in thinking that the World Wrestling Federation represents the apex of human achievement: it's conflating "fitness" with aggression. Evolution is simply nature's problem solving method--it certainly effects humans and human societies and even human ideas. And there are certainly lessons we can take from evolution and apply its problem solving method to our own lives and to our societies.

Darwin's lesson for our lives is not to look out for #1, it's to look out for everyone, and even the whole planet. Evolution's mission for the individual is not to step on others in our scramble to the top, it's to become your own fullest most unique solution to the problem of living-- to fully take advantage of your unique perspective and place in the world. The pragmatic individual will make sure their lifestyle is consistent with an informed view of natural selection, and will be true to their own diversity and kind and compassionate to their fellow beings. The pragmatic individual will understand that nature will prune the aggressors and be kind to those leading a sustainable equitable lifestyle, and they will use that math to their advantage. They will make a little more like the bonobo and a little less like the common chimpanzee.

The Alpha Male mentality and the corresponding modern "conservative" movement is historically, mathematically and scientifically uninformed to start with. But more importantly, it's bad as a pragmatic matter.

It's no way to build a society, and an even worse way to build a life.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to my dear friends on their kick-ass wedding this weekend. Not much more to say than have fun in the Aloha State.

I on the other hand will be spending this week in the Rather Frazzled State.

Looking to do some major cleaning and reorganizing of the blog... I've decided to keep the blog front page but also make a page of cleaned up essays and entertainments and informations and so on.... Just an effort to make my thoughts a little more organized and accessible.

The problem is figuring out how to do it....

holy crap!

I never thought move on and the christian coalition would agree on anything, but I guess the pigs are flying home with the cows today!

Both groups are going to post an add together against the pending internet control bill. And this when I had just given up hope that the internet would remain the free and beautiful thing it is today. I just can't imagine not seeing homestar anymore because it would cost to much for all of those big files to run.... or to search for a recipe and only be able to access those annoying bland recipes from kraft food that require a bunch of terrible brand name corn products.... I had assumed with republicans controlling congress that the end of the internet as anything other than a corporate advertising tool was imminent...

And do I really have the christian coalition to thank for hope?

Armed Man a Success

The U.S. premier was quite a success, everything I heard from the audience was positive. As for my opinion, I think the work is a great in someways, but not necessarily a great work of art... gah, gotta go, more later...

no time no time...

Dress rehearsal tomorrow for "the Armed Man!"

I am quite excited, the music that I know has already grown on me quite a bit, and I'm excited to hear the parts I'm not in. Saturday will be the US premier of the new work. In the way of advertisement, take a listen at a small part of the European premier: "better is peace than always war" I especially like the end of this movement.

Nothing but work

I do nothing but eat sleep work these days, so no blog time.

I hope after this week I will have an hour or so of free time.

Dull dull boy I am right now.

Underpants... profit.

If you've looked at more than two posts on this blog, then you know that my frequent topics range from singing to bawdy limericks to Mr. Rogers back to Mindless Self Indulgence, around the corner to sociology and politics, insideout to the English language and how to teach it better, up to photography and down to fiction and poetry, nature.... basically I'm intensely curious about everything right down to why it is that that certain kind of guy just can't seem to keep his shirt on... it's like the "as seen on COPS" fashion movement.

Speaking of "as seen on COPS," in the past week or so, the PO-lice have visited our small apartment building 3 times, twice in the same day because of vandalism and once because our neighbors were having a domestic dispute. And it must be something about the flashing lights, because when the cops pulled in the the guys next door all took off their shirts and came to the windows to say "hey, hey, somethin matter fer down there?"

Though from the trajectory of egg splatter it was clear that the eggs were thrown from his back porch, I decide to play it cool and not say anything accusatory:

"Yeah well someone just egged the cars in our parking lot in broad day light"

"Uh, weel we don't got no eggs and you can check"

Right, I mean they wouldn't have any eggs *NOW* would they?

What the heck am I looking at down there?

The "pictures" of voices down below were made using a program called PRAAT. PRAAT is a tool for speech therapy that shows the different over-tones in a voice. As I said before, almost any sound you hear is actually made up of many different sounds blended together. So when I hear a trumpet, I hear only a single note, but the sound is actually made of many different notes together. The different notes that go into a single sound are what give that sound it's character. This is why a trumpet and a clarinet sound different, even when they are playing the same note-- they are actually producing many pitches at the same time, the trumpet different ones than the clarinet.

And this is also the reason that a tenor like Pavarotti and a Bass like Hines sound different-- the pitches (or "partials" when we're talking about the notes in a complex sound) that make up a bass sound are different than in a tenor voice.

From the two pictures I posted below, you can see what I'm talking about. A dark bass voice has all of the sound energy concentrated on a couple of intense sound clusters. The first dark line is called the Fundamental-- its the pitch we actually hear. A bass voice has a lot of energy put into the actual pitch we think we hear. The line is very dark and thick because a big percentage of the voices energy is here (more intensity-- "santori time"). Then the line above that determines what vowel sound we hear-- this is also dark in a bass voice. Above that there is one more thick band of sound called the singers formant, which adds beauty to the voice and makes it cary over an orchestra. Actually in a bass voice, the "singers formant" is a combination of the third and fourth partial. But you can see that above the singers formant, there is a big drop off in energy. This drop-off makes the voice sound dark and bassy.

You can see a big contrast to this in the Pavarotti picture. The energy isn't concentrated so heavily in a few areas so the bands are thinner(less intense.) Instead, the energy is spread out over 8 strong bands. These additional bands at the top make the tenor sound beautiful and "bright." At the end of the recording of the Pav, I included a couple of high notes to demonstrate what these top partials add to the voice. The first time, you hear the normal note, then in the second, I've significantly weakened these bands at the top of the voice.

Dude, like I totally see your voice right now....

Gee, I think my old college room mate used to say stuff like that in between 12 packs of ho hos.

This is a spectrograph of the great Luciano Pavarotti singing the last high C in the aria "Ah mes amis." To hear an excerpt of this aria, click here!

Seeing voices

ever wondered what a voice looks like? Here's one of my favorite singers, Jerome Hines. To hear the selection this spectrogram is taken from give us a click.

In this picture you see 3 dark blue bands. These are the "pitches" or partials that make up the sound of this voice. This dark bass voice is a composite of "pitces" in two main concentrated areas. The bottom one is the pitch you actually hear, called the fundamental. The one on top is called the "singers formant," or ring in the voice. The singers formant is important because few instruments produce sound in this area, so it helps a singer be heard over an orchestra, and adds beauty to the voice. The blue band in the middle determines what vowel sound the listener hears.

Later I'll show a tenor voice so you can see the difference between a high voice and a low one.

Two weeks until break!

And boy do I need it.

Lots to write about, no time to do it....

Singing my silly head off this Friday

I will be singing in a concert, 8:00, this Friday at Aurora University, in the Perry Theater, 347 S Gladstone Ave
Aurora, IL 60506 The concert will feature some talented young singers from the Chicago/Milwaukee area. This is technically a private concert but I'm allowed to bring some people, send me an email if you're interested.... The good thing is that, since a private event, admission is free!

Singin' my silly head off this year

Just got two more gigs-- One US premier and one world premier (maybe.)
I will be singing The Armed Man, by Karl Jenkins in Milwaukee on May 20th, and september 11th, and then in the fall I will probably be singing Michael Reagan in the premier and a recording of "Reagan's Children."

Just when I thought I was going to get a break! But I've already heard some of The Armed Man, and it seems like interesting music...

Exciting stuff!

My Birthday Requiem

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Samuel Ramey the greatest singer of the last quarter of a century, perhaps the greatest singer of the modern era.

The K and I went to the Roosevelt University Verdi Requiem, which featured bass Sam Ramey as one of the soloists. Overall, the concert should have been OK. The Chorus lacked the proper beef to deliver a truly operatic Verdi Requiem and there were some problems with the student orchestra, (which was however, also very good.) The women soloists seemed a little under weight vocally for Verdi's writing... but the singing of Sam Ramey alone was enough to raise this concert to a level of greatness.

For those that don't know, Sam Ramey has reigned supreme over the Bass concert and operatic rep for the last 20 years. But that reign has not been without controversy. Even last night, there were apparent weaknesses and paradoxes in his singing-- and yet, he may be the greatest singer I have ever heard.

The Sam Ramey controversy can be summarized by the time when he appeared in Don Carlo with Jerome Hines, in my opinion, the greatest bass of the previous generation:

Interviewer: "we all thought the other guy (Ramey) was doing just great, and then you came out, and it was like we had forgotten what a real bass sounded like."
Hines: "Yeah, they tell me I really made him sound like my boy...."

Having heard both of these singers live, I can attest to this, Jerome Hines, well, eats Sam Ramey's lunch. Hines is by far the greater bass, and yet, Ramey is still the greater singer. In fact, this is the very reason that Ramey is the greater singer.

All great "new art" represents in a sense, a criticism of what came before it. In this way, Ramey's singing represents the perfect critique of the post war generation of singers. The "post war" generation had as it's halmark the great dramatic voices: Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Hines, London, Callas: singers who made great dramatic thrilling sounds, and were not afraid to make an ugly or unhinged sound for emotional effect. Sam Ramey on the other hand seems incapable of producing a sound that is less than exquisitely beautiful. And while the most prized characteristic of the previous of the post war singers was the full ringing heroic middle voice and top, Sam Ramey seems restrained and refined on those pitches instead seeming to blossom in the rich lower parts of his voice.

It was this refined quality that led to Ramey's career as a "bel canto" singer. "Bel Canto" was a term invented to describe the the way the singing of Mattia Battistini perfectly realized the aesthetic of the middle 19th century. It has long been considered a lost art by many, and many were ready to accept Sam Ramey as a new proponent of this style. However, a closer look would show that the post war singers had more in common with Battistini's singing than Ramey does. Firstly Ramey relies heavily on aspirates (ha ha ha ha) to aticulate notes-- something never heard in battistini's singing. But more importantly, the big middle voice and emotionally declamatory style were Battistini's most distinguishing characteristic-- the things that Sam Ramey most characteristically lacks.

So Sam Ramey represents not a throw-back to the past, but a truly new aesthetic and technique-- one which may be more perfectly suited to the modern era than any singer in history. His voice has endless character and beauty. And perhaps his greatest characteristic is that, more than any other singer I know of, his voice sounds the same on recording as it does in the house. In this way, Ramey's technique represents the perfect solution to the modern career of the recording artist/performer.

Happy Bunny day!

I can't wait to eat that bunny.




Mmm....




In other news, I had a rehearsal for my concert on April 29th. Sick as a dog... It was actually very interesting.... I made myself "sing out" for everything and it actually was pretty good. I take it as a good sign that I can now sing ok even after a week of sore throats, coughing fits and stuffed nose. The concert should be pretty good, although many people missed the rehearsal and others didn't know their music yet.

In other other news, isn't it interesting how we inherit our parents fears. Yesterday at rehearsal, one of the soprani and I walked over to a cafe, a trip that required a nice jaunt over a heating vent. Lisa said she was terrified of them because her dad had fallen through one before. she wasn't there of course, but she has learned this fear from her dad.

Me, I'm afraid of bears and cockroaches. And um...

pigeons.

These are fears that I inherited form my mother. In actuality, I'm not really afraid of any of these things, I think pigeons are kinda cute, and I'd LOVE to see a bear... but yet there is some level where the idea of these things are...

scary.

Cockroaches on the other hand...


Ughhhghghgh.... creepy.

Sick as a dog

all week.

Yuck.

Just saw this today and it made me laugh myself into a coughing fit.

from http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

kid 1: Paper beats rock! Bam! I blowed up your rock!
Kid 2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes spicy. Now I got a spicy rock-- you can't beat that!

My blog: apparently about Hitler's crossdressing earlobes.

Thanks to the magic of sitemeter, I sometimes can find out how people arrived at this blog. And let me tell you, you people think of some Freaky shite!

Here are some of my favorite searches that have brought people hither:

"mom teaching their songs to masterbate" What!? I didn't even know songs COULD masterbate! I mean what does that sound like? Like, could the song I'm listening to right now be masterbating and I don't even know? And what is dear ol mommy song doing encouraging the behavior! Can a song go blind? Hairy psalms?

"Hitler's earlobes" Now this search I get. You see Hitler actually had very cute earlobes. This isn't often talked about these days what with that whole holocaust thingie, but in his early years he made quite a living as a lobe model. See what I mean? What a QT!

"Crossdresser at Walmart" Everyday low prices. Where else?

"Long Division" Sick bastards!

"bill 4437" for dummies" Yup, they got that right, it sure is!

"Lack of Pants" I sure hope that's what this site is about!

Well, off I go to google "Smurf fashion: trousers or bikinis?"

Big day yesterday

Booked a venue for my story-telling-sing-along-extravaganza in May and signed a contract for an opera and another concert in July-- exciting stuff for me, and also a nice chunk of extra change from the opera. Now I gotta lotta work to do.

The show, the Student Prince was a star vehicle for Mario Lanza, and that's about all I know of it. But it sounds like delightful music and a light comedy in the old MGM sort of style-- if I'm lucky I'll get to do some dancing!

Add on novel

So here are the chapters of what I intended as a community novel. I'm still open to anyone who wants to write a bit... just post it in the comments.
Here's the novel so far:
chapters 1-3
chapter 4
installment 5
mini bit

Dead again

The burritos have no taste

What was the name of this place? Reality swims around when you're possessing someone. It feels like the city, with bits of sensation and thought flooding past with jarring fragmentation.

"Well, Come on." my body says. "It's time to go." She sits there quietly. "look, we can't be late, ok? We gotta go now! If I don't show up with you soon...." My body goes quiet. It smiles in a comforting way. She looks up. "Everything will be ok, I say in a paternal and comforting way, but something isn't right. I don't feel assured. I think I feel...

fear.

This isn't getting me anywhere, and I feel if I stay I might be lost... not yet... I need to go back, back to that day....

Poetica Concretica

A ratio:

Killingly/Livingly=Thrillingly

cheap poetry is a cheap game:
Which is harder on the heart?
Which is harder on the hands?
Harder on the man?
cheap poetry as a cheap game:

These things in a room:
Severed hands
severed head
Limbs apart
the color red
a bomb
a mask
a man in pain (oh god the pain)
the soldiers knife
the thrill
the gory glory
and the pain.

And what's the name of this room?

Across the hall these things in a room:
ecstatic souls
a joyous day
the color white
a dove
and roses
sweaty night
heart in bloom
same in womb
some pointless fight
Severed hands
severed heads
severed hearts
sorry souls
and pain of being apart.

What's the name of this room?

Each room is empty fill it up!
And which is harder on the heart?

postlude concrete

on my desk:
blue bottle
Metronome
pencil
eraser
14 "cd"s
8 markers
nicor bill
ComEd bill
Photograph of my sister
Cell phone
Tea
Note pad
lamp
computer
In my head this poem:

A dead man.
Take a skull.
cover it in paint.
rub against canvas.
skull against canvas.

add on novel mini addition

Previous chapters down yonder, I'll link to them when I'm feeling less lazy.

CHAPTER 5.1

Yes, this was definitely my funeral. And there's my cousin....

And what is that scratching my nose.... it seems to be a hand...
Dah! get it away!

Nothing happens... I open my mouth to speak and in a strange voice I say, "come now, lets go home."

Very very strange. I would have never guessed from the movies that this is what it would feel like to be... uh, haunting someone, if that's what I'm doing.

I'm fat.

And sweating.

I wish I could be nervous or something but I can't. But I feel...

The strange voice again; "I'm starving lets go get some burritos."

I like pictures

pictures that k doesn't like. Thank you to Je Suis for the linkage.

Poetic Aesthetic

EDITED

First let me put a link here: Keri

Before I said something that wasn't really true, that I prefer her prose to her poetry, where it's really just a mater of my mood.

Too many thoughts to try to parse them out coherently here... here are a couple of poems that hopefully do part of the job for me. They were written on the day that the US attacked Iraq.

Our Poetry, My Love, is Death

How today can I write to you
who know my mind without words?

In this jarring age, can I
express, with our shared
lexicon, the beauty I witness in you?

"Mission: Endurring Love" (around the clock coverage!)


"Showdown in LoveTown!"

or perhaps

"Target: LOVE"

Simple words mask our
profound horrors,
Our poetry, my love, is death.

Words have become brutal instruments
of death.
Language no longer reveals or shares
it scabs festering lies and death.

In it's ennui it is death and
even in extremity it is banal:
How many who shit and fuck and bleed
can be erased with one callous
Euphemism: "collateral damage."

So hold me, and listen to my body.
My warmth against your skin.
Confesses one shared future together.
Share your lips, and share with me
what can never be made an act of
war.

Postlude to "Our Poetry:" a Pastoral Dance

In your eyes, my love I see death,
and on your lips I taste it.
And though your breath is sweet
my love, it's daggers to me and death.

And all about your smooth white skin
(which almost seems too white)
is wrapped a chain of skulls my dear
(a chain of endless night.)

And on your fine white clothing love
(which almost seems too fine)
are tiny hand prints, see them love--
much smaller than yours or mine?

I see them hold hands with death as they sew,
(hands with death as they sew!)

And we too hold tight their frail wrists
(as we sow and reap)
and 'round the world the chain goes...

Ah, thank the lordy it's spring break!

And I'm done with teaching for a week. The last week or so I feel like I've been hanging from the sanity tree by my teeth. Right now I've been learning music for a concert in April, programming a sort of recital at my college, working on some ideas with spectral analysis and teaching and it's just too much.

I think I'm going to pretty up some pictures of voices because I think it's really interesting. I've really learned to literally see the beauty in voices... this week I intend to post some explanations of what I mean....

I murdered my ex wife, what did you do?

The place: Federal maximum security penitentiary. Even through the dim lighting you can see the grime and grease-stained floors-- rusted bars.

The dark figures of hardened criminals rise and swarm around the new addition to their cell. They swagger and strut menacingly with the body language of sharks surrounding their pray.

Inmate one: Fresh meat on deck boys!

(sounds of laughter. The new guy, LUCKYMORTAL sits quietly but intensely, unmoved by the taunts of the other criminals)

Inmate two: Well, fresh meat, you gonna tell us your name?

Luckymortal doesn't respond, he just continues to sit in silence.

Inmate two: You hear me fresh meat?! I'm talkin' t'you! Why, I ought ta rip you up, just like I did that stupid....

Inmate three: that's right, "Sharkey" here, he killed his mail carrier. Ripped her apart with his bare hands! (some more laughter. Inmate three continues quietly in a raspy voice:) Me, I killed my wife. Stabbed her sixteen times in that black pit she called a heart. What did you do to get here fresh meat? Go on and confess your sins before we mop up the floor in here with your worthless hide!

(finally, luckymortal rises slowly, his face just inches away from the other inmate's. He doesn't flinch, staring at him with his soulless eyes. He spits on the floor. Them slowly and calmly, his hardened voice rasping:

Luckymortal: I conjugated a verb in front of some mexicans

commotion ensues, the other prisoners recoil with shocked expressions of horror. Luckymortal curls his lip with a menacing snear and laughs a cold evil laugh....

This blog drama brought to you by HR 4437, which would criminalize helping undocumented immigrants in any way: including teaching them English. The bill would make such violations of immigration law "aggravated felonies"-- a category usually reserved for the most violent crimes like premeditated murder and rape.

Music Brain Again

Well, I'm finally feeling better....
but now I'm all up in music brain again and I can't write anything.

A little more on immigration policy:

Firstly, I have to say that I am for a stronger immigration policy of some kind. I think that our current immigration status is dangerous for the American economy for the same reason that out-sourcing is; it turns us into a banana republic. It is a continuation of the ruinous policy of allowing an American elite to sell off our Autarky for personal profit. The end result is predictable and disastrous.

However, the proposed bill 4437 is soulless and cruel and would only push us further down the road to a Argentinean style economy.

This bill is the very definition of fascist economics. It would punish victims (small businesses-- the victims of our national economic policy of destroying small business, and immigrants) while appealing to nationalistic sentiment. It's main goal is to hinder small local businesses while helping big-business, further concentrating wealth in the hands of the ultra-wealthy-- the definition of fascist economics....

Just plain bad news.

Immigration Law

(Written with help from my English Students)

All over the country, Americans of all colors are coming out to protest a new “anti-immigration” law. The law: HR 4437 the Hastert/Sensenbrenner “Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act” is intended to make America safer. However many people say that the bill will do little to make America safer, and do much to hurt immigrants tourists and the American way.
The new law has already passed in the House of Representatives, and Republicans are trying to pass the law quickly in the Senate, before there is any debate.
Here are some parts of the new law:
 It will be illegal for any person, organization or agency to aid illegal immigrants in any way. If the bill is passed, services like doctors, free English Classes, and shelters and even churches could be used to put illegal immigrants in prison.
 It will make immigration laws “aggravated felonies.” The term Aggravated felony” is usually for the most violent crimes like intentional murder and rape.
 The bill will change the “Burden of Proof.” In the United States, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. The new law will make the immigrant responsible for proving that he or she is here legally.
 Local governments and police will be given the right to take care of immigrants as they want to without the courts getting involved. All government agencies (even the fire department and hospitals) will be required help find illegal immigrants.
 The government can deport even legal immigrants for minor crimes. These minor crimes will be classified as “aggravated felonies” and will have harsh penalties.
 700 miles of border fence .
 Mandatory worker legal verification through electronic means for all employers phased in over several years.
 Elimination of the visa lottery.
If you want to do something about this law, you can write to your Senators. Also there will be a March against H.R. 4437 - Friday, March 10th at noon at the Federal Plaza (Kluczynski Building), 230 S. Dearborn St. When: 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Come join immigrants from all over the nation in a historic march this Friday, March 10th at 12 noon! We need to send a message to the nation!

Light blogging

a little longer. I've been feeling a little under the weather. I hope to be back to it by the weekend.

Trogdor Rogers!

Ah, a nice romantic evening at home....

Wait, it's quality time that's important, right?

Dick Cheney Ninjas karate chopping our children-- oh the humanity!

An interesting (and looong) article on government intervention in violent video games atIGN.COM And a discussion of the article at slashdot.

Everyone today is worried about violence in the media. "Too many Ninjas karate chopping robots." But worst of all, our children are now pretending to be ninjas karate choppng robots and the fancy graphics of modern video games make their kung fu antics very realistic. And many are now crying out to ban these games, or at least take strong actions to keep them away from children.

As the article points out, Censorship is not new. But let me add a little music history perspective to the discussion. Ancient Greece was a pretty boring place to be: No ninjas. No robots. But even back then, the likes of Plato (in Republic) advocated for censorship of certain music "modes" because the were too... (drum roll please)...

"non violent."

That's right Plato led an effort which actually ended in certain city states (sparta- but not plato's native athens) passing laws to ban certain music modes because they were too gentle and might make young men too "soft" and "sentimental" and hence utterly useless in war.

This leads me to the conclusion that we're missing the whole point of violence in media-- it's not good, it's not bad-- it's about pragmatics. All media has a certain effect-- well, what kind of effect do you want to have? Not good or bad-- it's about skillful use of media or unskillful use of media. The US government has certainly come to the same conclusion. If you ever wanted clear proof that our culture has deteriorated into a sort of comic-book, Science fiction, Klingon-war-society then check out the US Army page here

That's right, the maker of the two most popular extreme violence video games today is the US Government.

Hmm, so what kind of society do we want to have? To me, the effects of violent media are horrible for our society, and according to psychologists, the effects are the same on adults as they are on children!

But are more laws the answer? Well, although the US has fewer protections for consumers and workers than any other western nation, it has more outlawed behaviors than any other country in the world (accept in some people's opinions the few countries with strict sharia law-- though this is debated!) Gee, with fewer freedoms (to act freely and freedom from government intervention in our lives) than any country you might start getting the idea that we arn't the beacon of freedom we say we are. So lets not make "the terrorists", who "hate freedom," jealous by throwing yet another freedom on the fire.

Yet again, my solution is that people need to be taught to take responsibility for the state of their minds, and to understand how our minds actually work. People need to be pragmatic about how we keep the state of our minds-- do you want to walk around all the time with our fight or flight mechanism turned on? Do we want our children to do that too?

So how does violent media effect us? Here are the best parts of the article: (keep in mind that the results for violent to and movies is Double that of video games, and the amount of time spent with these media increases the effect hugely!)


Playing videogames with aggressive content does have an effect on children, teens, and adults. In children and teens, several results are associated with exposure to aggressive videogames.

First, youth experience an increase in arousal that suggests an increase in tension that may contribute to aggressive behavior.

Second, youth engage in more aggressive thinking about others and changes their attitudes toward people as they emerge from play more likely to believe that others are interested in harming them.

Third, play diminishes the level of empathy that kids have for other people.

Fourth, play has an effect on the amount of aggressive behavior demonstrated in verbal aggression, teasing, and some physical aggression by increasing the frequency of these actions...

Finally, playing and viewing does desensitize people to aggressive images and the impact of aggression on others. After play and viewing, children are much less distressed by images of characters being hurt or killed, and, given their reduced empathy, more likely to engage in aggressive behavior against others.

Got Voice?

I recently attended a performance a friend was in, and he asked me for some advice on singing from a voice teacher perspective. So I rather quickly hatched out an email and then I realized that (amazingly) what I had written communicated my philosophy on studying voice pretty clearly. So I decided to reprint parts of it here. I intend to improve on this in the future, but....




If you want to work on your singing, here's what I'd have to say: "don't WORK on your singing." Many people think in terms of "vocal problems" and such, and this is a very ruinous way of thinking. Don't try to fix anything or change anything, don't try to "project," and especially don't try to "sing forward"-- then you lose the special qualities that make your voice unique. Besides this, by over analyzing, we only get in our own way-- read "the inner game of tennis" or "a soprano on her head" by Elois Ristad-- Your Language Brain is quite separate from the parts of your brain that you want involved in your singing That is unless your trying to learn to conjugate "the hill are alive". A great singer will approach singing the same way a great athlete would-- with visualization. And the other parts of your brain will do quite well at improving your voice if you just get out of the way and let them.

Firstly, for this to happen, your voice has to have it's own natural balance, so always try to find the relaxed and easiest effortless way to sing. Listen to the tone of your voice and imagine it as beautiful as you can. Listen to good singing and let it have an imagined visual footprint in your head-- what does a good voice "look" like? By doing this, you're allowing all of your brains resources to get involved in your voice progress. And most importantly, sing often-- and sing with a vivid imagination. Learn to visualize your own voice the way you visualize other voices.... Slowly, your voice will start to look like the voices you consider beautiful (and sound like them too) without loosing the characteristics that make it unique.

But you should also pick good models for you to listen to.... Right now I'm doing research with spectral analysis and voice types.... You know that every sound we hear is actually a composite of different pitches... well these pitches are different for different voice types. And some of these things are unchangable. This is at least my future thesis, and my research thus far bears it out. You can imitate a different voice type, but from the stage, it will always sound like your voice, because you can't get the right harmonic response....

Male voices have four formants (or main pitches that make up the sound). The first is the actual pitch you are singing. The second has to do with making different vowel sounds. The third adds a feeling of space in the voice. The fourth formant is called "the singers formant" and it is really a combination of the fourth fifth sixth and seventh formants. This is ring in the voice, but it's different for tenors, baritones and bases. Tenors for example have a lot of ring in the fifth sixth and seventh formants, whereas bases have all of the energy concentrated in the fourth formant, with almost no energy in the fifth and above this is what makes a voice dark and bassy. This is my voice. I can try to sound like a tenor, and it works up close, but I can not generate energy above the Fourth formant, so from the stage I always sound like a bass-- a bass doing a bad imitation of a tenor!

So basically, just relax and sing, and don't worry too much (at this point) about changing anything. Just build your ear and your imagination. And enjoy singing.

Thank You Mr. Rogers

From the Tao Te Ching:

The true leader leads from behind

Taoism was not a religion which was invented by a leader to set forth a way of being. It was not an invented religion. It was a description of the ways of the great sages who came before "Taoism." In this way it is unlike any other religion or philosophy. Taoism did not teach the people, the people taught taoism.

If you wish to know the way of the great sages, you need look no further than Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers led from the bottom, and yet I believe that his silent impact on people in our century will have been greater than many political so called "leader."

Mr. Rogers taught a message of peace, sympathy and inclusion that was beautiful. Though he had been a minister, he refused to ever mention religion in his show, because he said that he would be devastated "if any child ever felt excluded from the neighborhood." He defined "injustice" as not taking care of the people who can't take care of themselves, and in a calm and forgiving tone, he said that this injustice made him very angry. Most importantly, he said the very purpose of the neighborhood was to teach children that THEY were special, not because of their things, but because of themselves, and that the greatest gift any person could give was just to be themselves-- it's the only unique gift that we're capable of giving, and that every person is worthy of our love. He believed that it was insecurity that drove people to take more that their fair share.

But his message was only the beginning of his teaching. Just as in the Lotus sermon, where the Buddha silently held aloft a lotus blossom and appreciated it's beauty, Mr. Roger showed us.

Today, who will teach the children?

Modern TV and Video games don't "entertain" us. They do not act on us by telling us stories or by communicating with our minds-- Modern TV acts on the human body directly-- TV shows are now designed to trigger the FIGHT OR FLIGHT mechanism. They trigger a release of chemicals into the blood and make us feel liker we're being chased by a band of viscous cave men. And this is very exciting.

When I was a child, we had cartoons in the morning and after school, and on the weekend there was Saturday morning. The rest of the time we had to entertain ourselves. And we had Mr. Rogers to entrance us and to relax and calm us. Today, children have 24 hour a day cartoons and video games. Furthermore, the Cartoons have become more sophisticated about triggering the nervous system's defense mechanisms and causing "excitement." We are teaching people in our society to feel beset by cavemen at all times. This will be a generation of Americans who crave constant drama constant strife-- "stress" will be the very way it "feels to be human" for us, and we will go out of our way to create violence and stress in our lives. In essence we are creating in our culture a dependancy on our own body drugs, and addiction to violence and drama.

Will we become an even more violent culture? A culture of ultra consumers who require constant vital stimulation and "entertaining?"

Who will be there to provide the example of a calm mind and a caring soul?

Mr. Rogers we still need you....

Guilty

And now I feel all guilty....

Ok, she has to have some redeeming characteristics....

Um, well she's sort of nice.... But also kind of rude and well, ok, she isn't very nice at all actually. And she isn't very trustworthy either. OK, so she's basically morally despicable.

But I do feel sorry for her.

Oh, I got it! There is something really really good about her.

She is (usually) very open about what she doesn't know, and she's very honest about that (on most occasions). It's amazingly charming to find someone so lacking in hubris (most of the time)-- and that really is something to learn from!

Ok, now I feel better.

Longest. Post. Ever. Sorry.

Wow, that sure was a lotta garbage yesterday.... If you're just checking in here today, I recommend you skip all the stuff after "IQ" unless you're really into educational philosophy.

But the parts about the really dumb person are gods honest truth. And please don't think I was making fun of dumb people-- in fact, I usually believe that there is no such thing as "dumb people," most all of the time calling someone "stupid" is a judgment of their values-- that's just the point.

But this person however (and this will be that last time I write about the poor gal)... every day that she manages to stay out of the Darwin awards baffles me. And what's more impressive is that she somehow managed to get a college degree without ever learning that people in different countries speak different languages, or that the "middle east" isn't in "in England-- where jesus was"... she was shocked to learn that there are people in the world who don't have electricity and indoor plumbing and more shocked to learn that toasters and showers do not work without electricity or plumbing... amazed to learn that there was such a thing as deserts and bewildered that people actually live in them... she's perplexed by higher mathematics like single digit addition, and she is incapable of having a simple conversation without getting hopelessly confused. Then, when she gets frustrated and embarrassed about her inability to have a conversation she shakes her head and makes obscene farting noises and slaps and ridicules herself (which she basically does constantly)... all this without any obvious clinical mental handycap. Ah... I have so many great stories about this person, but unfortunately my blog is not anonymous enough to tell them....

It's very frightening to think of what she must have been like many years ago when she was actually in college... has her brain just atrophied in her post college years, or was she always like this?

"I.Q.", "G," & "MI" at the U and my "almost too dumb to be alive" acquaintance.

OR

Beating Around the Cliche Bush with the Ugly Stick

OR

"Help! Those Ninjas Stole My Multiple Intelligences!"

Ok, so as you might have guessed, this post has to do with concepts of "beauty and intelligence," "stereotyped perception and cliches" and "Ninjas kicking butts."

Well, actually, it doesn't have much to do with Ninjas kicking butt.... However I did have an unfortunate reunion with what has to be the dumbest person I've ever encountered, and I really wish someone would drop kick her butt. But, uh, I'll try to work in the Ninjas somewhere anyhow.

About this woman:

Kurt Vonnegut once described a character in a novel as being "almost too dumb to be alive." This acquaintance of mine might be the only person I have ever met worthy of such a description.

For example, I once witnessed her volunteering to explain to someone what a "denominator" was. It was bad enough that she clearly had no idea that this was the word for the unlucky chap on the underside of a fraction, but couldn't admit her ignorance. No, what followed was one of the greatest displays of dumb I have ever witnessed, and god, I wish I had it on tape. And let me stress, this spectacle was completely in earnest: she transformed before our eyes into Coach Z. She kept trying to say the word "denominator" over and over agian, and somehow couldn't say it right. Actually, she couldn't even get close. She is a native speaker of English, but I have never heard the sounds she was making in any language before-- it could easily have been the native language of Pluto:

"dee- norm-men-urgenerg"

'dee-nort-enizer"

"dee-neg-gent-urger"

And she kept stopping and shaking her head, slapping her own face and saying "why can't I say it?" And then she would try again, fail, and then make a raspberry type of farting noise, and try some more:

"dee-germ-entyper"

Then, she even wrote the word down. She studied it carefully, and tried again very slowly. Each time we thought she was going to be successful until at the last moment she would somehow miss it:

(very slowly and deliberately:) "deeeeeee-noooooom-eeeeeeen-aaaaa--geerrggggeoorrrrrrggg."
"deeeeeee-nooooooom-eeeeeeen-gerrrrggggggner.

This went on for what seemed like an hour. She must have tried literally at least 40 times.... (denomejader)

And this story by no means exhausts this being's vast resources of stupidity....

So, as you can imagine, the only thing that gets me through any meeting with this person are my fantasies of her being ripped apart by Ninjas while she inexplicably and gleefully makes fart noises and shouts "look dancer, Whooo! I learned to crochet!" (which she annoyingly pronounces "crotch it.")

IQ

But not only is her existence personally trying, her irrefutable dunder-headed-ness is intellectually upsetting for me as well.

You see, her absolute lack of intelligence is the only sure refutation of my insistence that there is no such thing as "general intelligence" ("g") or even more broadly intelligence as a whole.

"No such thing as intelligence?" you ask? Yes, the idea of "so and so" being smarter than "whosey who" has become an unquestionable assumption in our culture. But it is just these types of absolute truths that we need to question the most. When someone says "boy, that sure is a smart kid!" or "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or some other well-worn platitude, it carries the power of generations of acceptance. Hence it's veracity is never questioned. Which is really too bad.

Firstly, these cliches make a duality where there is more likely a continuum: "either beauty is in the eye of the beholder or it isn't." The truth however is probably more gray than black and white. I think we continue to use cliches because we want them to be true, not because they are. The idea of intelligence is very flattering if you come out on the "superior" side while it makes a lovely excuse for ones failings if we land on the downside. So for a long time we had the idea of "general intelligence," which as we now know, was invented by a couple of Phrenologists for the purpose of showing that white people were better than people with other colors of skin, after measuring skulls failed to verify Arian superiority.

But there were lots of problems with "G." Firstly, it didn't seem to be a good predictor of anything (not even race, which to some was it's greatest failing.) One kid gets a high IQ and another gets a low IQ. Statistically their odds of success remained the same.

But then Howard Gardner back-flipped onto the scene with his theory of Multiple Intelligences and saved the day. Gardner gave us the idea that there is no such thing as "g", but instead there are "self smarts," "music smarts," "body smarts," "math smarts," "picture smarts," "word smarts," "nature smarts" and the "popular girl smarts." Well, I guess that's a little better.... And it does seem to be a slightly better predictor of success-- at least in specific endeavors.

However, here is the problem. Take Mozart for example. Did he have "music smarts." Sure he did. Did he have lots of other smarts too? Of course. But why was Mozart so great? Was it just a gift for tunefulness? Absolutely not. Perhaps it was his math smarts which allowed him to construct such perfectly ordered compositions. Or his "popular girl smarts" that enabled him to communicate so fully with us. And what happens when we compare Mozart to Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Lizt or Mahler? Well, we see that one is a great composer because of his picture smarts, one because of his self smarts, one because his nature smarts and one because of his body smarts. How important were their "music smarts?" I'm not sure there even is such a thing!

And the same would be true for writers, mathematicians, and popular girls.

So because of this failing, certain people have tried expanding Multiple Intelligences into a complex swirling entangled grid of fluctuating kinds of intelligence. Though I enjoy contemplating these theories to the music of Pink Floyd, they are basically worthless for understanding anything about so-called intelligence

The truth is that as our concepts of "intelligence" come closer to the real world, "intelligence" becomes synonymous with "individuality." Mozart was a genius because of his specific life experiences and understandings. Same with all the other composers, and same with every other human. We each have something unique and powerful that we can all learn from-- we are each a clever solution to the problems that we encounter. And even a lack of typical "g" can represent a powerful intelligence of a sort. Those of us who encounter difficulties learning may become geniuses at teaching! Remember that Einstein declared that his eventual insights were due to the relative trouble he had at understanding concepts that were easy for his contemporaries.

The truth is that their ARE multiple intelligences-- somewhere's around 6 billion of em.

And as for my ridiculously stupid friend from above, I even learned from her! I'll be consulting with her about my new theory of "singular dumbs."