Monthly Archives: September 2005

tracks XI

Posted on by

Two mixes, one for leaving, and one for arriving. Not strongly themed via the text, but I think via the mood. At least for me. These are for a certain someone embarking on a neverending journey of school (i.e. an MD/PhD program):

Departure
1. The Last Empertor (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
2. Solitude (Billie Holiday)
3. Cavaleiro Monge (Tom Jobim)
4. Surabaya Johnny (Dagmar Krause)
5. If You Can’t Eat You Got To (Leonard Bernstein)
6. Silver Lining (Stiff Little Fingers)
7. Home (Zero 7)
8. Sparks (Röyksopp)
9. I Wish I Had An Evil Twin (Magnetic Fields)
10. Lied eines Freudenmädchens (Gisela May)
11. Nickel under the foot (P.J. Harvey)
12. Uleg-Khem (Huun-Huur-Tu/Kronos)
13. Such Great Heights (Postal Service)
14. Lonely Woman (Ornette Coleman)
15. Ghost (Neutral Milk Hotel)
16. Vayl Ikh Bin A Yidele (Brave Old World)

Arrival
1. Ever After (Sondheim)
2. The Girl from Ipanema (Pizzicato Five)
3. Hashmal (John Zorn/Masada)
4. I Feel So Smoochie (Kurt Elling)
5. Four, for Tango (Piazzolla/Kronos)
6. Salvatore Amato (Bell Orchestre)
7. Here Comes a Special Boy (Freezepop)
8. Dinner Music For a Pack of Hungry Cannibals (Raymond Scott)
9. Golliwog’s Cake-Walk (Debussy)
10. Happy Feet (Paolo Conte)
11. Sonata No. 10 for 2 cellos — Allegro Prestissimo (Barriere/Ma+McFerrin)
12. I’m Old Fashioned (Dinah Shore)
13. Mr. P.C. (Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross)
14. S’iz Kaydankes (Brave Old World)
15. Gimme Some Lovin’ (Blues Brothers)
16. Chapter 8 -Seashore and Horizon- (Cornelius)
17. Straighten Up And Fly Right (Nat King Cole)
18. Zigeuner (Noel Coward)
19. Someone To Watch Over You (Frank Sinatra)
20. Wright Brothers Rag (Wynton & Ellis Marsalis)
21. What A Little Moonlight Can Do (Billie Holiday)

Advertisement

22 verses?

Posted on by

I sang evensong at Grace Cathedral last night, followed by a rehearsal for this Sunday’s service and evensong. It went relatively smoothly, although I did have to put on my sightsinging hat for some of it.

One of the psalms for Sunday has 22 verses (Psalm 154). For those unfamiliar with Anglican psalm-singing, it involves four phrases, two for each verse of the psalm. The text is marked with cryptic symbols to indicate when the bar line is and when multiple syllables should go on a single note. Time is taken rather freely, with barlines indicating phrase structure more than strict time. So for example:

Measure 1: [D] The lord is near to those who
Measure 2: [Eb] call [C] up-
Measure 3: [B] -on him,

Luckily we alternate verses between half choruses. The trick with psalm singing seems to be to make it not boring even though you’re basically intoning a long poem in an extremely repetitive manner.

Afterwards I went to meet Ann — on the way I ran into Beland, which was very strange, since I hadn’t seen him in years, but he had to go grocery shopping and I had to go to the new Naia gelateria in the Castro. I tried the mojito and rose flavors. Thumbs up on the former, but the latter wasn’t rosey enough. It’s nice to see more gelato places appearing. I like it much better than normal ice cream. Wikipedia informs me that gelato has no air whipped into it. Another interesting tidbit : to be called “ice cream” in the US, a frozen treat must have at least 10% fat, and most gelato doesn’t make the cut. So it’s all the best for me that I like it better — it will kill me more slowly.

the man of the heart

Posted on by

I’m working lights for this one-man show at Berkeley. The tech is kind of ballooning out of control, given that it’s supposed to be a workshop, but hopefully it will all work out.

UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies PRESENTS:

The Man of the Heart

Suman Mukherjee, eminent theater director from India and Townsend Center Visiting Artist in Residence, directs Assistant Professor Sudipto Chatterjee in an intercultural, interdisciplinary performance piece on the life, times, and music of Lalon Phokir, the saint-composer of the multi-religious Baul faith in Bengal.

September 22 at 7pm
September 23 at 4pm

The Sept. 23 performance will be followed by a discussion with the director and performer.

Durham Studio Theater
Free and open to the public

UPDATE : spelling error fixed. Some people have too much time on their hands.

elsevier all over again

Posted on by

As if I didn’t need another reason to hate academic publishing giant Elsevier (other than their horrid price-gouging that is), apparently they are also complicit in arms-dealing. My first reaction was “WTF?” but apparently it’s true.

Imagine you are an academic who works their ass off on some research and submits it gratis for publication in an Elsevier journal. Elsevier turns around and puts an absurd markup on the journal, bundles it with a bunch of other journals that nobody really wants to read, and offers it to your school’s library. The library is faced with having a lousy periodical collection or a lousy book collection and ends up cutting back acquisitions. Meanwhile, Elsevier takes the profits and uses them to run an arms fair so that repressive regimes can buy clusterbombs to kill babies. How might that make you feel?

tracks X

Posted on by

This is for a special someone working for the Peace Corps in Senegal…

1. This Means You (Talib Kweli feat. Mos Def)
2. Non Je ne Regrette rien (Edith Piaf)
3. The Dark Of The Matinée (Franz Ferdinand)
4. Sinnerman (Nina Simone, remixed by Felix Da Housecat)
5. Forever Young (Bob Dylan)
6. Passing By (Zero 7)
7. SOS elephants (Les Sans Culottes)
8. Sparks (Röyksopp)
9. Walking Through The Darkness (Tekitha)
10. Dumbala Dumba (Taraf de Haidouks)
11. Oo-de-lally (from Disney’s Robin Hood)
12. H.C.Q. Strut (Django Reinhardt)
13. Uleg-Khem (Hun Huur Tu and Kronos Quartet)
14. Sumpin New (Coolio)
15. I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Billie Holiday)
16. Busby Berkeley Dreams (The Magnetic Fields)

tracks IX

Posted on by

It’s Roman numerals from now on. I think this would be fun to drive to, but I like more mixed up things.

1. And The Angels Sing (Martha Tilton)
2. It’s Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
3. Wild Wild Life (Talking Heads)
4. There She Goes Again (Velvet Underground)
5. Saudade Dada (Arrigo Barnabé)
6. Peacherine Rag (Dick Hyman)
7. The Famous Polka (They Might Be Giants)
8. Seerauber-Jenny (Kurt Weill)
9. You Say You Don’t Love Me (The Buzzcocks)
10. Strange Eyes (Sunz Of Man, 12 O”Clock & Blue Raspberry)
11. The Fitted Shirt (Spoon)
12. Crush on Everyone (Jonah’s One Line Drawing)
13. God Bless the Child (Billie Holiday)
14. Misery Is A Butterfly (Blonde Redhead)
15. Smedley’s Melody (Squarepusher)
16. I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ (William Warfield/George Gershwin)
17. When You’re Smiling The Whole World Smiles With You (Frank Sinatra)
18. D’yer Mak’er (Led Zepplin)
19. Deceptacon (Le Tigre)
20. Ahead of the Curve (Jim’s Big Ego)