Got together and played with Chris last night, as usual for a Tuesday night.

We improvised a fair number of pieces, but few felt satisfying. At some point we shifted into a discussion of what kind of music we'd like to make, and tried to identify why we weren't getting there.

We batted around some questions which are key for my understanding of music in general: is there a way to fruitfully balance experimental music and song? What is the ideal ratio of structured playing to unstructured playing?

We've enjoyed our attempts to play with pure improvisation (experimental / unstructured) and song (non-experimental / structured), but I think that our interest falls most squarely on the sector where experimentalism and structure overlap. This may be why both Chris and I have such a high level of interest in drone music and minimalism — they are musics that are built around structures but which do not rely on the familiar song-based ones.

I don't think we will eliminate the song and improv elements entirely from our playing, but I think we are leaning towards integrating those elements into experimental metastructures.

Further reading: I wonder how this twenty-five hour collective improvisational drone went. We thought about going, but Duluth is not exactly two towns over.

Labels: creative_process, number_none

Wednesday, January 30, 2002
10:41 AM
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Both of these tortilla soup recipes look pretty good (vegetarian | contains chicken), but I think I'm going to try to avoid the vegetarian one for now, as that business about charring the poblano pepper is a little bit intimidating for someone of my "beginner cook" status.

Labels: recipes

Monday, January 28, 2002
3:49 PM
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In response to my thoughts on locational fiction, Judith points me to Andrea Moed's Annotate Space project, "a project to develop experiential forms of journalism and nonfiction storytelling for use at specific locations."

Andrea writes: "As a writer on architecture, urban design, and other site-specific subjects, I'd like to use Internet-connected, handheld computers to deliver thought-provoking experiences that enlighten people about the places they visit." The prototype "blends historical information with current events, incorporates both passive and participatory exploration, and lets users write and post their immediate, on-site responses to the places and people they encounter." All of this grew out of her thesis project (available as a large PDF) for the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

What all these lines of thought remind me of are the way that hobos, during the Great Depression, used a systems of signs to create a useful layer of information for the next batch of nomadic "users" coming to that space.

In a similar vein, we have New York collective Nomads and Residents. The "residents," people who live in New York and thus possess a certain body of "insider knowledge," attempt to set up events with the "nomads," people who are just passing through.

Labels: narrative_technology

11:17 AM
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Not so long ago, I was sent a copy of Zuihitsu, an album of theremin improvisations by James Coleman.

The theremin's basic repertoire of electronic effects are both strange and easily recognizable, a combination which may have contributed to the way it has been marginalized as an instrument. It spent much of the last century relegated to providing either novelty effects for novelty bands or space noise for science-fiction soundtracks.

However, early theremin virtuosos such as Clara Rockmore revealed that the theremin could be an instrument of remarkable range and depth. Coleman works within this tradition, generating sound-events that are remarkable for their subtlety and nuance.

Coleman's collaborators are also a talented bunch; in particular I enjoyed Liz Tonne's vocal punctuations and the experimental chamber music of the undr quartet.

Further reading: Clara Rockmore's book Method For Theremin is available as PDFs, from this site.

Labels: music, music_commentary

Saturday, January 26, 2002
2:37 PM
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Chris and I have named our inexperienced musical duo "Number None."

We got together and played on Monday and Thursday this week. Both sessions went well. On Monday we focused on playing over background drones generated by the laptop. Thursday we mostly put the laptop away in favor of testing out our new acquisition: a violin (which we purchased in a shady back-room deal, believe it or not).

I felt that Thursday was the more promising session. When we began improvising last year, our improvisations were marred by their meandering nature, their failure to develop interestingly through time. On Thursday, we improvised a handful of songs that seemed to have discrete segments. For the first time, I felt like we could hear when a song needed to change direction, and that we had enough rudimentary versatility to enact those necessary changes.

Here are playlists, in case anyone's all that interested:

Monday
The Reorganization of Work	Octave Cat, thumb piano, laptop loop
The Blooddrinking Ones	Octave Cat, gong, bells, wineglass, voice, acoustic guitar
Feldspar	Octave Cat, drum, laptop loop
Thursday
The Inconveniences of the New York Summer Season	metals, violin, laptop loop, harmonica
Skeletal Inconveniences of the New York Summer Season	metals, violin
A Dead Man	wineglasses, violin
In A Quiet Mood	voice, acoustic guitar, violin
We're the Only Ones Who Admit It	violin, Octave Cat
Bedraggled-Looking Girls	voice, Octave Cat, guitar
Such Images Are Often Playful	bowed acoustic guitar, Octave Cat, laptop

At some point, we may convert some of this material to MP3s and make it available from this site. Stay tuned.

Tonight I'll be going out and seeing Dave Pajo, aka Papa M; one of my favorite bands, Town and Country, will be opening.

Labels: number_none, personal

Friday, January 25, 2002
8:47 PM
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For a while now, I've been fantasizing about installing wireless-device-accessible fiction in public spaces around Chicago.

My most recent notes on this notion can be found over in my Narrative Technologies weblog, along with a link to this New Scientist article which discusses the tools that might help to make this possible.

And no post on these matters is really complete without a link to Headmap, the organization that got me thinking about these things in the first place.

Labels: narrative_technology

11:42 AM
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Lately I've been keeping on top of things: getting my work done on time, replacing the staples in my pantry before they're totally depleted, that sort of thing.

Today I did laundry before having run out of either clean socks or clean underwear.

What the hell is happening to me?

Labels: adulthood, ethics, personal

Wednesday, January 23, 2002
5:18 PM
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In response to my lament about being unable to locate Edward Weston's out-of-print daybooks, Jeff Ward, of Visible Darkness, posted an Edward Weston daybook entry in his weblog.

The Weston entry is concerned with writing and amateurism:

"[J]ust this one thought—if my technique in writing was as strong as my technique in photography could I not write despite confusion?—for I am usually surrounded by near or distant confusion while photographing. I lack technique in writing, hence weak or incomplete expression. I have to think—and one must not think—have no need to while creating. Yet I go stumbling along, and someday may arrive."

Check out Jeff's blog, it's good.

Labels: amateurism, art, creative_process, writing

Tuesday, January 22, 2002
11:30 PM
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celery, part two

Yesterday I wrote that I am loathe to buy celery.

That was even before I knew that it can make my underpants fall down. Thanks to Chris C. for the warning.

The rice and celery soup was OK, but not great. I added a little extra butter on a whim and the soup made my mouth feel greasy.

Labels: recipes

3:33 PM
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soup of the maestro

Celery is one of those things that I am loathe to buy, because, living alone, I never seem quite able to consume an entire bunch of celery before it rots. So I have decided that this week's simple recipe will be one that uses celery.

How about a celery soup?

How about Toscanini's Rice and Celery Soup, the soup that "the Maestro insisted on eating before conducting a concert?"

Learn more about Toscanini's life and methodology here.

Labels: recipes

Monday, January 21, 2002
2:45 PM
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cookbook testimonials

Snark writes:

there are a number of dead simple recipies in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, the single best vegetarian cookbook on the market.

Laura writes:

a book suggestion:
The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet. The food is all over the place and simple as hell--using canned beans, etc. Also, a little fancy--with the right idea, that fanciness is about clarity of flavor and not about the rarest musrooms you can find.

Labels: book_commentary, recipes

Saturday, January 19, 2002
4:04 PM
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amateurism

Friday's Imaginary Year entry is about amateurism.

One thing that I am an amateur about is playing the guitar.

Here are some pointers on how to tune a guitar, and here are seven beginning chords.

If I lived in Canada, maybe I could get a grant, because Canada has a registered charity (CAMMAC) devoted to creating opportunities for amateur musicians "to make music together in a relaxed, non-competitive atmosphere." Some articles from their journal, The Amateur Musician, are online.

Labels: amateurism, how_to, music

12:13 PM
0 comments

imagemakers

Here is a Doubletake Magazine interview with filmmaker Wim Wenders, in which he discusses Huckleberry Finn, Michael Snow, Edward Hopper, the Kinks, and comic books.

Also: photos taken by Wenders while location scouting in the West.

Speaking of photographs, I've been looking lately for examples of photographers writing about photography.

This biopage on photographer Edward Weston suggests that Weston was also a prolific writer:

"Weston kept very detailed journals or 'Day Books' of his daily activities, thoughts, ideas and conversations. His first publication of these writings, From My Day Book, appeared in 1928 — others were published after his death.

I would like to read excerpts from some of these day books, but they're out of print (and used copies are prohibitively priced). A perfunctory Google search doesn't turn up much, either.

Labels: art, photography

Thursday, January 17, 2002
8:01 PM
0 comments

instruments and voices

I was talking to Rich a while ago about how my musical tastes, in recent years, have leaned away from song-based albums, and towards instrumental albums. He asked me for some recommendations, and, as a result, I have decided to write up brief descriptions of ten of my favorite instrumental albums and post them on Rich's media weblog, Super Karate Monkey Fist. The first one is up there now: a review of Brian Eno's Music For Airports.

In other news, tonight vocal improviser / sound poet Jaap Blonk is playing in Chicago. Last time I saw him perform, he put on a solo show (performing his own vocal compositions as well as famous ones by Kurt Schwitters and Antonin Artaud). Tonight, however, he is leading an octet, with the remaining seven slots filled by the usual suspects of the Chicago improv scene: Guillermo Gregorio, Ken Vandermark, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jeb Bishop, Jim Baker, and Kent Kessler. I'm looking forward to the show.

(A reminder here, of the web's best sound poetry resource, UbuWeb.)

Labels: music, music_commentary, sound_poetry

Wednesday, January 16, 2002
10:27 AM
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faking it

It's Tuesday, so tonight Chris and I got together to play music. Still riding high on the success of last week's session, tonight we stretched our wings a little bit, and mostly we fell on our faces. But I still think that we managed to expand the sphere of operations that we're capable of.

Towards the end of the session, we were feeling aimless, so we drew an Oblique Strategy which suggested "try faking it." As a result, we attempted to improvise a folk ballad, giving it the title "Death Be My Bride."

The result was, shall we say, not very convincing, but it was good to at least attempt to create something resembling a traditional song, and it pointed out directions for further exploration, which I think may be the point of the Oblique Strategies.

Labels: amateurism, number_none

Tuesday, January 15, 2002
11:56 PM
0 comments

minimalist cooking

In response to my request for cookbooks with easy recipes (below) Judith recommends The Minimalist Cooks Dinner.

I'm a big fan of both minimalist art and minimalist music, so: minimalist dinner? Why not?

I'll keep you posted.

Labels: book_commentary, recipes

6:49 PM
0 comments

food for 2002

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to try out a new recipe every week. Living by myself has made me realize the inadequacy of my basic repertoire of dinners: by the end of last year I thought I would kill myself if I had to eat another frozen pizza.

Monday looks like it is shaping up as "new recipe night." Tonight I made this risotto dish; it was pretty good. If any of you out there in webland have any favorite easy recipes (or recommendations for good entry-level cookbooks), I'd love it if you'd send them my way.

Labels: personal, projects, recipes

Monday, January 14, 2002
6:09 PM
0 comments

various small fires

My computer problems seem momentarily solved, so I can return to posting.

Doing some research on photography recently, I was reminded of how much I like the photographic books of Ed Ruscha: books with titles like Thirty-Four Parking Lots or Various Small Fires. The photos in the books depict exactly what is indicated by the titles, in as artless a fashion as possible: raw documentation.

In a 1965 Artforum interview, Ruscha remarks:

"I think photography is dead as a fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes. Thus [Various Small Fires] is not a book to house a collection of art photographs—they are technical data like industrial photography."

Arcana Books has descriptions of some of Ruscha's books (as well as photos of some of the covers) on this page.

Labels: art, information, photography

2:15 PM
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first lamentation

Not long ago, I was thinking "everything seems to be going pretty well for me right now."

Never think this, for you are just asking the universe to dump a curse on you.

And today it came: I think my laptop died.

It had never worked well in the first place, which perhaps should not have been surprising given its origins — it was a clone manufactured by a company that no longer makes computers and then marketed by a reseller which no longer exists. Even so, it had performed relatively faithfully until a few days ago, when my Blue Screen of Death count began to spike.

Then my CD-ROM drive started acting wonky.

And now the power switch has stopped working.

Fortunately, I'd been saving up for a new desktop computer since my birthday, and this Gateway deal looks like it has the features I want at a price I can afford. Even if the laptop can be fixed, I think it's time for it to be regulated to "spare computer" status.

Labels: personal

Thursday, January 10, 2002
10:34 PM
0 comments

Stumbled upon a CD in the record store today: Small Music, Vol. 1, by Rolf Julius. On this disc, Julius creates teeming chatter from "electronic buzzer instruments" and "nature sound from Brazil and Japan." The three resultant tracks sound like either the dense wet heart of a rainforest or a complex global information system made audible.

This unusual paper on Julius suggests that he might be synaesthetic, and discusses some of his installation work:

"The approximately 80 metres long barrel vault of the gallery was empty except for four groups of four loudspeakers each standing on the floor in a square arrangement. A square glass plate rested on each group. Julius sieved nearly circular heaps of red and black pigment onto the glass plates. Quiet music came out of the loudspeakers, consisting of a sustained gently chirping rushing undercoating of the room and somewhat lower pitched sounds appearing in the foreground as short actions. There were intervals of ten to more than thirty seconds duration between these short motifs."

Information on other volumes in Julius' Small Music series. But where's Volume Three?

Labels: installation_art, music, music_commentary

Wednesday, January 09, 2002
3:39 PM
0 comments

musical amateur night

Chris and I have been getting together to play more frequently lately, exploring the musical ideas we cooked up in our old Musical Amateur Night sessions. Tonight we improvised six songs. They aren't named yet, but the instruments we used were as follows:

1: 2 wineglasses & the Octave Cat
2: 4 wineglasses & the Octave Cat
3: gong & welding metal
4: taped percussion, turntable, tin whistle, 2 wineglasses & hand bells
5: plastic recorder & thumb piano
6: drum & acoustic guitar

It was fun to play with Chris, as always. I ended up feeling like we are no longer quite as amateur as we once were; like we are coming closer to producing the kind of music we enjoy as listeners.

We will name these songs next week, probably using our usual stichomantic methods.

We also need a name for the band, as the novelty of changing names every week has worn off. If you have any old band names saved up, feel free to send them my way.

Labels: amateurism, number_none, personal, projects

12:01 AM
0 comments

vampires and creoles

I am currently reading Interview With the Vampire, which I will be teaching in a few weeks for my Horror course.

The most interesting thing about the first fifty pages or so is the way that race flickers in the background. The early action in the book's narrative all occurs around plantations near New Orleans, a city which receives special attention as a site of racial and ethnic mixing:

"There was no city in America like New Orleans. It was filled not only with the French and Spanish of all classes who had formed in part its peculiar aristocracy, but later with immigrants of all kinds, the Irish and Germans in particular. Then there were not only the black slaves, yet unhomogenized and fantastical in their different tribal garb and manners, but the great growing class of the free people of color, those marvellous people of our mixed blood and that of the islands, who produced a magnificent and unique caste of craftsmen, artists, poets, and renowned feminine beauty. And then there were the Indians, who covered the levee on summer days selling herbs and crafted wares. And drifting through all, through this medley of languages and colors, were the people of the port, the sailors of ships, who came in great waves ... Then add to these, within years after my transformation, the Americans, who built the city up river from the old French Quarter with magnificent Grecian houses which gleamed in the moonlight like temples."

This is not the first time in the past few weeks where I've been reading American horror fiction and race has come up as a substantial theme. It is worth noting that Rice's second novel is not horror fiction but rather historical fiction about the free people of color: obviously something she had some significant interest in.

Here is a website covering the "history and genealogy of the Free People of Color in 19th century New Orleans."

Labels: book_commentary, horror, race

Monday, January 07, 2002
10:11 PM
0 comments

opening incantation

A new year, new projects in the works, a new weblog.

Labels: meta, personal, projects

9:35 PM
0 comments