RLPF.ar

Palin

I put my foot in my mouth last week at work. We had some non-technical people involved in a case, and they stubbornly refused to understand the technical explanation. Since I had just been reading about Sarah Palin’s unique grasp of the political landscape, I thought I would make a little joke and say that “getting the executives to understand what’s happening must be like prepping Sarah Palin for a vice presidential debate.” Well, I thought it was funny, but little did I know that the support engineer on the receiving end of the e-mail is Republican. Fortunately he’s good-natured and let it go, although he could have raised a fuss and that might have landed me in some hot water.

So I have a couple of things on my mind. First is that an apology is needed—even though no serious offense was taken, there is a reason why political debates are generally off-limits in the office. I went out on a limb, and while the limb didn’t break, it creaked and gave me a start.

Second though, I find myself thinking through what bothers me so much about Palin and about the McCain campaign in general. Let’s leave aside policy positions—it should go without saying that I think the bulk of the Republican platform is (pace Samuel Johnson) both honest and sensible, except that the parts that are honest are not sensible, and the parts that are sensible are not honest. What troubles me even more—no, infuriates me—is a fundamental attitude toward competence that appears to me completely misguided.

I believe in talent and hard work. Achievement without effort is at best hollow, and represents failed potential—a waste. Effort without ability may not end well, but at least it’s respectable. I can’t particularly fault McCain in this regard. Clearly he has, or used to have, the skills to buck the Republican Party Kommandants without getting politically crucified. (All the more poignant, then, that he has chosen to waste those skills and turn himself into a clone of the rank-and-file, religious-fascist-toadying operatives he once enjoyed holding up to the wall.) But Sarah Palin—where is her talent? What sort of hard work? (Palin on the vice-presidency: “... what is it, exactly, that the v.p. does every day?”)

Palin represents the same lack of seriousness that is eroding America’s pool of science and technology talent (which we, sort of, you know, need if we want to maintain any sort of strength in the coming century and beyond). The lesson is very clear: You don’t have to do much of anything to reach a high position. You don’t have to be especially smart or capable—actually these qualities are, today, a liability! I read of soccer moms who like Palin because “she’s just like us.” Do they fantasize that if she—one of their own kind—could be chosen for the vice presidency, then they too could be chosen for greatness even in the absence of anything exceptional in their past?

That’s the McCain strategy playing out exactly as orchestrated. Once voters identify with a candidate and see themselves in the candidate, rational criticism becomes impossible. The critique, no matter how justified or correct, will inevitably be perceived as an attack on the voters themselves. To question Palin’s competence (which is questionable) is, implicitly, to question your next-door neighbor’s competence—making Palin both underqualified and untouchable. I wonder how many of the Palin wannabes realize that they’re being played, mercilessly. If they did, would they not be mortified? Shouldn’t they?

“Underqualified and untouchable,” of course, is right wing nirvana, from CEO’s who hop from company to company, driving them to bankruptcy and collecting shocking severance packages as a reward for their failures, to the appalling—one could say, criminal—results of Bush Jr’s administration. But as a nation, we cannot afford to be underqualified. We have no more margin for error, to make an ideal of mediocrity. Yes, most people will be just average, and there is not a thing wrong with it. But the average should not run the country. We’ve had eight years to see the consequences—botched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (botched largely because Cheney and that idiot Rumsfeld ignored any and all expert advice that contradicted their preconceived notions), pathetic responses to national disasters (“Heckuva job, Brownie”), and the squandering of Clinton’s surpluses into massive deficits.

Obama may not be a senior member of the Senate, but he shows every indication of applying himself to whatever task needs attention. He is talented and he is no stranger to hard work. I respect this, and I have confidence that a smart guy who works at what he is doing can accomplish great things.

My colleague who bristled at my ill-considered joke took his undergraduate education at the same university (Duke) where I studied for my Ph.D. Its academic reputation is solid and it is no place for underachievers. It’s beyond my understanding how someone could come from such an environment and fail to be offended—shocked—at this repudiation of excellence. I would like to understand, and I hope he is willing to explain it to me sometime.

Preparing for Shanghai

Two months absence -- regrettable, but the preparations for Shanghai are taking just about all of my time.

Just some odds and ends for tonight. Last week at this time, Jimmy and I were at my parents' house in my less than scintillating hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana. Two occasions: my 20th high school reunion, and a visit from my brother, sister in law and absolutely adorable four-year-old niece.



Mom and Dad warned me how energetic she is, but still we were not exactly prepared for the hurricane. But she is a delight, full of imagination and playfulness. That picture was taken after Sunday brunch on the grounds of St. Mary-of-the-Woods college, where my dad taught until retirement. This was near the horses' stables and the alpaca pen -- yes, no kidding, alpacas. Rory was enchanted.

Reunions, especially after so much time, are peculiar affairs. I realized in advance of going that I was looking for some sort of closure. In high school, I didn't feel like I was ever really there -- academics were a different matter, but personally and socially I was always holding back. I'm a much different person now, stronger, more accomplished, more confident, and I needed to bring that person into that old crowd. I was very glad to see a handful of the pack of advanced placement students who followed each other from one accelerated class to another. At the same time, many of the old class dynamics still exist -- the people who organized the reunion are the same ones who organized homecoming, the prom and those other meaningless high school rituals. For them, high school is full of memories and occasions to reminisce are more for their benefit than anyone else's. For myself, I think I always knew my destiny would be elsewhere, and it's with some satisfaction that I can close that chapter of my life and look more to the future.

I'd thought of waxing political, but it's late and I have not much to add beyond what's already been said. So I'll refrain for now, except to offer the observation that Sarah Palin and her lackluster qualifications are a peculiar choice for the Republican second-in-command, from the same party that has been bleating about Obama's youth. Well, never mind, the sheep in their party will do as they're told.

My skills at the macchinetta are improving. On the weekends I generally treat myself to homemade cappuccino or iced latte -- not with the best equipment, but my espresso grounds are better flavored than Starbucks easily (which is not necessarily saying much). We had whole milk in the house for the first time ever (usually it's skim) and I was thrilled to discover that it takes much better to my milk frother than skim ever did, leaving a mountain of light but stiff foam at the top of the cup. Small pleasures.

Luckiest people in the world

see more crazy cat pics

Sniffling and coughing, but otherwise hanging in

Count me as a casualty of our energy-decadent society where, no matter how hot it gets outside, office interiors must be kept at frigid temperatures more suitable for penguins than humans. Absurd as it seems, I must take a sweater to work every day, in the middle of summer. And what if I don't? Well, I come down with a sore throat, which inevitably turns into a sinus infection and thereby a couple of weeks of hacking and coughing of the sort that leads nearby companions to fear the loss of vital organs. Can't we have just a little sanity, please?

This cold seems to be on its way out more quickly than most, thanks to a day off from work last Friday during which I finally took much needed rest. Not only for my immune system -- accumulating emotional stresses over the last several weeks must have caught up to me and contributed to my unwell condition. In any case, with a few days of doing next to nothing, I feel in about a week further into my recovery than I would expect to be after so few days.

It's confirmed that at the very least I will be going to Shanghai Conservatory in October to give a two-hour lecture demonstration and also perform on a concert in the evening. By that time I hope to be on leave -- I will certainly need the time to prepare!

A setback, but new determination

Bad news this weekend. I hadn't posted about this before, but for the past few months, I've been in touch with one of the professors at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music about a possible faculty position for me. Things seemed to be going well up until this weekend, when I got an e-mail not saying quite outright, but strongly implying that it would not be possible. That's tough to deal with -- in my mind I was already there. I thought it was just a matter of paperwork, but it seems the administration had different ideas from the faculty.

So this weekend I haven't done much of anything. I went swimming today. The French Open finals were on (where Nadal entered the ranks of the Bjorn Borg-level players, and Federer received a whipping the likes of which I've never seen him endure) as well as the US gymnastics championships -- starting to get Olympic fever!

Otherwise, it's been thinking, letting emotions come and go. Going to Shanghai represented a new chapter where, even as I would leave home geographically, I would come back home spiritually to being a musician. It isn't going to happen exactly that way, but the sense is much more acute now of just how much my musical talents are frankly going to waste because of my current work situation. It's difficult to realize this. I love the people I work with, I find the challenges genuinely fascinating and I'm very good at what I do. I do find satisfaction in all these things, but the price is that my musical work is stuck in neutral. Something has to give.

I'm not sure what form that will take. In some ways, the best case would be to slow down to a part-time schedule, but that might neither be possible, nor the best option. I have some hard thinking to do in the coming months. But I know what the focus is -- to bring my life back into balance. It hasn't been balanced for a long time, and that's even more important than one opportunity denied.

It's scarier with recent economic news. I hope at least this will bode well for the Democrats this fall. It's a shocking irony that the Republicans, formerly the "party of fiscal responsibility," have become the party of profligacy and it's up to the Democrats to come into power every decade or so to clean up the mess. Then the stupid and ungrateful American people hear the siren call of the "spend but don't tax" Republicans and send the country into another supply-side death rattle. It's no longer the case that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it -- now, nobody remembers what happened even 20 years ago!

Who is proofreading over at iTunes music store?

Their "Classical Music Spotlight" email spam this week includes a writeup of Hilary Hahn's new recording of the Schoenberg violin concerto. Somehow they managed two distinct misspellings in the same paragraph: Shoenberg and Schoeberg.

Genius.

Oh, that's right, all the geniuses at Apple work in retail-land helping people with the cupholders in their computers.

SuperCollider exposé (hush hush!)

I decided to put up the PDFs of the so-called "scores" for the two supercollider pieces I wrote up recently on my website. They are pretty technical documents (and not enough in themselves to reproduce the pieces) but I think they're interesting as documentation of some of my compositional thought processes.

Sangha flower / audio excerpt (from a different performance)
Got an itch to scratch / audio excerpt

For the musical notation, I discovered that I could export snippets from Finale into Encapsulated PostScript files, and then OpenOffice Writer could import them just like any other graphic. So I got the notes in the middle of the text, and everything is vector graphics so it looks great no matter how much you zoom in.

Getting back in touch with older pieces

Busy as always... just haven't had time to post! That situation is not likely to change anytime soon.

Recently I had the opportunity to go over some past pieces: a couple of supercollider tracks and also my Ph.D. dissertation. (Perhaps later I'll explain why.) A most interesting exercise to lay out the results of several years' work in an admittedly highly technical form, but one that I hope has a chance of being intelligible to a human being other than myself. I wouldn't have that expectation of the supercollider code! It's also a pleasure to note that, years later, my dissertation strikes me as stronger work than I remembered. After finishing it, I think I just wanted to put it behind me and move onto the next phase of development, but now that seems to be a mistake. Too much of the piece is emotionally gripping to let it go to waste. Perhaps it isn't too late to find players.

The violin piece is moving out of the concept stage -- notes are coming together and I feel like I'm picking up some momentum.

Recent listening: I've been looking for a long time for a decent recording on period instruments of Bach's flute sonatas. I became deeply intimate with the main six sonatas (BWV 1030-1035) and the solo partita in a minor (BWV 1013) as an undergrad, though I didn't get to know the fabulous G major trio sonata (BWV 1039) until graduate school and somehow missed the g minor (BWV 1020) sonata altogether. Then, not long ago while listening to an online Baroque music radio station, I heard recordings of some of the sonatas in the hands of Lisa Beznosiuk and admired both the technical excellence and strong interpretations. Lo and behold, the iTunes music store carries the entire set, so I bought it online and have been enjoying it ever since! The pieces are every bit as exciting as I felt they were when I was learning to play them, and I've really enjoyed getting back in touch with some repertoire that meant a great deal to me in college.

Although one Amazon reviewer panned the recording engineering, I find the sound quality entirely pleasant, and any quibbles here are easily overshadowed by the exquisite playing. Beznosiuk's tone is ravishing and her interpretive decisions are impeccable, well thought through and daring in places. I'd recommend this recording without hesitation.

Three months! Really??!!

Has it really been almost three months since my last post? I knew it was a long time, but I didn't think it was that long. It's been full, and exceptionally busy. A quick summary --

The book, of course, was delayed. My materials were ready early in January, but some people took more than a month after that. At the same time, supercollider 3.2 was supposed to be ready at the beginning of the year, but that got pushed back into late February as well! I was not even close to successful in distancing myself from that process. Some of the areas of the program that were getting significant rewrites are ones that I have a large stake in, and just as I thought it might be settling down, another issue would come up.

The upshot of that is, where I thought I would be able to start on my new piece early in the year, I didn't actually get to start on it until the very tail end of February. That's put me a bit off where I wanted to be, but such is life... then, my company sent me to London for the first week of March for an emergency situation at a customer site. Under other circumstances, I would have been thrilled to go to London, but to me it meant yet another week's delay getting started on the piece. The trip was better than I thought it would be (and I got to meet up with some supercollider users for curry on Brick Lane, delicious!), but I'm still a little sore about the loss of time. I hope to parlay that into an extra paid vacation day.

I am, however, terribly excited about the new project. I had proposed the idea of a string quartet and computer piece to the Ciompi Quartet at Duke sometime ago. Well, the quartet wasn't interested, but their first violinist, Eric Pritchard, wondered if a solo violin and computer piece would be an alternate possibility. Well, he's a terrific musician for whom I have tremendous respect, so of course I jumped at the chance -- who could refuse? So we're looking at it for his spring 2009 faculty recital.

So far I've been working on how to organize the code for a scored piece. That's a different challenge from running the piece interactively, as I've done so far. Some sections will have to run for a specific amount of time; others will have flexible timing and move on based on some signal from the performer. Also, I want to read pitch information from the violin and generate harmony based on the pitches that has been active recently. I finally got that logic working today, with a really handsome graphical view that shows the pitches rise and fall in energy.

It's now a lot easier to write longer posts because MacSpeech, the only company making viable dictation software for the Mac, have just come out with a new product, MacSpeech Dictate, that is easily an order of magnitude faster and more accurate. I get the feeling it isn't quite finished yet -- there's no correction mode and it can't learn from your speech -- but it's so accurate as it is that I can live with. That's not to mention that iListen 1.8 was so awful that even an unfinished upgrade feels like an improvement to me.

My good friend from Duke, Chris Adler, just sent me his new CD entitled Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze, Terrific work as always, especially the title composition, which slowly develops a simple ostinato into thunderous, rock-influenced riffs. I'm listening to it now, for the third time today... so yes, I like it. That's one of the things Chris has always been able to do with his music -- get under your skin and light you up inside in places you might have forgotten you had.

A moment's rest

My final review draft is in! That gives me the luxury of thinking of something other than this one text, for a few minutes... just few minutes... I also have to write some bigger examples for the CD-ROM that will accompany the book.

This is the point where I really have to put a lid on my perfectionistic tendencies. I saw yesterday that I could keep reading and keep tweaking little sentences here and there, but that would accomplish nothing besides making sure it's never finished. It's good enough now as it is.

In other news, Pam's House Blend ("... always steaming!") reported yesterday that a hotel within walking distance of my house is, as I write this, hosting a thinly disguised white supremacy conference. It's the Crown Plaza Dulles Airport Hotel, just on the other side of the toll road from where I live. Insane. I could literally walk down there, start blowing kisses at the attendees, then get followed home and shot on my doorstep by one of these nutjobs.

On second thought, maybe that isn't such a good idea.

Here's one of the resident lunatics on the Queen Latifah show, arguing that racial profiling is right and just because it's true.



I actually had trouble paying attention to what he had to say -- I was distracted by the disturbing degree to which he sounds exactly like Hank Hill of "King of the Hill." I kept waiting for him to proclaim kerosene to be the fuel of the devil and insist that God-fearing Christians should only use puh-ropane. Kind of hard to take him seriously after that.

What are the chances I ever stay in a Crowne Plaza any time in the future? I would say, roughly zero.