KJ

Because I have learned to set realistic expectations for myself during a concert week, I am skipping answering a question from my meme today. I'll probably skip Thursday as well. (I have a better chance of following through on Friday, because I have the day off of work.) Whether I answer two questions on a few days to make up for it, or just do fewer questions, depends entirely on whether you folks fill the entire month up. ;)

The piece is Vaughan Williams's Hodie; it will probably never be one of my favorites, but there are some segments of it that I like very much -- parts that are fun to listen to, parts that are fun to sing. The tough bit is the venue: Stanford Memorial Church is a lovely space, but it's very echoey, and it's very hard for us to hear ourselves over the orchestra. The first time through any piece, particularly, is a real challenge. Still, overall our first dress went pretty well, and I'm looking forward to the concert.

Work continues to plod along. It's between midterms and ramping up for finals, so things are fairly quiet right now. Calm before the storm, as they say.

I finished the first edit of my Mega Flare; now it just needs one more run-through, and a title. Why do I have such a hard time coming up with titles? I've auditioned a few ideas and hate them all. Titles and endings: my nemeses. Although once I found the ending for this story, I was instantly happy with it. Maybe I'll feel the same way about the title, once it presents itself.

Following links, and I came across what appears to be a review of "The Confessional" written in Czech!

I ran it through Google Translator, and it seems to be generally positive, although with auto translation it can be hard to tell. Any Czech speakers out there?

It's times like this that remind me why I keep my work up on FF.net, despite all its annoyances. And also just how big, and yet small, the Web really is...

That just now occurred to me: Michael Voltaggio reminds me of Logan Echolls. Especially in looks, but also a little bit in attitude. (We will forget for a moment that one is real and the other is fictional. Although I suspect that almost anyone on reality TV has a persona that s/he plays up for the camera.)

This is how I know it's Labor Day Weekend in San Francisco: I can hear the jackhammers hard at work on the Bay Bridge.

Also by the fact that the weather has turned into summer, right on cue. Although Weather Underground says it's supposed to be cooler tomorrow. Dear weather: stop raining (not literally) on my parade. It's September! The fog is supposed to take its annual vacation now!

No real plans for the long weekend at this point. Maybe that means I'll get to relax. Mmm, relax.

I've had a few occasions to pass this along lately, so I figured I might as well share it with all of you, as well: The Postmodernism Generator

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Related, the story of a famous parody paper that deconstructed quantum physics, which then got taken seriously. As always, Wikipedia has more.

Pick ten names. That's not ten names from each poll; that's ten names, total, across all three polls. No cheating. Ceiling cat knows where you live. Feel free to promote this like mad! The more the merrier.

The poll will stay open for three days (until 11pm, Pacific time, on Thursday, 4/9), at which time the deathmatch will commence!

FFX-2-only characters will get a separate match of their own later.

[Poll #1379434]

Two music related items:

1. It's a concert week, and the orchestral piece on the program is one of the most fascinating musical performances I've ever witnesses: Tan Dun's Water Concerto. Tan is best known to most audiences as the composer of the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but he's mostly famous for exploring unusual musical territory, and this is no exception. It's a concerto for percussion soloist and orchestra, and the soloist plays water instruments. Two large bowls of water, struck with the hands and a variety of objects; gongs struck in and out of the water to change the pitch; urns filled with water and played with a bow and sticks; hollow tubes placed in the water and struck with a paddle. It's almost impossible to describe; I've been trying to think of how since I first watched it during Thursday's dress rehearsal. It really must be seen to be understood. I was able to find the following video, which is unfortunately pretty poor quality, and it doesn't really encompass the entire scope of the experience, but it's better than my description or a recording would be. I really recommend you see it if you ever get the chance. Unfortunately, the recommendation comes a little late for the locals; the last show is tonight, 8pm at Stanford.



It's not just the water, either. The winds and brass play empty mouthpieces and hit the open ends of their instruments; the strings tap the body of the instruments and hit the strings. Tan stretches the potential of all the instruments in the orchestral, and even the concept of music itself. But unlike most experimental music, I found it very listenable. I may even pick up a recording, if I can find a good one.

2. One thing a concert week is good for is catching up on all the podcasts that pile up on my iPod as I drive to Stanford and back. Last night, I was listening to an older This American Life. It's actually several years old, but this particular rebroadcast was from a couple weeks ago. One segment particularly caught my attention: an attempt to scientifically create the song that the most people would find appealing. Two artists and a musician surveyed hundreds of people to find out what they liked in their music, and they recorded a song that used as many of those elements as possible. The result was just about the blandest pop song you could imagine -- not offensive, but not really art either. At the same time, they also wrote a song that incorporated the most disliked elements, and came up with a 20-minute fusion of opera, rap, children singing, holiday music, bagpipes and accordions, and commercial jingles -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can read more about the project here; Wired Magazine provides streaming audio. Maybe it just appeals to my sense of the absurd, but something about an opera singer rapping about cowboy life while accordions and tubas oompa along in the background had me laughing so hard that I cried. And some passages, again to my surprise, I found unexpectedly musical. I'd certainly rather listen to this than the forgettable "most wanted" pop tune. Is it art? Is it music? Either way.

Hacked road construction signs warn of attacking zombies.

As the article points out, there are all sorts of reasons this shouldn't be funny. But it made me laugh anyway.

First, the Pew Global Attitudes survey which finds, among other things, a correlation between religiousness and wealth on a national level. The chart is about halfway down the page. None of this is too surprising, really, but I found it interesting to see it laid out graphically. Most notable outlier? Surprise, surprise: it's the United States.

Commenters on Alas, a Blog (where I found the graph) raise the fair point that we can't tell from that chart how religiosity is measured.

Next, a piece at Shakesville on the potential resurrection of the woolly mammoth. What does that have to do with religion? That's what the Shaker would like to know:

It was a geniunely fascinating article. Until i got to end, where I read this bit:

"Catholic teaching opposes all human cloning, and all production of human beings in the laboratory, so I do not see how any of this could be ethically acceptable in humans," said Richard Doerflinger, an official with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What is that quote even doing in a science article? You never read a story about a church bake sale being interrupted with an interview from some Nietzschean saying "God is dead, cookies are pointless and futile."

It's as though the New York Times has a clause somewhere in all their science writers' contracts: no article about cloning without a quote from some religious official reminding us that human cloning is wrong.

Finally, on the lighter side, and also from Shakesville, here's a bit on write-in votes for Jesus, who came in fourth among in write-ins among Jacksonville, FL voters, tied with None of the Above. The write-in winner? Hillary Clinton. The whole post and as well as the comments are a highly amusing read; recommended.