*urp*

If I never eat anything else with cheese, cream, milk and butter again. . . ..

Back from Bordeaux and going on a vegan fast. I'll tell you about my trip after I finish having a coronary.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Second to last draft of my Statement of Purpose

Now with expanded goal section!!

As an undergraduate, I went to Mills College to study computer science, but I quickly found myself gravitating to the Center for Contemporary Music. I studied electronic music with Maggi Payne, who taught synthesis techniques on a large Moog Modular Synthesizer. Its sound and musical possibilities captivated me, and I decided to double-major in music and computer science.

After graduation, I became immersed in Java and web programming and the dot com boom and I did not compose for a couple of years. I began creating tape music again in 2000, with an analog modular synthesizer. My method of creating music was to record interesting patches until I had enough of them for a piece, and then find an interesting way to mix them together. The compositional forms I used tended to be either intuitive or sonata form. After writing many such tape pieces, I branched out into acoustic instruments and focused on rhythm. In 2002, I organized a percussion quintet, for whom I wrote music.

That same year, I began volunteering for Other Minds, a New Music nonprofit in San Francisco. I was a driver for their festival and then I helped them catalog their tape archive and worked for them as a volunteer sound engineer. In 2003, I joined the board of directors.

Also in 2003, I composed a piece for a mechanized coin-operated toy piano nonette designed by Trimpin. The odd intonation of toy pianos got me interested in pitch and tuning. I studied Just Intonation techniques with composer Ellen Fullman and took on the Java Just Intonation Calculator project, for which I am now the lead programmer (see http://jjicalc.sf.net). My interest in tuning also led me to the fretless bass guitar, which I played in an improv art rock quartet. We had a few gigs in the spring and summer of 2003.

When I arrived at Wesleyan in the fall of 2003, I decided to focus on things that are not possible with my main instrument, the analog modular synthesizer. Taking advantage of being surrounded by performers, I created several compositions for acoustic instruments; I also played tuba in Anthony Braxton’s Ensemble. I worked with him: studying free improvisation and also helping him debug his SuperCollider patches.

My main focus, however, was studying SuperCollider with Ron Kuivila. I concentrated on tuning and on working with audio files using granular synthesis techniques. For source material, I generally used recordings of the voices of recognizable public political figures such as George Bush and various right wing pundits. Most of the pundits sound very angry, so I also include more meditative just intoned works interspersed with the politics. I’ve applied my homebrewed granular algorithms to process live audio input, as well.

At Wesleyan my music became more rigorously organized and algorithmic, and less intuitive. To some extent, this was because of the tools I was using, but I also began to feel that a purely intuitive approach had its shortcomings. I’ve continued to work on form and computer music techniques since receiving my degree. I thought a year abroad would contribute to my education in many ways: I was accepted into the program at CCMIX in Alfortville, France, in fall of 2005. I’m studying timbre, both how to manipulate it electronically, and how to make use of it within a form. I believe this will complement my interest in tuning.

Berkeley and CNMAT seem like the most obvious next steps in my path. As a long-time Bay Area resident, I’ve attended many CNMAT events that have affected my music. For instance, in 2002, I saw a concert where Professor Wessel improvised with Pauline Oliveros. He played granular synthesis algorithms where he processed sound from recordings released by Oliveros. That was the most convincing demonstration I had yet seen of granular synthesis and is what sparked my interest in that technique.

Of course, when I was a MAX programmer, I made frequent uses of objects developed by Berkeley, especially the multislider object, which was one of the closest things to a vector object available in MAX. Doing computer music means using tools developed at Berkeley. My primary music language now is SuperCollider 3, which uses OSC as a backbone for interprocess communication. This protocol was developed at Berkeley. In August 2004, I went to the OSC conference sponsored by CNMAT. One of the things discussed at this conference was the need for an authentication layer. The security problems inherent in SwingOSC seem to indicate that this is still an open problem. As a Java programmer, I’m both excited by SwingOSC and spooked by the huge security risks. Therefore, if admitted to Berkeley, one thing I would like to do is work on OSC authentication.

My primary goals are, of course, musical. I enjoy programming and technology, but I see it as a means to an end of creating interesting sounds. I love new ideas and I find that they tend to come from new tools. A new tool leads to a new way of thinking about sound, or vice versa. Being a part of a musical community also leads to new ideas, especially in a community such as Berkeley, where the goals are to create new things. I hope that being at Berkeley will take my music in new and unpredictable directions.

After graduation, I hope to teach or even become a professor. While I was a TA at Wesleyan, I discovered that I like teaching. Also, there are a lot of benefits for composers who are attached to universities, like access to performers and facilities and being part of a musical community. By teaching, I would be able to share my knowledge and expand the userbase for my favorite tools. There is no better path to becoming a professor than a PhD from UC.

Berkeley is my first choice for schools because of its excellent reputation and because it is a leader in developing computer music technologies. With my background as a computer programmer, I hope to be able to help develop the next pieces of audio software and to use them to create art. Berkeley is ideally situated for me both in terms of educational philosophy and physical location. While there, I would be able to continue all of my interests: composing, performing, improvising and programming, and I would be returning to the Bay Area: my home and a place where I have many musical contacts.

The added new paragraphs are as rough as ring-modulated square waves . . . Or ten cent off tones . . .. Ahem. Going to submit this before midnight tonight Pacific Time.

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Random Questions About France

As the subject line indicates, I have some random questions about France: specifically French Christmas trees. I've noticed that trees are sold sort of stuck into half a log of a larger tree. When people take their trees home, do they leave them this way or do they transfer them to water-containing christmas tree stands? If so, where would one buy said stands? If not, do they put the whole tree bottom in a bucket? How are trees watered? If trees are not watered, how do people keep them from catching fire? Do people just leave their trees up for a few days in that case?

In the US, there are always major warnings about tree fires, but people there tend to leave their trees up for 6 weeks and they're not very fresh when they get them. My family always went to tree farms and sawed down a tree, so it was very fresh and I remember that when we got it home, we would bolt it into a tree stand and start it off initially with aspirin and coffee. I think I would need aspirin and some coffee too, if I had just been sawed down. Apparently, the same properties that make both those things good for headaches are also good for keeping sap vessels open, so the tree can absorb a lot of water and not dry out.

The last couple of years, I had a live tree in a pot, because I felt kind of guilty about sawing one down and killing it, but then I killed my potted tree anyway. It's not like all the paper that I use is 100% recycled. So tree death is a part of life.

Tags: Paris, Xmas, Celesteh

Why do I want to go to Berkeley

Well, it's near my house and I'm kind of homesick and plus they have a dental plan and I don't think an essay about being kind of homesick and not having my teeth cleaned for the last 6 years (ew) is really what they're looking for.

However, since I've lived near Berkeley for so long, I've had some musical encounters with them. For instance, in 2002, I went to see Pauline Oliveros improvise at CNMAT with David Wessel. She played the accordion. He played that thing he has. It might be a Marimba Lumina. Some Don Buchla - built digital instrument controlling a granular synthesis patch that Professor Wessel created. His patch was playing grains from CDs released by Oliveros. I think he was using a cloud algorithm. The sounds were droney and their original beginning and ends were lost, but the source material, chanting, for example, was still somewhat evident. It created a lush background of sonorous sounds which Oliveros played accordion over. I had heard of granular synthesis before then and had even used a program called GrainWave which used it to create sounds, but I had never used it to process pre-existing sounds.

It was the most convincing demonstration for this (very hot at the time) technique. I bought a book that covered algorithms, but implementing them in MAX/MSP was a major pain in the ass, so I didn't get around to it until I learned SuperCollider at Wesleyan.

Speaking of MAX/MSP, berkeley publishes a HUGE collection of MAX objects. When I was trying to do list operations in MAX (oh what a pain in the ass) I used Berkeley's multislider object to hold values for me. It was hackoriffic. Berkeley is the place to look for MAX objects.

and, of course, last summer, I went to the OSC conference there and took copious notes. the keynote speaker got me all gung-ho about RSS and RDF-based operating systems and gmail-like storage and sorting systems for data. (The db-based Mac OS XI is coming... and not soon enough!)

OSC is a transport protocol so isn't really exciting in and of itself. However, it's an integral part of SuperCollider. At the conference, they discussed adding pieces to the specification. One of the tings they talked about adding was an authentification layer. Right now, there is none. so SuperCollider gives you wide open access to a high-priority thread running on your machine. Something called SwingOSC just came out. It adds java graphic libraries and the like to SuperCollider applications. I haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet, but one of the things spooking me about it is that it is a GIGANTIC security problem. It runs java stuff via OSC. Meaning an unsecured open port which will run any java code that you send. I'm going to unplug my modem while running it or modify it so it only accepts connections from localhost.

Authentication is obviously necessary for these sorts of nifty add-ons for OSC and supercollider and at the conference, they tried to recruit people for workgroups. With my MA thesis looming, I did not volunteer for anything. But the obvious and pressing need for authentication makes me want to volunteer for it now.

As much as I like coding, however, it's not really my main focus in life. I like to create tools that I need that let me do what I want and I like to share such things when they're useful to others. But what I need the tools for is making music and that's mostly what I want to do. What's great about CNMAT is that they have and make all these neat tools, but they also are very focussed on making music with them, as evidenced by that nifty concert I saw back in 2002.

Coding, making music and improvising is a killer combination. (killer is good like sick is good. Berkeley is sick.) I want to go and spend the next few years doing these things. So if they let me in, they get a coder, a composer and an improviser who sees the need to work on projects, even if they're not the most exciting thing in the world if the need is there, like OSC authentication. And who will use the tools that are created by myself and others to make tunes.

Now, if I can just distill this blog post down to a thousand well-chosen words in the next 3 days, I'm set. Hopefully.

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Today in Paris

Cola and I went out to go Xmas shopping. As we walked to Republique, we noticed a godawful traffic jam with even more horns blaring than usual. A bunch of garbage trucks were blocking the path of traffic around the Place de Republique. There were a bunch of people waving communist flags around, lining up in the street. Somebody with a bull horn was chanting something about the Catholic church. There were signs that said something about "1905/2005" and "Ni Eglise Ni Maître Ni État" I could not figure out what was going on, except that there were a lot of pissed off drivers and a lot more people showing up all the time with red and black flags.

So I bought a communist newspaper for 2€. I didn't notice at the time, but the woman gave me a July/August issue and a September/October issue. Sheesh, you'd think communists didn't like Americans. Anyway, since I'd purchased a magazine, I could ask her what was up. And I could not understand anything she said. So her english-speaking comrade came over and explained that in 1905, France passed a law mandating the separation of church and state. The protesters wanted to re-affirm that law. (It was then I noticed the "Athéisme" banner.) They also told me the march route. I am 100% in favor of secular states in every country. But France is not my country, so I did not join the march. Instead I walked to le Marais and did some window shopping, but not much actual shopping. My goodness, it was crowded! We bought falafels and then walked home.

Cola looked up Harry Potter on the Version Originale website (which I leanred of from the ex-pat blog Dispatches from France) and so we hung around for a bit and then walked to a movie theatre by the Place d'Opera. The website gave us entirely the wrong address, so we went to a later movie than we meant to, but we did get to see it in English. It's nice to see a movie with such a strong feminist subplot. There was a real gender-balance of champions in the wizard tournament and the women always placed first or second. Ha. Sorry. I meant to say that the only female contestant came from a single-sex school and placed last in every event. Oh, and the magic of the school mostly involved being feminine and doing cheerleading routines, as far as I could tell. Also, they're French and we all know that French culture embodies femininity in every way. And, every single Hogwarts student is straight.

Got out of the movie too late to go back to le Marais, so maybe tomorrow we'll go to the 3w bar. That stands for Women with Women. Hopefully, no wizarding challenges will pop up while we're in such a helpless, female environment.

Tags: Paris, Secularism , Harry Potter, Celesteh

A dream I had

Isn't it fascinating when people post their dreams?

So it was a wednesday. I had finished my morning classes and was sitting on the patio of Café Strada listening to Rudy and others talk about celebrity gossip that I could barely follow. Jennifer who is with Brad? I looked at my watch and said goodbye to go to a meeting of my Transgender Peace group. (Trannie peace activists? I don't even know.) After the meeting, I hopped on my bike and rode down to the Acme bread company and bought a loaf of sourdough and popped into Kermit Lynch next door and got a bottle of wine. then I biked home and walked my dog around the block. We stopped to play with a dalmatian, Lotta Dots, that my dog is friends with. Then I came back and spent some time playing long tones on my tuba to help prepare for a gig I was going to play on Friday. I grabbed some homebrew beers and stuck them in the fridge because my band, Rides Again, was coming over for rehearsal. Cola came home from work and took Xena for another walk, while I programmed some granular synthesis algorithms I would need for the next night. the band showed up and we smoked some weed on the back porch and then took the beers into the studio to play. We practiced incorporating Anthony Braxton's hand signals into grooves. The drummer recorded the whole practice onto minidisc, so he could post the best five minutes to the band's podcast in the morning, keeping our fans psyched for our gig the next week. Then we all walked to Lanesplitter pizza, smoking pot on the way and having more beer once we got there. The waitress told me she liked the tuba playing I'd done the week before at 21 Grand. I gave her a flyer for Rides Again's upcoming show the next week at the Stork Club. After dinner, I was walking Xena around the block with Mitch, too buzzed to read the 50 pages I needed for class the next morning, but talking about an idea for an installation that we were going to submit to the San Jose Museum of Art.

The Cola started awake and I woke up too. I'm sure my life will be just exactly like that if I get into Berkeley! I did once have a waitress at Lanesplitter recognize me though, over last summer, after I played some tuba improv at the Luggage Store as a part of quartet.

Tag: Celesteh

Portfolio

“Lock Up Your Children” was composed in 2005 in response to the controversy surrounding Buster the Bunny. In one episode of this children’s show, the cartoon rabbit goes to visit a Vermont family headed by two moms. He says hi to the moms once in an extremely brief scene. This caused a controversy as the United States government withdrew funding for the show.

This piece uses clips of the controversy being discussed on Frontline, of Bill O’Reilly and other pundits discussing the controversy, and of Fred Phelps, a radically homophobic preacher. I wrote a SuperCollider library to analyze buffers of spoken text and look for pauses. The program for this piece cut the buffers at pauses and analyzed the later ones to find the dominant frequency, which is played underneath as a gong sound.

This piece has been performed at my thesis concert and at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco.

“In 5ths” was composed in 2004 and performed that year by the Flux Quartet at a concert at Wesleyan University. The performance notes and score are included here. Terry Riley’s In C largely inspires this composition. I navigate the circle of fifths because of the tension in stacking three fifths on top of each other. The listener wants the 2 to go to a 3, but instead, another fifth is added. Also, fifths in equal temperament are very close to 3/2. Since the Flux Quartet only allocated minimal rehearsal time, I wanted to write something they could play easily that was within a margin of error of just intonation.

“Morpheus’ Snare” was created in 2005. In this piece, I have detuned the left and the right channels. As the piece starts, the detuning falls randomly in between 2 Hz and 20Hz. As it progresses, the range narrows until the left and the right always differ by 10Hz. Alpha brain waves are generally around 10Hz. There are rumors that listening to pitches detuned between the left and right ear at 10Hz will make the listener sleepy and cause them to enter an alpha state. All of the tones in this piece are based on the undertone series 19/17, 19/19, 19/21, and 19/23.

This piece was performed at my thesis concert and at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco.

“Rush to Excuse” was composed in 2004. This piece applies granular synthesis to a 47″ sample of Rush Limbaugh’s radio oratory. There are two processes involved. The first cuts Mr. Limbaugh’s voice into hundreds of samples of equal length. These samples, or grains, are then analyzed to determine the average pitch for each. The second process cuts the same clip into unequal pieces based on silences, or pauses in speech. I mix the output of these processes together, repeating the first process several times with longer and longer grains. Content and pitch material are then juxtaposed.

In the sample used, Mr. Limbaugh excuses torture at American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and mocks the Geneva Convention. He describes a photograph of a naked prisoner being threatened with a dog, and justifies it by claiming there’s no actual assault, the prisoner is merely being frightened. As it happens, a subsequent photograph shows the actual attack. On being apprised of this later in the program, Mr. Limbaugh offered a correction and a weak apology.

This piece was performed at my thesis concert and at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco.

“No No Nonette” was created in 2002 for an installation of nine MIDI controlled player toy pianos, created by Trimpin. The installation, Klavier Nonette was in place at Jack Straw Productions’ Media Gallery in Seattle in the early part of 2003.

“Breaking Waves”, created in 2001, uses a destructive loop. The original sound is ocean-like noise. I encoded this as an mp3, and then I decoded it back to aiff. Then I re-encoded that aiff to and mp3 and repeated this process several times. Mp3s are supposed to have transparent compression, so the user never hears the lost information. However, after repeated processing, the wave sounds break down.

This piece was released on Ibol Records Random Spheres of Influence compilation in 2001.

“Bell Tolls”, composed in 2004, plays triads with a sound that resembles wind chimes. It uses a spatialization algorithm so that each “chime” sounds like it is coming from a different location. It is especially evident if the speakers are places three meters apart. The pitch of each new set of chimes is based on the pitch of the chimes that precede it. The pitches come from a 21-limit tuning table.

This piece was performed at 21 Grand in Oakland and at my thesis concert.

The spatialization code is included here and is online at http://www.celesteh.com/music/wesleyan/Locator.sc [note to blog readers: I finally published my SC libraries to: http://www.celesteh.com/music/wesleyan/]

“Airwaves #2”, composed in 2002, was the second piece in a three part series. At that time, I did most of my compositions using a MOTM analog modular synthesizer running a direct line to Protools. The direct line sometimes created a sound that seemed too large. This series was an attempt to create synthesizer tape pieces with more “air” in them.

This piece was played at Woodstockhausen 2002.

“Pro Manko de Edzino”, was composed in 2003 for a concert of five-minute piano works at Wesleyan University. Neely Bruce was the performer. Unfortunately, I do not have a good recording of that concert, so only the score is included in the portfolio. [Note I said "good" recording.]

All of the pieces on the CD can also be found online at http://www.berkeleynoise.com/celesteh/podcast/

[Not included but almost: "Phase"]

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Portfolio

I want to finish my UC Application by Wednesday. So what should go in the portfolio and in what order? I think I should include stuff from Wesleyan and later and not earlier things.

definitely included

• The string quartet

other candidates

• The bill o'reilly / fred phelps piece
• detuned left and right piece
• tuning piece with bells
• Rush Limbaugh

gah I can't take this piece anymore

• Ann Coulter does have a performance history

maybe a UPIC piece?

• I dunno about this

Errr, so everything that I could send it on my podcast. I dunno. Bah. I also have pieces with the softwear I'm writing, but I dunno about them.

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Hangover Cures

I feel I should share this as I know that at least a couple of people who read this occasionally might want this information. I, for example, am not hungover right now, but there are children in [third world country] who are. Anyway.

If you drink alcohol, you then feel buzzed. This goes away eventually as your body converts booze into something else. This is a good thing or else those few beers would leave you messed up for the rest of your life. Yikes. Anyway, this conversion process uses vitamin B and water. A lot of the converted alcohol ends up excreted to your skin. When you feel crappy the next day, it usually because you're short of water or vitamin B or because your skin feels like it's wrapped in bar-flavored saran-wrap.

Therefore, in order to avoid feeling bad, pre-stock what you'll need. Drink some water before you go to bed and ingest some b-vitamins. One excellent source of vitamin B is yeast (the solution is within the problem!). This is why homebrew drinkers, in addition to being smug and making snarky comments about pabst blue ribbon (a cheap, terrible american beer), almost never get hangovers. Because of the yeast in the bottom of their bottles. However, rather than coming home and having a homebrew nightcap, it may be a good idea to mix nutritional yeast with fruit juice and drink that. Nutritional yeast is also tasty on popcorn. Dont' worry about drinking too much water, since it's going to end up on your skin rather than getting you up during the night

In the morning, you'll want a shower. A hot one. Sweating is good. And you'll want to drink some water or other fluids. Coffee or tea are good because they contain caffeine, which is good for headaches.

don't take vitamins when you feel sick, or you'll be sorry.

also, certain alcohols are worse. Corn liquor is terrible and cheap as hell, which is why off-brand hard lemonade can leave you feeling like hell even if you only drank in moderation.

However, there is no cure for feeling regret the next morning because, say, you were at Seymour's and fell over a sofa and onto some exchange students. . . . I miss wesleyan.

Tags: Hangover, Celesteh

Statement of purpose

Please describe your aptitude and motivation for graduate study in your area of specialization, including your preparation for this field of study, your academic plans or research interests in your chosen area of study, and your future career goals. Please be specific about why UC Berkeley would be a good intellectual fit for you.

As an undergraduate at Mills College, I studied electronic music with Maggi Payne, who taught synthesis techniques on a large Moog Modular Synthesizer. Its sound and musical possibilities captivated me, and I decided to double-major in music and computer science.

After graduation, I did not compose for a couple of years, but began creating tape music again in 2000. After writing many such, I branched out into acoustic instruments and focused on rhythm. In 2002, I organized a percussion quintet, for whom I wrote music.

That same year, I began volunteering for Other Minds, a New Music nonprofit in San Francisco. I was a driver for their festival and then I helped them catalog their tape archive and worked for them as a volunteer sound engineer. In 2003, I joined the board of directors.

Also in 2003, I composed a piece for a mechanized coin-operated toy piano nonette designed by Trimpin. The odd intonation of toy pianos got me interested in pitch and tuning. I studied Just Intonation techniques with composer Ellen Fullman and took on the Java Just Intonation Calculator project, for which I am now the lead programmer (see http://jjicalc.sf.net). My interest in tuning also led me to the fretless bass guitar, which I played in an improv art rock quartet. We had a few gigs in the spring and summer of 2003.

When I arrived at Wesleyan in the fall of 2003, I decided to focus on things that are not possible with my main instrument, the analog modular synthesizer. Taking advantage of being surrounded by performers, I created several compositions for acoustic instruments; I also played tuba in Anthony Braxton’s Ensemble. I worked with him: studying free improvisation and also helping him debug his SuperCollider patches.

My main focus, however, was studying SuperCollider with Ron Kuivila. I concentrated on tuning and on working with audio files using granular synthesis techniques. For source material, I generally used recordings of the voices of recognizable public political figures such as George Bush and various right wing pundits. Most of the pundits sound very angry, so I also include more meditative just intoned works interspersed with the politics. I’ve applied my homebrewed granular algorithms to process live audio input, as well.

At Wesleyan my music became more rigorously organized and algorithmic, and less intuitive. To some extent, this was because of the tools I was using, but I also began to feel that a purely intuitive approach had its shortcomings. I’ve continued to work on form and computer music techniques since receiving my degree. I thought a year abroad would contribute to my education in many ways: I was accepted into the program at CCMIX in Alfortville, France, in fall of 2005. I’m studying timbre, both how to manipulate it electronically, and how to make use of it within a form. I believe this will complement my interest in tuning.

At UC Berkeley, I hope to work at CNMAT to learn more real-time techniques. Berkeley is my first choice for schools because of its excellent reputation and because it is a leader in developing computer music technologies, such as OSC. With my background as a computer programmer, I hope to be able to help develop the next pieces of audio software and to use them to create art. Berkeley is ideally situated for me both in terms of educational philosophy and physical location. While there, I would be able to continue all of my interests: composing, performing, improvising and programming, and I would be returning to the Bay Area: my home and a place where I have many musical contacts.

After graduation, I hope to teach or even become a professor. There is no better path to that goal than a PhD from UC.

Jean helped me edit that, because Jean is cool. She asked, though, does it answer the question.

so, um, does it?

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Drunk blogging

Repeated here for your pleasure, the kind of sketchy conversations one has with ferral composers at 2:30 am at Place de Republique:

Sttranger: (french) do you have rolling papers?

Me: (english) he says he wants rolling papers

another drunk composer [adc]: (english) what does he want them for? (hands over papers)

me: porqoui vous demander le papier?

stranger: (french) to roll a joint

me: for a joint

adc: for a cigarette? cigarette?

stranger: (pulls out a pack of cigaretttes offers one to adc who takes it)

adc: why does he want the papers?

me: for marijuana

stranger: oui! marijuana!

adc: i want to smoke mariojuana! does he want to share with us?

me: il voudrais fumer le marijuana avec toi. oh my god, i'm arranging a drug deal.

The stranger is not happy with this idea. I take a short walk away so he and adc can work it out. After some discussion in frenglish, adc stumbles over to where i am waiting.

adc: well, ok, i'm going to see whats up with all this and if he's for real cuz we're going to smoke pot.

meanwhile, the stranger has taken advantage of adc turning away and is running down the block away from us.

yet another drunk composer: I don't think you're going to get any pot tonight

and now, at 3:30 after being up since 6:30 and having an all-around exciting day which i may tell you about in teh future, i am going to bed.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

The meter reader cometh

And that's why I got up before 7:00 am, in the dark. To wait.

When I lived in Berkeley, I used to have ants. There are a lot of ants in Berkeley and you can only get rid of them for a little while. So I got used to keep ant food, like honey, in the fridge where the ants couldn't get it. Fridges are bug proof and they keep things from spoiling. So why not refrigerated garbage cans? You don't want to keep your trash in your regular fridge because sometimes, it's already spoiled. But if you had a fridge trashcan, it would prevent bugs and also . . . zzzzzzzzzzzz

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Personal Statement

Here's what I'm telling UC Berkeley about being diverse: (Thank you to Jean for helping me edit this)

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

When I graduated from college with a dual music/computer science degree, the dot-com boom was in full swing. I worked at a startup, and startups expect 60-80 hour work weeks. I did not write any music at all while I worked there, because the schedule took over all of my time.

A job was offered at Netscape, with more free time and more money, I accepted. I purchased a MOTM Modular synthesizer and started recording tape music. It became clear to me that my music was more important to me than my stock options. I wanted to be an engineer and a composer simultaneously. In 2001, I was laid off.

During the job search, I continued recording tape music and posting it to Mp3.com. I joined a group of noise music composers on the service. We hoped that by working together, we could raise the profile of noise music in general while also advancing our music careers. Despite having made virtually no money from music, when it became clear that the dot com bust really was the end of the party, I decided to switch my focus towards a composition career.

My father, my brother, my uncle, my grandfather and my great grandfather have all been engineers, but no one opposed this decision. For my own part, I felt a bit guilty at first. Instead of helping to solve the problem of the scarcity of women in computer science,, I was jumping ship. Ironically, I think I may have switched to a field even more male-dominated. (As it happens, almost all of my interests are in traditionally male-dominated fields.) I’m frequently the only woman or the only queer person present at lectures and events, or, for example, in the yearlong program at CCMIX this year.

In 2003, in an effort to learn how one might actually make a living as a composer, I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women's Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a masters degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a masters-level audience. Clearly, I needed a degree. I enrolled and completed the master’s program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. While there, I discovered a fondness for teaching, which will require a doctorate. So here I am.

I think it’s useful and encouraging for women, queers, and other under-represented groups to see people like them teaching college. I hope to be that kind of positive reinforcement when I’m a professor.

Annnnd, I'm not sure this essay answers the question posed at all. Hm. Man, I hate this crap.

Tags: UC, Celesteh

Happy Pseudo-Secular American Harvest Festival

I get to celebrate on Saturday. But today, I've got to go to the store and the post office and class and I can because everything is open. Maybe the patisserie wil have tarte de potiron. It's the only thing I'm missing. Well, that may not be entirely true, but it would be better for me not to reflect on this.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Won't anyone think of the children?

From the Washington Post:

But Vatican officials say those rules have been loosely enforced, and some have blamed homosexuality for a worldwide scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests. Other Catholics say there is no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Indeed. Some catholics say there's no connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. As does the DSM and every major professional organization of psychiatrists and psychologists in the united sates. Some shrinks point out that 98% of child abusers are not gay or bisexual. Some victims rights groups point out that the majority of victims of sexual abuse by the clergy are girls and oppose this plan. Some newspapers occasionally do a bit of research rather than presenting things that are verifiable as a difference of opinion. Or, you know, maybe they could "teach the controversy." Oh, no, that's another debate over a verifiable phenomenon.

If American culture is going to be relentlessly dedicated to positivism, could we please actually make an effort at doing even a smidgen of research. We have google. We have the internet. Reporters have Lexis Nexis. Heck, they could just call up an "expert" and ask for some information. They could open a book. There are so many ways to get information now. It boggles the mind to have to think about it. I remember the old days when libraries had card catalogs. Now you can find out about almost anything without having to leave your desk. It's so much easier now to do research, yet it seems fewer and fewer news organizations ever bother.

Some catholics believe that the world is round. Some people actually earn their paychecks by doing their jobs.

Tags: Catholic, Gay, Celesteh

Wine reviews: Côtes du Rhône 2004 and Touraine: Curvée du Savoir 2003

Both of these wines cost 4,50€. Both these wines are appellations contrôlées, meaning they're named for a region and only wines from that region may have that name. There the similarity ends.

The Côtes du Rhône 2004 has a fruity nose with strong hints of apple and an afterthought of vanilla. The taste is syrupy, but not sweet, creating a disharmony between the nose and the mouth. It has a slightly acidic flavor, with a hint of lemon peel and an overtone of unripe fruit. Unlike most modestly priced wines, it' has fat, slow-forming legs, showing a certain viscosity that I haven't before seen in wines I've purchased in Paris.

The winery is Vignerons de Beaumes de Venise S.C.A. Vaucluse - France. I bought this bottle at a wine shop I'd never been in before. I'm going to assume it's not representative of Côtes du Rhône.

The Touraine: Curvée du Savoir 2003 was fruity and understated. It faded quietly to the background when paired with cream of broccoli soup. I can't say much about it because it didn't have much to say. It would probably go with anything and it's very drinkable: light and fruity. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. It uses Gamay grapes which are fruity and tend to be lower alcohol (this wine is 12% vs 14% for the other bottle).

The winery is Coteaux Romains 41140 Saint Romain/s/cher - france

Since Nicole is gone, I probably won't be reviewing any wine for a while. I'm thinking of settling down with the 3€ wine form the fromagerie (the Pigmentum) because it's cheap and good and I can get 3 bottles of it for the same price at 2 bottles of these more expensive wines what tell you things like what kind of grapes they have. However, I think there's a wine show next weekend, so maybe I'll have things to talk about from that.

Tags: Wine, Paris, Celesteh

Full of complaints

I woke up very early yesterday morning and my back hurt. a lot. I think I slept on it wrong. It hurt all day yesterday. a lot. It still hurts today, thank goodness less. I want a chiropractor.

Nicole has gone home to the Inland Empire for a food-based holiday. Ha ha. Alas. I have class on thursday night, even. I don't think I can figure out how to make a pumpkin pie.

My house is cold. I'm out of rice and vegetables. I have lab hours tonight, but the software we just learned isn't installed on the mac yet, so I don't want to go. Anyway, I need to do my UC Application essays, which are too long and very annoying. I wrote some music and it got played. Then I wrote some more music and it got played. Then I wrote a different kind of music. Yawn.

It's going to rain down slushy muck on friday.

Last week (the week that Cola was here), I had class everyday from 10 am - 7pm, which ran late sometimes. This week, I have two hours of class on thursday night. My school has had toilet paper two days out of the last three weeks. That's not counting the day one other student got upset and begged some off a neighboring studio. He went and complained. He was informed that it will take two weeks for new toilet paper to arrive. What happened to the old toilet paper? He suspects students may have stolen it. He has suspects in mind. We're a suspicious lot. There are rumors going around about people stealing each other's work and each other's samples. Improbable, strange theories wherein the stolen samples were only heard when the informant was outside the studio, thus highlighting the sneakiness of the thieves. (I'm being deliberately vague here, but I'm not making these rumors up, just causing inadvisable drama by repeating them.) The tweeters on the main speakers are definitely out. The mixing board has dirty faders (smoking in the studio doesn't help). The patchbay's normalizations are going out. I have serious hatred for frustration with one individual (if you're reading this, it's not you.)

I want to get a job. My visa allows me to work 20 hours per week. If I had a job: 1. I could afford to buy more blazers. 2. I would know more people. 3. My french would likely improve. 4. I would have more than 2 hours a week of things I was supposed to do with other people.

Or I could go awol. Nobody at school is French. I don't have any connections to the french performance scene. If I went to Berlin, I could make connections there through wesleyan people who did the german exchange. But I have a lease on my Paris apartment.

Nothing makes me feel more female-identified than sexism. Where is Hothead Paisan when you need her?

I need: a conversation partner, a transformer for my mixer, to finish my stupid application, to find out if I can fax it in or find somebody in the us to print and mail it for me, to request transcripts from previous schools, (It is such a pain in the ass to do these things from another continent.) to figure out how the hell to get gigs, to go buy some rice and vegetables and toilet paper and baugette and cheese. I'm thinking emmental and st nectaire, although i haven't tried the latter.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh

French food you can try at home: Crème fraîche

French food! What exactly is crème fraîche? Wikipedia says that it's "a heavy cream slightly soured with bacterial culture, but not as sour or as thick as sour cream. Originally a French product, today it is available throughout Europe." I don't know if it's available world-wide or not, but it's a very useful thing to have. You can add it to soups and sauces to make them extra tasty. Here are a couple of recipes, one very easy, one harder. For those of you who are vegan, you can substitute cashew nut butter and a drop of vinegar to get a similar effect.

Grad student cream of broccoli soup

Optionally sauté onions, optional garlic and optional pepper in some butter or olive oil. If you choose not to sauté, then just put some olive oil or butter in a pan.

Add some dry rice, too much water and some bullion. Optionally add herbs de provence or other spices. Cook the rice until it is nearly done, then add a head of chopped broccoli. Cook the broccoli in the water and rice. After three minutes you have watery cooked rice and broccoli. Then add a spoonful or so of crème fraîche. You now have cream of broccoli and rice soup! This might go well with baked chicken.

There are many options in the above directions, because graduate school is an exploration in options, boundaries and the like. Also, it's cheap, easy and fast.

Soup of Potimarron

Take one small or medium potimarron (a pumpkin or butternut squash may be substituted) and bake it around 175 degrees C (or 350 F) for 40 minutes to an hour. You can tell it's done when you can easily pierce it with a fork (the same is true of the other squashes). At the same time, also bake, in the same oven, a handfull of chestnuts. You can tell their done when around half of them have cracks in the shell. They will take less time than the squash.

Peel and dice the chestnuts and set them aside. Put a lump of butter in a pan and sauté in it an onion, two or more cloves of garlic and a hot pepper. When the onions are getting translucent, add a small amount of rice (a handful) and broth or water + bullion. Also add a tablespoon of herbs de Provence or other european soup spices, two centimeters of ginger root, a pinch of dried red pepper flakes (to taste), and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Cover and let simmer.

Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds, which you should save too cook later. Scoop the squash insides into the soup. Then add the chestnuts. Let simmer until the rice is cooked and the squash is breaking apart. Then add a head of chopped brocoli. Cook that for 3 - 5 minutes. Then ladle the soup into a blender and blend it. Return the blended soup to the pot and put it over low heat. Add 0.5 - 1 cup of soy milk and a few spoonfuls of crème fraîche, until the soup tastes really rich. Salt and pepper to taste. Your soup is done.

Beware if you try to cook the chestnuts in a frying pan or something instead of in the oven. Take them off the heat after most of them crack. The ones that don't crack can explode, which is extremely messy and probably hazardous.

Squash seeds

Now take the seeds that you saved from the squash and wash most of the squash goop off of them. Put then in a frying pan with oil that takes high heat (like canola or corn or whatever) and some soy sauce. You can add black pepper and your other favorite spices, like curry powder or herbs de Provence or anything else. Cook them until the soy sauce evaporates away and the bits of squash goop burn to the bottom of the pan. This differs for different seeds. Potimarron seeds take a long time because they're so thick. When you're done, the seeds are a nice browned color and crunchy when you sample them. If they start to explode like popcorn (watch out for butternut squash, esp), they're definitely done. Eat them with salt.

Tags: Food, Crème fraîche, Paris, Celesteh

Buying a coat

It hit zero today, as I wined earlier, but fortunately, I had the foresight to go out yesterday and buy a coat. It took most of the day, alas. I'm skinny, but with long arms and I didn't want to spend too much. Before, I left for here, I posted something about wanting to get as many clothes as possible before I left, because of not knowing what it would be like to cross-shop. Oh, what a fool I was.

First of all, only one guy gave me a kind of disgusted look and that was the extent of anything negative. Much better than home. (People are reading me as female now because my hair has gotten longer.) Also: blazer-type jackets for sale at every store. In velvet(ine). In corduroy. In my size. Picture: blue velvet blazer. Royal blue!! Oh my god!!!!! There was a whole store for very scrawny slightly femme-y guys who still wanted to dress like it's still the mid-to-late 90's! I was a size medium there! They had tweed jackets with elbow patches, something I spent months looking for!!! For only 230€, ahem, yes. I had to leave without buying anything because it was lovely, but it was just too much money.

There's a store called the C&A which has ads in the metro where they show whatever their featured sale item is. This week it's a black corduroy jacket for 30€. I'm going back to buy one tomorrow, but their coat selection, alas, didn't fit me well. But every fashion in the store was really nifty, as far as I could tell. A city where I can shop for men's clothes where it isn't suspect for men to wear anything other than trainers or sweatsuits!

Anyway, after a lot of looking, I walked into a fairly fancy-seeming store and tried on a tweed coat in a size medium. It was too big. But a sales person came over to help me. At home, I try to duck sales people because they're not entirely friendly. The woman clearly thought it was a little odd that I wanted to try on men's coats, but was happy to help. She went and found me a size small coat in black. It fit very well. I bought it. At the register, she went through the script, kind of laughing as she did so. Did I want men's gloves to go with my men's coat? How about some men's dress socks? She would have smiled and sold me some if I'd said yes. We chatted a bit in frenglish. She wanted to know how to say, "would you like anything else?" in english.

Sometimes, it's really good to be foreign. I have no idea about modern french cross dressers and what their experiences are like (I've seen some around in bars and whatnot, but not had a conversation). But I think I get away with a lot because I'm foreign and people expect me to be kind of different. That's true in Paris and it's also true in Nebraska.

Anyway, I have never before enjoyed shopping for clothes that I can remember. Right now, I am pondering buying a whole new wardrobe. And coming to Paris from anyplace else in the world when I need clothes.

Tags: Cross Dressing, Paris, Celesteh

It freezing outside

No, it's actually freezing. 0 degrees C. Why do I keep moving places that are so cold?

I might have a concert on Wednesday night, but I might not. grrrr for uncertainty.

Tags: Paris, Celesteh