Hanging in there
It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but I’ve been doing my best to keep busy over these past few months. Here’s a quick update:
I’ve been recording a lot of radio interviews. Notably, I did a handful of tapings with producer David Schulman for Weekend America’s (R.I.P.) “Conversations with America” series. (Check out: Moustafa Bayoumi, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Le Thi Diem Thuy.) I also got a production credit on a “Global Hit” segment on PRI/BBC’s The World.
I’ve also started engineering and occasionally also producing for Antenna Audio, a company specializing in museum audio tours. (Special thanks to Cyrus Farivar for introducing me to them!) In addition to a bunch of recordings and podcasts, I was also a producer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Choirs of Angels” audio tour.
The amazing non-profit Spanish language arts and education organization, El Taller Latino, continues into its 30th year despite the difficult economic times, and I’ve continued to help them produce concerts and recordings.
Aside from that, I’ve been producing beats for a young rapper—maybe he’ll let me post some audio links of our work in the near future.
But I could always be busier. If you’re a producer, an engineer, radio station, or musician looking for some extra help, don’t hesitate to drop to drop me a line!
Hey Donkey, say “hi” to your mother for me *
“Hey donkey, what’s going on? …
(From: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/10/21/in-which-sarah-palin-displays-the-latest-in-donkey-fashion.aspx)
…Alright. Say ‘hi’ to your mother for me.”
It seems improbable (and to my eye the “vote” flag seem out of place from a design perspective if not photoshopped), but I haven’t heard anyone calling “fake” yet. So then, what was she thinking? I suppose wearing the symbol of your opposition is “mavericky.” At least that’s a nice word for it.
Maybe the scarf is part of the $150,000 the RNC has spent on her clothes. For those of you who like math, that’s $2,500 a day–or equal to one of McCain’s annual health insurance tax credits (for individuals) every single day.
* It’s a reference to last weekend’s SNL skit with Mark Whalberg, NOT “that one” with Palin.
AUDIO – The Metropolitan Museum of Art Podcast: The Essential Art of African Textiles, Design Without End
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Podcast: The Essential Art of African Textiles, Design Without End
Date: October 14, 2008
Description: Curator Alisa LaGamma talks to artist Sokari Douglas Camp about her work, including the steel sculpture Nigerian Woman Shopping.
Role: Recording and audio editing
New York Debut
So…I meant to write about this earlier, but tomorrow I’ll be one of 200 guitarists and 16 bassists playing in contemporary composer Rhys Chatham’s piece, “A Crimson Grail.” It’s free.
It’s kind of crazy that–being a composition major and one of those guys who was always starting bands–I haven’t actually performed any music publicly or, for that matter, played with any other musicians since moving to New York almost two years ago. (Did I write those very words in an earlier post?) More on that at some other point, or just as it happens.
Anyway, are the deets:
800 Years of Minimalism
Friday, August 15, 2008, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell, W 62nd St between Amsterdam and Colombus Aves
Here’s their blurb on from http://www.lincolncenter.org/show_events_list.asp?eventcode=-62531:
“This special co-production highlights minimalist music spanning eight centuries of human experience, in a program exploring the transcendental and ecstatic dimension of music-making.
“Beata Viscera, an early-music vocal group, opens with a selection of works by the 13th-century French composer Pérotin.
“Next, composer Rhys Chatham and section leaders John King, Ned Sublette, David Daniell, and Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family) lead an oversized orchestra of 200 volunteer guitarists and electric bassists in the world premiere of A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (Outdoor Version) performed not on the Bandshell stage but along the sides of the audience at Damrosch Park, to heighten the work’s polyphonic effect. The work, originally composed for Paris’ famed Sacré-Coeur, has been extensively revised to suit the dynamics of the Park’s outdoor acoustic.
“Concluding the show will be the U.S. premiere of composer and guitarist Manuel Göttsching’s hour-long masterpiece E2-E4, one of the most important, influential electronic records ever released. Collaborating with Göttsching for the first-ever U.S. live performance of E2-E4 will be the Joshua Light Show, led by multimedia artist Joshua White, which will fill the surface of the Damrosch Bandshell with its signature display of psychedelic visual effects.”
I knew they’d make something like this sooner or later
My friend Lidia just introduced to me www.ridethecity.com. It’s like hopstop.com but for bike routes!
That was a nice set of civil liberties we had there…
Here is the bill that will effectively give the administration the power to spy on American citizens (think: your phone calls, email, and internet usage) without accountability. In other words, it’s not illegal if the president says it ain’t. No warrants. No courts. No questions. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is really happening. (e.g. Act II of last week’s episode of This American Life.) And regardless of the fact that Democrats now control BOTH houses, it looks like this thing is still going to pass. (I know it’s naive, but for a while I really thought they were going to derail it.)
I’ll leave the most of the commentary to Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for salon.com who’s been sounding the alarm on this issue for a while now. (If you haven’t already, seriously go read him now.) But I do wonder: what would Mrs. Kregness, my 9th grade civics teacher, say?
How do you even teach civics to kids these days? Aside from all the other wrenches this administration has thrown at the constitution, I would think they’ve seriously undermined a civics teacher’s lesson on the system of checks and balances.
“But Mrs. Kregness! You told us that the constitution was written to specifically to stop abuses of power.”
“Well, yes in theory it would…if the other people elected actually oppose those abuses.”
My parent’s generation saw Nixon get his comeuppance. (Well, sort of, if resigning in shame counts.) People my age grew up seeing the president getting impeached for perjury about a non-criminal act between two consensual adults–like, on a technicality–and even as redonkulous as that whole thing was, at least we saw the system in motion, goldangit! But what if we have a generation of kids who grow up seeing there really aren’t consequences for very serious breaches of the law? Will they–like I sometimes find myself doing–shrug their shoulders saying “well, that sucks but whachagonna do?” and wait for the next power-grab?
Yes, the constitution is malleable, is subject to ammendment and reinterpretation. That’s why they call it a “living document.” But what if you gut it of the very qualities that make it that way? What if everybody gets it wrong and nobody cares? If the constitution is a living document, can you kill it? Kill it dead?
And lastly, I want to echo Greenwald: where’s Obama on this? He had been a vocal opponant of telecom imunnnity and supporterd of Sen. Dodd’s revision of the FISA bill. I’m not in any way suggesting that Obama could wave his hand and make the problem go away (I know folks who hate when he’s characterized as some kind of Messiah, and so do I). But if he got the Democratic party to follow suit and reject money from lobbyists–no small feat–could he rally the party against this bill?