Archive for August, 2004

Audible reasons to be happy

I spend part of my life doing a radio program of electronic, experimental, electroacoustic, and various other types of music on Madison’s own community radio station WORT-FM, and have done so for an embarrassing number of years. I guess that’s probably why my colleague D. told me that I should feel free to rave about recent recordings in the course of my blogging life; he’s generous and assumed that this required some sort of critical acumen rather than just listening to things a lot and being forced to decide which among them to play for other people.

Well, okay. Here’s a reissue worth your while, and a new one….

The first happy bit of news is the migration of the Portland-based band Menomena to FILMguerrero records. This is a good deal because I can now go back to recommending it to people who can find it. David Zicarelli first played “their I Am the Fun Blame Monster” (whose title is an anagram, by the way) in the course of a long car trip to a trade show. I loved it even before I found out there was a Max/MSP tie-in–turns out the trio has a fourth member: a delay looping recorder MSP patch named Deeler used to construct the guitar/piano/bass/drum stuff (which the band then learns). The disc manages to combine its slightly twisty song forms with sonic treatment in a beautifully asymmetrical way. You can find a couple of sample MP3s here and here. And if you want to see the MSP patch for Deeler, I guess that l can say is, “Don’t hold your breath.” Oh yeah–did I mention that the cover is a flip book animation?

I have long admired the works of harpist Zeena Parkins (currently handling the harp chores for Bjork on tour) and drummer-turned-laptoppiste Ikue Mori, and have even managed to see them perform live (although not with each other) with considerable pleasure. Their recent duo release on Mego “Phantom Orchard” is a particularly enjoyable outing: an organic outing (as the title might suggest) that runs the gamut from pastoral (Ghostlake) to bramble (Miura) with grace and confidence. This collaboration rates high for me for my usual reason: it unites the things I like about the participants as individuals with work that emerges from the process of collaboration I might not have expected from either of them working alone. don’t take my word for it–you can listen to some of it here.

Finding patterns in odd places

I’m always surprised to find myself in American homes where there’s nothing to read anywhere in the bathroom. Living in the Netherlands, I think I maybe started to get a sense of why confusing your toilet and your library might seem eccentric; I currently assume that this is because baths and toilets often don’t occupy the same room (at least downstairs) throughout much of Europe, although I’m open to any other useful explanations.

Growing up, the Reader’s Digest (and later, the Utne Reader) were always in our bathroom. My better self now argues that it’s a great place to put poetry short enough to be scanned and inwardly reflected upon, and I have an acquaintance who claims that he always had a world atlas in his bathroom while growing up. But I have to say that I discovered my all-time favorite bathroom book exactly where you’d expect to find it: in someone’s bathroom.

P. was a nice guy I lived with while in my twenties. He was a city planner by education and an inveterate role-playing gamer who brought Dungeons and Dragons (or, as you may know it, the UR-Yu-Gi-Oh) into my life. And–of course–the book.. He kept this modest little book with the slightly tattered cream cover and its perplexing title “A Pattern Language” always in easy reach. I remember thinking that it was some kind of Gideon Bible for city planners the first time I picked it up (although I suppose that I sound stupid imagining city planners as a kind of cult). The little meme-fest tunneled into my psyche nearly from day one, and it’s been lodged there ever since (although it now stays on the shelf nearby in my office/studio rather than in our bathroom).

I really don’t want to spoil the pleasure of discovering the book if you don’t know it, so I’ll say this: Imagine that there is a Max/MSP/Jitter reference manual that contains objects for architecture. You connect them together, and you get buildings or towns or cities. Oh yeah–the book is divided into bite-size chunks of prose instead of a definition-heavy reference work, complete with evocative little example pictures. You can find an example pattern here .

Every time you sit down with the friendly little book (nice size for reading, typography that’s elegant and easy on the eye, nice binding. Oh sorry, this is book fetish material, innit?) and go through it or just open it at random, you leave thinking about the space you inhabit in a slightly different way. It is, of course, equally great for bus commutes, lunch breaks, bedtime reading, or something to peruse while your newborn slumbers on your tummy on the couch.

P. turned out to be on the leading edge of the curve, in terms of the meme. I had one of the oldest editions of the book of anyone I know (except for him), and was as surprised as anybody to discover, by accident, years later that my programmer friends knew about the pattern language.

On a little reflection, it seems sort of obvious why this might be true. A little googling located both some basic mention of his work along with that the Pattern Language connects with programming better than I am likely to manage. I’m sure you can find other things.

I was surprised (and a little pleased, although P. deserves the credit for being the cultural visionary here) to find him again in a new place. But I was a little puzzled, too; what was a lot less clear to me is the way in which people who cheerfully embraced some of his basic ideas felt about what seemed to me a kind of underlying assumption: that the source of order or beauty (in buildings, in his case) is definable and based on the “objective” truth of our perceptions. A building isn’t good or bad based on some set of shared cultural values, but because beauty itself had a kind of quantifiable and definable answer. He’s an unabashed absolutist, albeit as patient and polite an absolutist as I’ve ever encountered.

And I’m not sure that I think of programmers as absolutists. So, whenever I found a programmer who professed enthusiasm for Alexander’s work, I would politely try to ask about this-with varying results. This would often result in my being called a nerd for whingeing about the philosophical underpinnings of Alesander’s work rather than cheerfully embracing its populist approach to tools and its insights on pattern (which are, and remain, a source of intense interest for me). I was and am always proud to be called a nerd by a programmer.

If you’re at all interested in this kind of thing, the following polite and exceptionally articulate critical overview of Alexander’s entire work (including the new stuff) from Wendy Kohn will probably either depress you because it’s so beautifully written, or give better voice to some of your voiceless niggles (mine, anyway).

Although there have been occasional publications following the original volumes of Alexander’s work, things went quiet for years. The original version of the story I heard was that Alexander was working on a theory of ornamentation that would follow on from the pattern language and extend it to a kind of microstructure, followed by the news that he was doing something about “The Big Picture.” So we all waited, picking up the occasional volume after the initial trilogy The Timeless Way of Building, The Oregon Experiment, and A Pattern Language. For a list of the other books, which you’ll probably have some trouble locating in some cases, check here (and get out your checkbook).

Well, years later, it finally showed up. A series of four volumes collectively titled The Nature of Order. The March 2004 issue of Wired gave the recent work from The Nature of Form its de rigeur one-page précis in their PLAY section, and helpfully included his elements of style as sketched out in the first volume of the book, and revisited throughout the remaining three.

Where the pattern language ran on something like 250 different patterns, The Nature of Order has whittled and distilled these down to just 15 rules that lie beneath these pattern and are, if I understand him correctly, sufficient to describe true beauty in any form (more on this later).

Christopher Alexander is on my mind this week because I got an email from the Pattern Language group telling me that the final volume in his magnum opus “The Nature of Order” (the one that, I suppose, more or less corresponds to “A Pattern Language” in the set) will be out by the end of the year. I’m still whacking my way through the second volume (while simultaneously skimming the fourth one on the side. They’re published out of order 1-2-4-3), but I think they’re extraordinary books and ideas to wrassle with, if only as irritants which may provide the source material for the occasional pearl (since I am feeble and think slowly about things like this, it may take me a while to either come around or produce anything that looks like a pearl).

We all try to think about these things in our own way. My own personal and scholarly amusements (and the ones I wanted to mention to you) concern whether or not one might extend the 15 rules for order to the arrangement of aural events in time; I’m trying to avoid using terms like “music” when possible, since my own current exercises involve thinking about organizing sound more generally. In order not to spoil your own fun (and, of course, to safeguard the speaker’s fees and accolades that will doubtless greet my eventual writings on the subject), I think I’ll end by merely listing the 15 elements of style as they appear in Volume One.

So my questions to you come down to this: How might these serve as a place to start describing aural order or fittingness or (cough) beauty? Good luck–I think that thinking about this is worth the effort, despite whatever qualms about quantifiable beauty you may have.

  • Levels of Scale – A balanced range of sizes is pleasing and beautiful.
  • Strong Centers – Good design offers areas of focus or weight.
  • Boundaries – Outlines focus attention on the center.
  • Alternating Repetition – Repeating various elements creates a sense of order and harmony.
  • Positive Space – The background should reinforce rather than detract from the center.
  • Good Shape – Simple forms create an intense, powerful center.
  • Local Symmetries – Organic, small-scale symmetry works better than precise, overall symmetry.
  • Deep Interlock and Ambiguity – Looping, connected elements promote unity and grace.
  • Contrast – Unity is achieved with visible opposites.
  • Gradients – The proportional use of space and pattern creates harmony.
  • Roughness – Texture and imperfections convey uniqueness and life.
  • Echoes – Similarities should repeat throughout a design.
  • The Void – Empty spaces offer calm and contrast.
  • Simplicity and Inner Calm – Use only essentials; avoid extraneous elements.
  • Not-Separateness – Designs should be connected and complementary, not egocentric and isolated.

I should have written this first

Some of my Cycling ’74 colleagues have suggested that I blog, or at least post the occasional thing here that I shamelessly foist on my friends and colleagues.

So I said, “Um, sure.” And then I wrote about a squillion short paragraphs on everything under the sun and promptly freaked out. I am returning to it again (having already posted or submitted the first thing that I worried over), and realized that I should have said something else first.

This stuff you’re reading now.

It may be that I am demographically challenged, since—being a midwestern American–I am naturally loathe to think that my life is anything sufficiently special to warrant posting to the world in general; It might be a function of whatever age I am, and something I wouldn’t ever trouble with, were I younger or smarter or Canadian or Rosicrucian; I think of ranting to one’s friends (and being accepted for it) as a sign of friendship, and ranting to no one in particular as a sure sign of Having Gotten Off The Path Somewheres.

If your own life is kind of regular and might be mistaken for boring (no current hysterical misery, a regular schedule, a steady stream of quiet pleasures interrupted by the occasional extraordinary private or public experience), then the problem of bloggery is compounded by a faint whiff of apprehension: if you decide to fill your blog with things that interest you personally and genially recommend them to others, you might just be assisting in the devaluation of your own private currency of cool–that collection of hobbyhorses or interests that, in the absence of your fascinating phobias or appetites or addictions, make you worth squandering a minute’s time on in the first place.

[insert interval period of thrashing, self-laceration, writer's block, dining, and long walks here]

That’s all still true. However, I was thinking about all the people who’ve been decent or generous to me and have been central to the formation of my own sensibilities (This has something also to do with wine and low long-distance telephone rates, but never mind about that). I realized that there were just giving me lists of stuff and telling me stories–or telling other people stories while I was within earshot. I can’t ever pay them back for that, although I can thank them again and again. But I can do this, and honestly hope that there’s somebody somewhere who doesn’t know exactly what I know, have seen exactly the same stuff, and so on.

That’s a modest place to start. So, caveat lector.

Now, go make a list of the three people who are most responsible for helping you become the person you are. Take any one of those people and buttonhole them (preferably while sober) and tell them how much you owe them.

There. My first good and defensible piece of advice.

A hall of fame

During a somewhat impromptu goodwill tour of the American east, J. and I stopped off to see my brother Mark, who’s currently doing Shakespeare in Cleveland (city of lights, city of magic). It was great to see my brother ply his craft, and Cleveland turned out to have an absolutely amazing free art museum [a broad range of work, and some really beautiful things you might not expect to find--Adriaan Coorts, a wonderful Lee Krassner, some marvellous Japanese screens].

But we were in Cleveland, so we just had to go to the Rock `n Roll Hall of Fame. I was a little doubtful about this for several reasons….

First, I didn’t really fancy emerging from the set of exhibitions feeling radiocarbon datable. Perhaps everyone else fears recognizing too much in such a place, so maybe it’s not just me. After all the idea of “fame” suggests both the passage of time (there’s the rub, as the Bard says) and a kind of shared concensus.

Second, I have to admit that, on some level, I’m either not a “Rock `n Roll” person now, or maybe I never was. Judging by the Humble Pie, Pretenders, Long John Baldry, and Depeche Mode on my vinyl shelf, I must have been. So I figured that this was a chance to see another bit of I.M. Pei architecture up close (besides that cool Louvre pyramid)–it doesn’t seem like a Rock and Roll kind of building, by the way… more something out of “Logan’s Run.”

I figured that this would be a great chance to explain all kinds of cultural detritus to J., who didn’t have the benefit of a midwest upbringing, kind of missed seeing Punk upend everything, and so on. So the three of us joined the happy throngs streaming into the building, buying tickets with the art-Trabis from the U2 ZOO TV tour suspended overhead. The first non-surprise: Admission tickets remind me suspiciously of Ticketron prices.

I had a great time, although maybe not for the reasons I expected.

I’m not sure that the museum’s contents helped me to somehow mediate my own rock and roll experiences to J.–for example, it is still not clear to her that Roger Daltrey’s fringed vest from the Who’s Next tour is intended to do anything OTHER than to cripple a spectator with helpless laughter. Come to think of it, I don’t really think of the various strains of rock being about costume; the Hall of Fame rather powerfully suggests otherwise by having nearly as many mannequins on some floors as visitors. Oh sure–there are headphone stations and music blaring, but the visual material is, in large measure, about objects.

While I’m sure it varies from day to day, it was hard not to be in the crowd of couples, families, and kids and not be in a sort of oddly celebratory mood. It’s enough sensory overload for even the most discriminating child or addict of the immersive environment, and full of opportunities for people to try to explain themselves to others by means of objects or experiences. Which makes it even more noisy and festive. Think of it as a sacred site where children learn the secrets of their elders….

As a riotous monument to material culture, I’m hard pressed to think of anything quite so densely packed anywhere else. In some ways, it reminded me the most of those religious or historical sites where one could view various relics of the saints (secular or otherwise), and where the faithful come to see the pile of crutches or St. Anonymia’s femur or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s portable bar and reflect. The museum’s layout even reminds you of a pilgrimage, although one is less likely to be following the life of Mother Theresa and to be distracted by a collection of grunge LP covers or giant looming balloon ghouls from a Pink Floyd stadium gig. You’re also not allowed to photograph the relics, either.

So this means I’m stuck telling you about some of my favorite things:

  • A set of kid’s drawings done by a very young Jimi Hendrix that includes a picture of a car-train pileup bearing the caption “OBEY RAILROAD SIGNALS” (J. was very partial to a drawing of Jimi’s dog sleeping on his bed). Of course, they also had film (“Yes, honey – that’s grammy when she was a girl standing at the edge of the stage watching Jimi play the guitar with his teeth. She snuck out of the house to go….”)
  • A lovely diorama-like display of old Bakelite case AM radios that are maybe supposed to get you thinking about great Djs, but instead remind you of the last great age of industrial design by persons who still believed that the world was getting better.
  • John Cippolina’s multi-amp setup from the salad days of Quicksilver Messenger service, (high-frequency) horns and all. Actually, it’s an agglomeration of heads and bottoms and echoplexii and tweeters that looks like something you expect to see sprout wheels and roar off on old Transformers reruns (got the job done, though. Who do you love?) It’s a hilarious and touching example of why we all love software emulations of things like amps and stompboxes.
  • An old kinescope of the Les Paul and Mary Ford television program complete with the fake “home” TV set, howlingly quaint scripts which created opportunities for Les and Mary to play and sing (this is the famous multitracked Les Paul Sound apparently done in um… real time for the TV audience).
  • The happy discovery that their wall of photos of the “sources” of Rock `n Roll included a lovely recording of Professor Longhair. Hope floats.
  • Definitely some major death stuff: stuff from lots of dead rock stars (Lynyrd Skynrd tour costumes, anyone? A torched Keith Moon drumkit? A copy of Otis Redding’s death certificate?).
  • Enough old vinyl sleeves that I’ll bet every second adult who goes heads home, rummages in the garage, and checks eBay.

They also are beset with the perennial problems faced by any museologist–how to find space for new or travelling stuff. During our visit, the U2 memorabilia was displaced so that we could view Mary Wilson’s collection of stage apparel (she was the third Supreme. 20 points if you can name the second one).

And I don’t suppose that I should avoid mentioning that one of the major differences between this and a one-stop Reliquaries of the Saints euroattraction is the Income Tax writeoff angle, which must assume mind-boggling proportions. But look on the bright side–Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators (His famous jacket) and Keith Emerson (the actual dagger he plunged into his Hammond during ELP and Nice tours) get their write-offs next to John Bon Jovi and the Hendrix estate.

One of my personal rating systems for museums has to do with postcards–specifically, the extent to which the riches inside are available for posting to friends abroad. The Cleveland art museum was sort of a disappointment in that regard, but the Rock and Roll Hall of fame was pitiful – I wound up having to choose between a photo of Keith Moon’s shoes or Pei’s building. So it was Moon boots for the metros, Logan’s Run pix for the retros.

Copyright © 2012 Cycling '74.