theWheel

Worth a look…

theOwl

What a cool picture.  A bit too realistic – it does feel a bit like this sometimes.  (I identify with the little people…)  I like the riot cops as pawns – so true.

I can’t source this image now.  I will when I find the information.

theOwl

(I wrote the following screed a month ago and didn’t publish it. Perhaps I thought it over-the-top, angry, bitter – somehow unworthy of theWheel.  And yet, what more appropriate tone can one adopt? This one may come back to bite me, but it’s real today.)

OK.  I’m calling bullshit.  Physics.  “String Theory”  Enough is enough.

Calling all string theorists.  Do you have any evidence for your theory?  Any repeatable testable observations?  Anything at all?  Looks like religion to me.  Fancy math.  I can’t do your fancy string theory math – or more to the point, until there is any repeatable testable experimental evidence, I see no point in learning esoteric notations that so far as I can tell refer to nothing.  Except maybe tenure.

I am not an illiterate.  I can read an orchestral score, but I assure you I would never have bothered to learn without first hearing repeatable testable renditions of scores.  Fancy graphics can embody great art and beauty.  They can also serve as smoke screens.

Enough is enough.

(Links to the Economist. and a blog called Not Even Wrong.)  Decide for yourself.

theOwl

This week it is my happy duty to be directing actors in a scene from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal. The scene in question, Scene I from ACT II, is between the rather late middle aged Sir Peter Teazle and his young wife Lady Teazle:

SIR PETER.  Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I’ll not bear it!

LADY TEAZLE.  Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it or not, as you please; but I ought to have my own way in everything, and what’s more, I will, too.  What! though I was educated in the country, I know very well that women of fashion in London are accountable to nobody after they are married.

So what to do with the actors?  » Read the rest of this entry «

theOwl

I spent last weekend in Chicago at the 2009 TAA Tamburitza Extravaganza. To seize upon just one musical marvel among many, let me note that I really enjoy Macedonian music, and in particular, the extraordinary grooves that grow as a hybrid collaboration between the dancers and musicians. In fact, there is no need to distinguish between the dancers and musicians, as they are both in these grooves very much together.

How do people dance in 7/8? Here’s how:

In the above video dancers at the 2009 Tamburitza Extravaganza dance in a fast 7/8 meter to the music of Sviraj, of Steeltown, PA.

As far as I can tell, these “odd metered” Macedonian musics are constructed of segments of 2 and 3 beats. For instance, a 7/8 will be felt as (3+2+2) or (2+2+3). An 11/8 might be felt as (2+2+2+2+3) or (3+2+2+2+2) or (2+2+3+2+2) or (2+3+2+2+2) or whatever… A 25/8 might be felt as a conglomeration of smaller units, like ( (2+2+3) + (2+2+3) + (2+2) + (2+2+3) ) – that’s one “bar”.

Of course, if you have to count it, you’re probably not feeling it. Also, these musical events often get going so fast that the 2′s feel like single beats, and the 3′s feel like a single beat followed by a bit of an amorphous pause.  After a while the dancers simply levitate.

I’ve played around with composing to these rhythms. Here’s me on bass, Aron Kaufman on traps, and Sam Clark on guitar kicking around a 14/8 groove (2+2+3+3+2+2) a couple of years ago at Oz’s here in Ann Arbor.

- 14/8 snippet

Someday…

theOwl

This morning a metaphor for our current battle to include a Robust Public Option in the President’s health insurance plan struck me.  Have a look at these lines from Walt Whitman’s The Battle of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis.

Our frigate takes fire,

The other asks if we demand quarter?

If our colors are struck and the fighting done?

Now I laugh content for I hear the voice of my little captain,

We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our

part of the fighting.

President Obama, we are ready to fight for your health plan if it contains a Robust Public Option.  Most of us Americans are sick and tired of having our lives lorded over by Corporations, much as the American colonists with whom John Paul Jones was fighting in 1779 were sick and tired of having their lives lorded over by the British.

This is really where we’re at, isn’t it?  Either we are Sovereign Citizens or we are just little pansy Consumers, and all this noise about Democracy and being represented in Congress is just a Potemkin village, a soporific,  a farce to keep us pacified while the Big Bosses have their way with us.

What’s it going to be, America?

Serene stands the little captain,

He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,

His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.

theOwl

The Internet is great.  Basically, what we have here is a graphical (not notated) score of the Allegro from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony scrolling by while you listen to a recording of the music.  There are a bunch of these. Best to watch/listen in full screen.

I first ran across this stuff at The Daily Dish...

theOwl

Anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.

Tomorrow at one PM, Karen and I will drive to our local Honda dealer to close the deal on a new car, a 2009 Honda Fit.  As part of the deal, we will deliver to the dealer one “Clunker” – in this case a literally accurate description, as it really truly clunks, particularly around curves – my 1998 Mercury Villager minivan – see above…   » Read the rest of this entry «

theOwl

Mel Blanc is amazing.

theOwl

This is just too real to be real…

Here’s Sarah’s original. Shatner’s verbatim reading starts with Ms. Palin’s words one minute into the clip: