Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
I saw Derek today! Oh, but it was lovely. And I started ASL up again, after a week off. It's just me this time, so the class is going to be much more intense, with lots of homework. I'm excited, though a little nervous. Tomorrow we're having one of K.'s friends over, and this Saturday is Dances of Vice. I might also be previewing a play somewhere in there. It's been a marvelous summer, and it ain't over yet.
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10:41:24 PM,Tuesday 1 July 2008
Got the CCP results back. Failed, as expected. Screw it. I just ordered RMR CDs (the better to speed-load with, even though I don't plan to take the RMR until after I've finally passed the CCP), and I'm going to get business cards. After nearly every recent gig I've done, someone's asked me for one, and I've felt like a fool having to scrawl my information on a piece of notebook paper. When I get my certification, I'll get new cards. Ex-frikkin'-celsior.
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08:39:33 PM,Wednesday 25 June 2008
Three views of my workspace. I don't know why, but I'm really interested in people's workspaces. This was the first print I ever bought when I was a freshman in college, and it still hangs on our bedroom door. I like seeing the systems people set up to direct their thoughts and the talismans they keep around them. Workspaces and studies are as intimate as bedrooms, but more of their nuts and bolts are on display. And, of course, I love ogling tech. It's very nice of the internet to indulge my sordid proclivities. I just joined the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool, and these are the pictures I asked the ever-gracious K. to take for my contribution. Follow the links to see the annotations. Also, feel free to join the pool or blog your own spaces!
Alison Bechdel does a great comic on summer reading. I've been reading a fair bit this summer, though far less than I did as a kid (or even as a pit musician in a tourist town with limited internet access), and most of it's been pure fluff. I'm looking at my last 15 books on LibraryThing, and maybe four of them (Fire Upon the Deep, Midnight's Children, the Cornish Trilogy, And Life As We Know It) have any claim at all to literary merit. The rest are just romps. I mean, those four are pretty much romps too, but they could at least purport to be thinking romps. I've been going to the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library a fair bit, which means more books for no money, and that's good. The majority of my reading is done on the subway or in bed at night when I can't sleep. It's just hard to justify taking time to read during the day when I've wasted so much time slacking on the internet (like, you know, writing this blog entry) instead of freelancing my way to fame and riches. Okay, back to transcripts.
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01:27:31 PM,Wednesday 25 June 2008
I just want to state for the record that my girlfriend is staggeringly awesome and not just because she completely saved my ass last night.
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11:51:07 AM,Saturday 21 June 2008
"Having sex with a newt I don't have a problem with. It's drinking beer mixed with ginger beer. That's just wrong."
-- K.
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10:20:41 AM,Saturday 21 June 2008
While I'm posting videos, here's another one. Abney Park are very silly and kind of gimmicky, but this song amuses me. It's just mindless, pretty, faux-Ottoman steampunk, which is really all you need sometimes.
I first heard about Andrew Bird through Remi, and I liked that song he did for the kids' show, and I liked that he was a Suzuki guy and whistled and wore a hat, but I listened to a few more of his songs and they didn't work for me. I was wondering whether I should buy one of his albums and listen more closely or just blow him off. This song decided me. I really like this song on the basis of the music alone. I haven't tuned into the lyrics yet. And the video is grand. I'm putting him on my list.
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12:16:27 PM,Friday 20 June 2008
Since I'm updating the mix, it occurred to me last night that Jonathan Coulton's I'm Your Moon could serve very well as an alternative track for Sola's "planetary conjunction above an oblivious crowd". Depending on how you define "planet", of course. {sniffle}
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08:34:19 AM,Wednesday 18 June 2008
Going off to my first SJC alumni seminar with K. tonight. It's on Dostoevsky, and I'm not sure what to make of it yet. Mr. Stickney will be there, which should be lovely. Let's see if I can still do this, huh? It's been a while.
Here's the other version of Fred's sunset song. You'll want to download it; for me, at least, the Firefox Quicktime plugin is only playing the first five seconds of it. But Winamp plays it just fine. Very odd. What's wrong with this file?
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11:40:13 AM,Tuesday 17 June 2008
Commentaries and actual track information available on request. The last one should read: "Anne - Singing shanties with drunken invisible teenagers on the traintracks and riverbanks at night", but @*&#$ Muxtape wouldn't let me rename it (or, oddly, upload a file with the id3 tags changed). I also wanted to put a different artist's version of Fred's song up, but it wouldn't let me. If you're interested in the other version, Fred, let me know and I'll email it to you. Oh, and I've got two slots left, so comment if you want more.
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(9)
07:03:33 PM,Monday 16 June 2008
2. In a few days, I'll post one mp3 for each of you.
You can't request music by band name or genre. You have to describe, in terms of color, mood, texture, taste, or any other creative way you can think of, what you're looking for in a song, and I'll do the best I can with what I have. Yes, that means that I may end up posting a song that you wouldn't normally listen to. That's part of the fun.
I can't use more than one song by any given band. The point of this meme is to give you a taste of new stuff, not to pirate whole CDs. If you like what you hear, you'll still need to buy it yourself. If two of you come up with identical descriptions, I have to find two bands that both fit, or use one song for both of you.
I can't make the song permanently available. Unless the song in question is already available on the band's website (in which case, I'll provide a link to their site instead of posting an mp3), I'll be taking the songs down in a few days, or posting them on a temporary host so that they'll expire after a few days.
I think I'm going to use Muxtape for this purpose, so I guess my limit for this round is 12.
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(16)
02:35:22 PM,Friday 13 June 2008
Fb V jnf unysjnl guebhtu zl svefg genafpevcgvba cvrpr, enpvat fvatyrzvaqrqyl gb trg vg qbar nf dhvpxyl nf cbffvoyr naq fubj gurfr crbcyr jung V jnf jbegu, jura na rznvy cbccrq hc ba zl Tbbtyr abgvsvre. Vg jnf sbe n eha bs npnqrzvp PNEG wbof bire gur arkg guerr zbaguf. Qb V qebc rirelguvat gb nafjre gur rznvy naq gnxr gur wbo? Ab. V chg vg nfvqr naq tbg onpx gb gur genafpevcgvba. Ab qvfgenpgvbaf! Ab qrynlf! Veba-gvtug jbex rguvp ervtaf va fynpxre vzchyfrf! Sbhe ubhef yngre V'z svavfurq, naq V jevgr onpx gb gur PNEG crbcyr gb npprcg gur wbo. Gurl fnvq V pbhyq unir vg, ohg nf bs guvf nsgreabba gur pyvrag unfa'g tbggra onpx gb gurz naq vg frrzf vapernfvatyl yvxryl (nf gur PNEG crbcyr vasbez zr) gung gur jbex unf nyernql orra fanccrq hc ol nabgure svez. Gur genafpevcgvba wbo rnearq zr $110, gubhtu V ubcr vg'f gur svefg bs znal. Gur PNEG jbex jbhyq unir phzhyngviryl arggrq zr nebhaq $6,000. V srry cerggl fghcvq.
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02:54:35 PM,Wednesday 11 June 2008
I seem to have gotten the job. Yeee! Also, some of my overdue invoice money came in today, with a promise of more to come, and I found out I'll be able to take the next level of ASL at a ridiculously low price. I'm feeling a lot calmer about everything pecuniary, and everything else is as lovely as it has been all summer. I even kind of like the heat; it makes me feel like a happy sweaty porpoise*. Life is good.
*I know, of course, that cetaceans lack sweat glands. It's a figure of speech.
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(15)
06:22:46 PM,Monday 9 June 2008
I'm thinking of either selling my cornetto or trading it in for a good recorder. It kind of tears me up inside. I love, love, love cornetto music. It's ethereal, androgynous, nimble, and pure like nothing else. But it's just ridiculously hard to play. I was never able to make it sound better than an airy blat, and that was on a good day, after six months of steady practice. After six years of lassitude, I have barely enough chops left to play above the staff on my trumpet for more than five minutes. How am I ever going to build my embouchure up to cornetto heights? I don't see it happening. My finances are almost completely tapped out right now, but I've got a couple transcription leads (including, yes, that company I was whining about in an earlier blog post, though I don't want to jinx it). If I can build my reserves back up and be assured of a relatively steady income, I want to start taking recorder lessons with a guy I found on Craigslist. He teaches right near where I'm taking ASL (I hope to continue, though that's uncertain for non-financial reasons) and not too far from Pratt, which is where I'll be spending most of my time in the Fall. So I'm thinking about it. Maybe I'll make a Muxtape of cornetto music, like Dredged-Up Cornetto but better thought out, to make me decide. I dunno.
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09:57:25 PM,Sunday 8 June 2008
Photo by K.
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10:45:20 PM,Friday 6 June 2008
This question was constantly on my mind all through middle school. I used to carry around an Altoids box full of rock salt to use as ready cash in case such a thing were to happen. It never did. {sigh}
via io9.
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05:33:43 PM,Friday 6 June 2008
