Messages from the Ether

A History of Writing; Steven Roger Fischer

Extras; Scott Westerfeld

The Yiddish Policemen's Union; Michael Chabon

Uglies, Pretties, Specials (Boxed Set); Scott Westerfeld

I'd heard about this set from Boing Boing and was intrigued but wanted to avoid it for the idiot reason that it felt too much like buying an Oprah book: the heavy weight of a Boing Boing recommendation makes it more "marketing" than "recommending." Anyway, I picked up the boxed set during the recent Amazon sci-fi sale (along with complete Space: 1999 DVDs, complete Aeon Flux series, and two experimental films by Shozin Fukui) and just finished the first book, Uglies. It's teen fiction, but I've been completely engrossed with the characters, story, and ideas contained. Anti-future where everyone gets extreme plastic surgery at 16 to make them super-super-model beautiful. Our very much flawed female protagonist is drawn into a resistance group. Reluctantly, at first, then heroically. The clever concepts make up for the limited, teen-directed vocabulary and short (< 5-page) chapters. You'll burn through it quickly because of both this and it's compelling drama.

Irreligion; John Allen Paulos

I'd read his books on innumeracy and thought that this would be a nice, quick entry into the recent atheist-lit. He used to have a fun column on ABC's web site. Check out his (slightly ill-formatted) web site for more fun facts.

A History of Language; Steven Roger Fischer

Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure; Michael Chabon

A mix of Scheherazade (with its story begetting story begetting story format) and adventure yarn, Chabon provides a short, swift tale of virtuoso prose and enlightening history, but never too heavy. You don't have to turn to trash to turn off your brain and enjoy an adventure. (read several months back...)

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Against the Day; Thomas Pynchon

The Crying of Lot 49; Thomas Pynchon

To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee

Picked this up in the airport on the way to NYC and am now just finishing it. It's as great as you would expect.

John Henry Days; Whitehead, Colson

I was introduced to Whitehead through a short story from Harper's a year or so ago. This novel came mildly recommended by others.

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Burn, Stephen

A quick read (< 100 pages) with some notable insight into IJ. He points out mythological references, storyline intersections, and major themes. I would've liked to have seen a concise character outline to match the 11-page timeline of major events he provides in an appendix.

One problem with analyzing maximalist novel (Burn calls them encyclopedia novels) is that the abundance of detail offers itself up to the adoption of many different templates of intent. Still, some are stronger (and more intent-full) than others. A couple of Burn's ideas felt too fine-grained but most were a welcome insight, and he presented his reasoning with the transparent honesty of dead-ends and alternate possibilities.

It's been several years since I had read IJ, but this analysis helped bring back and organize the story as a whole.

Genesis; Anderson, Poul

Read this over the past few days. I had wanted a quick read, and this was one of those books sitting on the shelf for years after an impulse, discount purchase. I quickly got hooked on the epic story spanning millions of years in the future, although the affected scifi lingo felt overrefined and cringe-worthy. "Well-nigh" and "yonder" aren't words that generally come up in conversation. The ideas however were interesting, and the story presented a likely distant future of human consciousness merged with machines. Throughout, there was a dread of inevitability. Overall a ripping good yarn.

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The first two Peter Gabriel albums paired with his last one. Have fun noting the similarities across the 25 years from his beginning as a soloist in 1977 to his possible final statement in 2002. One noticable difference is his use of genre musical styles on his first two albums (blues, honky-tonk, and even cool jazz) abandoned on all subsequent ones. There are some gems but unfortunately many throwaway items too.

From 1, "Moribund The Burgermeister" has his oddball storytelling that could have come from Tresspass's "The Knife" or Nursery Cryme's "Harold the Barrel," just as it reappears in Up's "The Barry Williams Show." Apparently, the townsfolk that Moribund is responsible for are having some sort of Woodstock freakout and he runs to his mother to help him bring them back under control: Mother please, is it just a disease, that has them breaking all my laws, Check if you can disconnect the effect and I'll go after the cause. "Humdrum" has a nice, short binary form that contrasts the mundane against the grandiose. The most notable song is "Here Comes the Flood:"

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

This should have had more attention than (the obscenely over-played) "Solsbury Hill."

From 2, it opens with another silly misfit story in "On the Air," where our hero is a bum who lives out his fantasy life through television. The intended jab is not subtle, but the humor is well-placed. "Mother of Violence" holds up by its spare and timeless lyric Fear, she's the mother of violence, and "Indigo" is an effectively moody song about dying, reminding me of "In the Rapids" from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Up is appropriately reminiscent of his first few solos and contains songs that are a hybrid of his early eccentricity, his middle obsession with world music, and his later commercial production. The strongest tracks are "Darkness," "Sky Blue" (also from the sad film Rabbit-proof Fence), "My Head Sounds Like That," and "Signal to Noise." And like PG1's closing "Here Comes the Flood" and PG2's closing "Home Sweet Home," Up closes with a reflective piano/voice composition called "The Drop."

Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond; Krauss, Lawrence M.

I heard about this book back in October of last year when Krauss spoke on TotN:SF.

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I just recieved the Leon Kirchner double CD of historic recordings and the Vincent Persichetti CD with his Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto. I discovered Kirchner from the New World Records album with his Piano Concerto, checked out from the local library in 9th or 10th grade (?). I was stunned. It was beautiful and wild and new and my dad was perplexed ("do you really enjoy that?!?"). The very same recording is contained on this set--I immediately recognized the nuances of the performance even across the many years--along with various other mostly chamber music that is equally engrossing.

Persichetti was introduced to me by my first piano teacher here in Georgia, just post high school, whose name I hate that I forget. She presented me with the invaluable set of his Poems for Piano and it really opened up a new world of piano repertoire. Without digging out the sheet music, I remember one piece that I played from that set was "To whose more clear than crystal voice the frost had joined a crystal spell." I've listened to little of his works since that time, but expect the best.

Something brought me back to the Koyaanisqatsi score but I don't know what. I've been curious to watch it again just to see the masterful closing scene with the decending rocket. It also coincides with my Genius Idea that wine bars and coffee shops, instead of having live jazz, should have live music like that in Koyaanisqatsi. It would be similar to the trip-hop soundtracks of Very Cool Bars, but with a more unique flavor. Everyone does electronica. No one does minimalism.

So far, my workshopping of the idea to friends hasn't gone over as well as it does in my head.

Finally, the Saint-Saens Piano Concertos. I really have no familiarity with his music, so that needs to changes. These were recorded off of RadioWave.

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam; Aslan, Reza

Finally getting around to reading this. I just received it after a rash of impulse-purchases (mostly CDs). The opening caught my attention as he describes his chance meeting with missionaries in the post-9/11 Middle East. He wonders how to respond to such spiritual profiteers when, also post-9/11, Franklin Graham calls Islam an evil and wicked religion, Ann Coulter encourages countries to kill Muslim leaders and convert [their people] to Christianity, and a past president of the SBC calls Muhammad a demon-possessed pedophile. With these unfortunate examples, he introduces what he calls a clash of monotheisms in contrast to the less-precise class of civilizations.

How We Are Hungry; Eggers, Dave

Finished this a couple of days ago (very slow in updating lately).

The stories have a narrow and somewhat monotonous tonal range. There are good moments (it's unimportant that we can look behind the stories and see where the author has travelled) presented with a tell-all honesty that at its best is rewarding enough, even though there are few of those moments. A quick and satisfying read.

The Arabian Nights

Impulse buy from a weekend viewing of a couple of Sinbad movies.

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A year ago I started re-listening to I, Robot--within the first five albums that I ever owned--and it's really stuck with me. Early imprinting, I guess. It came back into my consciousness when, a year or so prior, a pot smokin' friend played it at a party. Apparently, not unlike Genesis' Selling England by the Pound which I learned from some art rock afficianados, Alan Parsons too is well paired with drugs. Who knew? Anyway, I don't own the CD (listening on Rhapsody) so I can't put it up on Radio from the Ether until I shell out the $9.90 (which very well could happen). I just wish that Rhapsody had Alan Parsons' Pyramid album too.

I know. I'm so gay.

Got the itch to revisit the Beethoven Quartets. I know and love the rawness of his early quartets, so I need to get more familiar with the middle ones. I can listen to one or two movements on the way to work if traffic's not heavy. CDs are in the car right now, so they'll get added to Radio from the Ether in a few days.

I knew the name Alan Hovhaness but had never heard any of his works. An Armenian-American, very tonal and pleasant. This music is so approachable, why are people listening to crap new age/wallpaper music when there are well-constructed modern compositions that are more pleasing and with greater depth? It's an old argument, and Hovhaness' works bring it back up (I've recommended Part and Gorecki for the same reasons).

I recorded the Liapunov and Scharwenka Piano Concertos on RadioWave on a whim. Late romantic, over-zealous. They should be fun.

Finally, I had first heard about Avet Terterian from the always-interesting Tim Rutherford-Johnson. Terterian completely freaked me out on first listening, so I took a break. I'm back and hope that the poor streaming quality doesn't completely destroy the sonorist subtleties of the works. (Oh, and that Wikipedia entry for Terterian was stubbed in by me before I had an account!)

The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa

Originally heard about this back around June or so.

The Scientist, The Madman, The Thief and Their Lightbulb : The Search for Free Energy

An (even-handed) history of the quest for free energy: energy that doesn't consume matter and doesn't produce waste. Much of the hope rides on electricity and magnetism and the research is as old as our modern study of electromagnetism.

[The theories] are not creating any new energy. The systems are doing at least one of two things: they have either found--as in the case of some cold fusion cells--a new way of accessing chemical, nuclear or other forms of energy locked up in the system's components parts; the other possibility is that they are getting their energy from the 'zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum'. This zero-point energy is the 'background' or 'ether' energy of the universe, and is also called vacuum energy, or the 'quantum fluctuations of the vacuum'.

So the hope is that we can tap into the larger machinery of the Earth and the universe itself and convert its fundamental processes into useful energy. There are many quack-y stories in here but some fascinating all the same. I was astounded that even in the earliest days of fossil fuel use, many scientists were warning that we shouldn't become dependent on it. In 1900, Nikola Tesla says:

In some countries, as in Great Britain, the hurtful effects of this squandering of fuel are beginning to be felt. The price of coal is constantly rising, and the poor are made to suffer more and more. Though we are still far from the dreaded 'exhaustion of the coal fields', ... it is our duty to coming generations to leave this store of energy intact for them, or at least not to touch it until we shall have perfected processes for burning coal more efficiently. Those who are to come after us will need fuel more than we do.

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Finally giving a listen to Paul Creston's Symphonies. I'd breezed through them before and actually got hooked on a section from #3 listening to NPR late at night, then impulse bought the CD. They're pleasant enough, and might have some surprises. Not sure what to expect from the Penderecki Symphonies. He can be all over the map.

(These are going with us on a road trip to a friend's wedding this weekend, so they probably won't all make it onto Radio from the Ether until Sunday or Monday of next week.)

To balance out the Penderecki, I'm digging into my RadioWave files and listening to some Brahms: Piano Concertos #1 and 2, Piano Trios #1 and 3, and the Violin Concerto. Come on: who couldn't love Brahms?

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Picking up a couple of the Naxos CDs I had purchased for future listening.

First, the Elliott Carter. I was dumbfounded at first listening to the Copland-styled tonality of the Holiday Overture and Symphony No. 1. He was, apparently, still finding his own style in these early pieces. A style I would praise from Walter Piston I only tolerate from Carter, possibly because of the unique experience of hearing Carter's own voice in his two-movement Piano Concerto that closes the CD. Difficult but enjoyable.

Ginastera is one of those composers I know of but don't know. Time to get more familiar with his Piano Concertos (yesyes, Keith Emerson did an arrangement of No. 1's Toccata on Brain Salad Surgery [Amazon]). These come after his overtly nationalistic period and can be compared with Bartok's works: both composers created very nationalist works that then influenced their more, say, international styles.

From RadioWave, I've got the two Romatic era Violin Concertos of Max Bruch.

Finally, some nerdcore from MC Frontalot. Poor programming, I know, but it's new so I gotta listen to it.

Everything Is Illuminated; Foer, Jonathan Safran

How did I hear about this book? I'm not sure, but a KQED interview of the author reminded of it back in April and I ordered it not long after. Many sections consist of a sort of dialect writing, with a Ukrainian narrator writing in thesaurus-laden English (as he explains: Like you know, I am not first rate with English. In Russian my ideas are asserted abnormally well, but my second tongue is not so premium. I undertaked to input the things you counseled me to, and I fatigued the thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared too petite, or not befitting). I thought it would get old, but it quickly dropped into the background, and now--at least in my head--I'm calling everything "premium."

Anxious to see the movie [IMDB] with Elijah Wood and written by Liev Schreiber.

Radio On: A Listener's Diary; Vowell, Sarah

I've been picking through this whilst finishing up the Sherlock Holmes collection (see "Sarah Vowell, NPR, and Coldplay" and "Publishing and tuning out"). It's grown on me in a minor way--she's alternately honest and opinionated, although others might reverse just where those labels would be placed. She's the type of rock snob that appreciates only street-wise sincerety and a clear lineage to rock's roots. I agree with her on many points (e.g. the hate-inducing and insipid Grateful Dead) but I'm staunchly anti-originalist when it comes to rock. I feel that the quicker the tyranny of the blues is overthrown, the better. She likes Sonic Youth and Courtney Love (agreed), but hates Stereolab (huh?). I guess difference are good.

And many scarey/familiar observations on conservative idiocy (e.g. Rush's absolutist rants based on lies, or Dole's plea to "ignore the details" of a very detail-laden tax package that benefits the rich) that could be observed unchanged today.

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More music from RadioWave. I'm listening through all of the Schumann works that I've aquired. Some of the major piano suites (Papillons Op. 2; Carnaval Op. 9; Fantasiestücke Op. 12; Scenes from Childhood Op. 15; Kreisleriana, Op. 16; Arabeske, Op. 18); his Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54; two String Quartets Op. 41 #s 1 and 3; his Symphonies #s 2 and 4; and Marchenbilder, Op. 113 for viola and piano. I know Papillons and Carnaval and Scenes (mostly from my fractured readings in college), but several of those other works are new. These RadioWave recordings, far from hi-fi, are great for getting familiar with the standard repertoire--and to share them with others.

Someone had recently recommended the new recording of the Ligeti [Wikipedia] piano etudes, but I swear I can't remember who. This disk includes book 1 (1985), book 2 (1988-1994), and the first etude from book 3 (1995-2001). The dates are according to Wikipedia, although I believe Ligeti says in the liner notes that he hasn't finished the third book.

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Piano works by Shostakovich performed by Konstantin Scherbakov. It doesn't get much better.

I anticipated being absorbed with the preludes and fugues, yet the odd characteristics of the opus 34 preludes have taken over my interest. It's been great driving-to-work music. The opus 87 pieces need more focus and promise to be more rewarding. I'm anxious to get the scores (just received the shipping confirmation yesterday) in order to examine more closely his dissonances and key relationships. I long ago bought and fell in love with his string quartets (#1 through #15 in six CDs by the Emerson Quartet).

I've also been cleaning up my RadioWave recordings and have begun listening to a few of those. I have Vasily Kalinnikov's Symphonies #1 and #2. I had never heard of him before--kindof an exuberant Rachmaninoff, but a little more corny. They're worth a listen. I've also got more tasteful works from Sibelius. His Symphonies #1, 2, and 5, and his wonderful Violin Concerto. I never listened to enough Sibelius, so now's my chance.

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories

Beautiful two-volume hardback edition of Conan Doyle's [Wikipedia] short stories of Sherlock Holmes [Wikipedia] edited by Leslie S. Klinger. A third volume from the same editor containing the four novels is coming out later this year. There is some discussion on Amazon that the binding quality and content is somewhat below what editor William Stuart Baring-Gould offered in his edition. The arguments seemed more of a dispute over originality than over flawed research, so it shouldn't affect my enjoyment.

I became interested in Sherlock Holmes from the references to Moriarty [Wikipedia] and their confrontation at Reichenback Falls in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Then, last Sunday, Lisa and I lucked upon The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes [IMDB] and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution [IMDB]. Both well-done movies from 1970 and 1976 respectively. I'm overdue to read the source material for this famous literary character.

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Still listening to The Who Sell Out (still loving it), and just beginning an arrangement of "Our Love Was" which I'm completely smitten by. But--gotta move on. I have been waiting for an Amazon shipment of several CDs of Shostakovitch preludes and fugues, but they are still weeks away. Gah.

I've been really sweating over the "Starship Trooper" arrangement, so let's get some more Yes in my head to seal the deal. Close to the Edge and Relayer are both the Rhino re-release with a few b-sides and demos (studio run-throughs). I've always drooled over doing a piano/voice arrangement of "The Gates of Delirium." Hearing the studio run-through provides some insight into the process of the song, but it's still far off. I was blown away to read in the liner notes that Jon Anderson was the primary composer of Gates. Patrick Moraz (the keyboardist) comments:

Jon actually led me through the compositions and through the core of the arrangement and the construction of most of the themes of 'The Gates of Delirium,' which were composed by the time I came in. Not all of it was complete, but everything was in his head. I think he had the plan for the whole symphony. It was like a symphony. In the world of rock 'n' roll, although very influenced by The Beatles and the English music scene at the time, I always acquaint Yes with what Stravinsky would have dona as a rock musician. Yes music has that kind of symphonic approach and arrangement. The sophistication of the orchestration is absolutely staggering.

This from someone who worked on the album, but all the same. I never considered Anderson the "big picture" kind of composer. The Close to the Edge album has a similarly illustrative run-through of "And You & I" and "Siberian Khatru."

Decided also to re-investivate the backgroundy-but-enjoyable Kid A from Radiohead. Brad Meldau played the opening track at the recent Variety Playhouse concert, so it's been in my head. Its simple harmony was used as an example of modal mixture in rock in a recent MTO article (which I tried to make sense of back in January).

Finally, Schnittke's Concerto for Two Pianos and Concerto for Cello. I can't pretend to understand his manic shifting of harmonies, but that's what makes it so compelling. And I-shit-you-not I actually find myself humming melodies (as best I can) from the cello concerto. He reminds me of the harmonic "wow" I felt when I first heard (and still feel when I listen to) Messiaen.

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

I bought a nice hardback of this years and years and years ago and have now dug it out of the stacks. I hope it's not too simplified an examination of communication systems. Windows developers grew up on Petzold's programming books going back to Windows 3.x. It's interesting to see those "academics" cross over into more readable fare (like Hackers and Painters author and Lisp guru Paul Graham [Wikipedia]).

Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror; Jones, Terry

Quick read.

Comic Page of the Week

Flaming Carrot, No. 25, back cover. Flaming Carrot challenges Death to a game of Jarts a la The Seventh Seal [IMDB].

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My demo of The Silent Spectrum is up on Radio from the Ether along with The Journalist. I don't own any of my other listening choices and have only been able to listen to them on Rhapsody, so it's all me all the time.

I read some references to and favorable reviews for The Who Sell Out. I had never listened to it, so I thought I'd give it a chance. During my research, I found the Petra Haden (daughter of jazz bassist Charlie Haden [Wikipedia]) remake of a good portion of the album a capella. Should be interesting.

Still wowed by Blueberry Boat. I love the negative reviews on Amazon--there appears to be a lot of hatred for The Fiery Furnaces (and for Pitchfork for praising them).

The Best American Essays 2003

I've been collecting this series sporadically since 1996. The first was purchased while in a what-to-read-next malaise. I'm there again, so here's the recently-purchased 2003 essays to get me going. The selections are always artful and varied and, like listening to This American Life, always provide interest for topics I would otherwise deem uninteresting. It's nice to find those things that can surprise you.

Top 10, issue 8, page 25

Top 10, issue 8, page 25. Peregrine (Cathy Colby) watches as two victims fused together in a teleporter accident expire. One, Mr. Nebula, was returning from a vacation with his wife who was killed instantly. The other, a "gamer" named Kapela, provides a dry philosophy of life as a game between the black of space and the white of the stars.

Currently Listening To

Missing tracks 3 ("Guide Vocal") and ("Heathaze") for Duke, but they may be acquired and added later.

I've been piecing together the eight Walter Piston symphonies and finally ordered CDs containing the last three to complete the collection. They (1, 3, and 4) just shipped and will be added later (to 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8). It'd be nice to have one conductor/orchestra, but honestly if someone recorded them all now I'd be pissed.

The Merchant of Venice; Shakespeare, William

I had purchased Shakespeare's histories, comedies, and tragedies a few years back in these Everyman's Library editions. Prior to that I had, and possibly still have somewhere, a mishmash of used paperbacks of a dozen or so different plays. The Everyman's Library hardbacks are nearly perfect: they have good binding and paper, good size for reading, are inexpensive, and have excellent essays and commentary. Each play has a ten-or-so page essay covering the major themes from both high level structure and detailed, sentence level nuance. Just reading these introductory essays provides a lesson in history and etymology. The footnotes offered throughout each play serve as sufficient struts to understanding. My only complaint is that I sometimes forget a footnoted definition that was presented early on whose word is repeated later in the play--a glossary would help considerably. Thanks to the brother-in-law and his fiance, I have this wonderful Dictionary of Shakespeare to fill the gaps of my poor memory.

I had purchased these volumes back in 2002 before we went to visit Diane in Sun Vally, Idaho where she played Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. The commentary almost made me sound intelligent about the theater when we hung out with the other actors after the show. You too can sound intelligent with the Everyman's Library! Buy yours today.

Cosmopolis; DeLillo, Don

None of his books has every really matched the evocotive wackiness of the first one I read of his, White Noise. This has been sitting in the queue with Underworld ... Underworld still has a dusty bookmark, months since place, where the wife abandoned it (though, she gave Cosmopolis high marks). I've chosen this 200+ page book (with slight pages) as a palette-cleanser after Cryptonomicon.

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My Life in the Bush of Ghosts should be required listening for anyone interested in pop electronic music. Released in 1981, this work was both a product of its time and a milestone. Byrne and Eno drew from existing pop and experimental styles and fltered them into a definitive expression of those styles. Their daring may seem at points quaint now, but I always find something that still surprises. Greater minds than mine have dissected this many times prior, so I'll just point out the line from the seminal opening track "America Is Waiting." The track samples what sounds like a venting talk radio host, punctuated against the jerky, clumsy 5/4 rhythm: America is waiting for a message of some sort or another. Out of context, the emptiness of that phrase is brought to the surface. A medium dispersing "messages" can only recycle the presence of need but itself can offer no content.

I got into a knock-down-drag-out last night during a family dinner over George Winston of all things. Invariably, Philip Glass came up as the perfect counter-example to the spare-but-cliched music of Winston. The Hours is a pleasant collection of short pieces from the film. There is also a solo piano release available. I don't have either and am listening to them on Rhapsody, so this CD's not on Radio from the Ether. I purchased the Symphony No. 3 CD from a birthday gift card but hadn't taken the chance to give it a good listen.

My friend's label, OttoTone Records, released its first sampler last week. The Web site is a little in flux (I swear I'm working on it...), but there's an abundance of tunes on the sampler from the best of what west Georgia has to offer. Check. It. Out. Why don't you?

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, 'Fortunately...'

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, "Fortunately...". James Reed Corrigan, the grandfather of the title character, plays hide-and-seek with neighborhood children during the viewing of his recently deceased grandmother. An older red-headed girl catches his attention.

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I discovered Amy Beach's [Wikipedia] music at the public library back when I was in high school. New World Records published her Violin Sonata under the name Mrs. H. H. A. Beach--in the halcyon days of pre-feminism and pre-suffrage, women went by their husbands' names with the quaint 'Mrs' attached. Anyway, post-feminists re-branded her works and she's now herself again. She was part of the New England School of composers. I'm generally not a fan of early American music or art, but at around this period our composers start getting interesting. And I'm a sucker for this Romanticism.

The Kabao CD was handed out during his recent show at Django. A cool time was had by all, and now you can relive a few songs of that cool time.

Red is classic King Crimson from 1974 (30 years ago?!?). I can do without the free improv on "Providence," but the rest of the songs are models of creative rock composition. The mix of alto sax (?)--carried over from their earlier days too influenced by soft jazz--and noisynoisy guitar and drums is perfect. Some notable musical features: check out the diminished scale [Wikipedia] used in "Red" and the single-note solo played over a 13/8 meter in "Starless." Two sites provide analysis: King Crimson: Red - An Analysis by Andrew Keeling and Chapter Six: King Crimson III and Brian Eno from the online book Robert Fripp by Eric Tamm (who mistakes the opening scale in "Red" for the whole tone scale [Wikipedia], probably because of the tritone in the harmony). Correction: Mr. Tamm has below corrected my sloppy misreading of his analysis. In his book, he points out the whole-tone-scale root relationships. Subtle and different than my misrepresentation. Apologies.

I've been enjoying my recent acquisition of Kleptones music. They combine Queen and The Flaming Lips with various rappers by replacing the former's vocals with the latter's. It's called mash up [Wikipedia] for all you groovies out there. With these recordings, the pallid harmonies and limited song structure of rap is replaced with music that excels at both. The Yoshimi tracks contain the exact songs with the vocals replaced. The Queen tracks are more scattered and fragmented--The Kleptones create a new structure using Queen's harmonies.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II, page 6

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II, page 6. John Carter [Wikipedia] and Gulliver Jones meet in preparation for their battle against the Martians who will eventually invade Earth a la The War of the Worlds [Wikipedia].

Currently Listening To

After previously listening to the Glass arias, I got my mind on Glass operas specifically and operas in general. I had never learned enough about operas and am still quite inexperienced when it comes to the major stories. A sabbatical is a good a time as any to pick up new knowledge.

The only Glass opera I have is the experimental Einstein on the Beach [Wikipedia]. I purchased my copy used (with a $39.97 sticker still on the box) not long after I graduated from college and not long after I recorded a special on it from PBS. It's at times difficult and would be categorized with his more experimental works. The PBS special had scenes of the opera being practiced along with many interviews of Glass and director Robert Wilson.

Chosing The Magic Flute [Wikipedia] as the other opera to listen to falls under the same category (limited choice in my library) and also under coincidence. It was given to me, IIRC, last Christmas by my mom-in-law, and after I finally decided to listen to it, I found out that she went to see it performed last week. This copy had burned a hole in my Wish List for a while because it was both inexpensive ($14) and a highly rated introduction to the opera. The Black Dog Opera Library publishes their operas in small hard-back books containing the libretto and history. That plus two CDs is a great deal.

A word of caution: Amazon is cataloging them under 'books' now, and some of the comments suggest that there is miscategorization with the complete opera and recordings with only excerpts. Very unfortunate, but just be cautious when you order.

Why I Hate Saturn, page 107

Why I Hate Saturn, page 107. Rick and Anne jokingly attempt to decipher an apparently innocuous letter from Anne's insane sister Laura.

Cryptonomicon; Stephenson, Neal

I had no clean segue from Fermat and the OED, so I decided just to go back to fiction. It will probably have some heady math-stuffs in it to tie it in with Fermat--and it'll be a good way to start my sabbatical (one week to go!).

The Professor and the Madman; Winchester, Simon

A year or so ago, I had read and enjoyed Simon Winchester's The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. In it, he documents the life of the father of modern geology, the Englishman William Smith. Winchester told the drama of his story with engaging details and, perhaps, very British fastidiousness. This other book, The Professor and the Madman, seemed equally appropriate for his style of writing.

Pip pip.

Currently Listening To

With this entry, I've begun broadcasting the music listed and that I own over Radio from the Ether. Enjoy.

This recording of A Musical Offering [Wikipedia] is a perfect CD: superlative performers playing on period instruments performing one of Bach's most shining examples of counterpoint. Take a look at the very chromatic melody (a bitch to write tonal counterpoint for) in the short Wikipedia entry. This site displays the canons in Bach's cryptic notation and provides a short explanation of the riddles included. Such musical trickery could have turned out sterile sounding in any other hands.

Trespass is the second Genesis album, recorded in 1970. It's hopelessly quaint, but I'm a sucker for some of the arangements and continue to go back to it.

The Glass songs are arias from his three operas based on great visionaries: Einstein on the Beach (1976) [Wikipedia], Satyagraha (1980, Ghandi) [Wikipedia], and Akhnaten (1983) [Wikipedia].

Fermat's Enigma; Singh, Simon

Long ago, I picked up this book from a discount shelf at Borders knowing that I wouldn't read it immediately. It was one of many books that go into the queue as a recommendation to the future me. Good recommendation--thanks Scott-of-the-past.

Aaaand, the copy was signed by the author!

Ghost World, page 25

Ghost World, page 25. Enid mocks an ex-punk who's gone corporate and tries to defend her new look.

The Tipping Point; Gladwell, Malcolm

This was recommended long ago by a trusted co-worker (post co-working), so I bought it immediately with the unintended intention for it to become a dust catcher. It has since haunted me on one of our book shelves. I know Malcolm Gladwell's writing from his many articles in The New Yorker.

Stray Toasters, issue 1, page 40

Stray Toasters, issue 1, page 40. Abby, a psychiatrist, sits with Todd who had appeared at her front door and is apparently autistic. Prior to this scene, she recalled the child she had lost in an accident and now avoids deciding whether to report this abandoned child.

Oblivion; Wallace, David Foster

Watchmen, issue 1, page 1

Watchmen, issue 1, page 1. Rorschach's journal is a voice-over for the criminal investigation of the apparent-suicide of his aquaintance, fellow super-hero The Comedian.

Currently Listening To

I was recently drawn back to the Beethoven sonatas while thinking about music form and content in my recent post. I once played the prestissimo movement from the Sonata #30 (in a definitively un-prestissimo manner), and we had heard it performed at Emory a couple of seasons back (by whom?). I really fell in love with the epic theme and variations in the final movement. I love solo and chamber concerts for their intimacy and for the connection you have to these musicians as they perform at the height of musical ability. It's exhausting just to listen to the climax of the final movement with its double-trills, fluid changes in key and meter, and expansive handling of style. Watching it performed 20 feet away was exhilarating.

Cerebus, issue 93, page 8

I frequently dig through my collection of comics--you always "dig through" collections--and thought it'd be good to put up a page every week. Or so. There may be more or fewer eventually. The selections won't be Earth-shattering or definitive; just whatever pages strike me as interesting at the time.

Cerebus, issue 98, page 8. Cerebus, as Pope, and Lord Julius (Groucho Marx) travelling to interrogate Astoria, Julius' ex-wife, who is being held in a cell because she assassinated the western pontiff.

Currently Listening To

One of the best concerts I ever went to was a movie. Philip Glass was touring with an ensemble performing his movie music in theaters while the movies were projected on the screen behind them. They came to Atlanta and performed at The Fox. We only got to see Koyaanisqatsi, but it was stunning. I had never watched it before but had heard much about it. The performance, often blazingly fast, was flawless.

I had originally listened to the Stravinsky piano music from inexpensive albums purchase through The Musical Heritage Society. They were white covers with no-frills, black & white printing and liner notes on the back (Naxos seems to have similar intentions). MHS always had some good obscure stuff that I could experiment with--I got a recording of the Messiaen piano preludes from them. This Stravinsky recording includes two works from his neo-classical period: the sonata and the concerto.

German Essays on Music; edited by Jost Hermand, Michael Gilbert

You Shall Know Our Velocity; Eggers, Dave

Currently Listening To

Currently Listening To

Currently Listening To

Currently Listening To

The Fabric of the Cosmos; Greene, Brian

Currently Listening To

Currently Listening To

Baudolino; Eco, Umberto

Currently Listening To