Gin and Zilbertronic

this is a trifecta of excitement.

not only is the title awesome, and drawn from one of my favorite short story collections by raymond carver, its a great novelist writing about something that isn’t really written about, and is endlessly fascinating.

what I talk about when i talk about running

Last year I didn’t pace my 5k, and ran too fast off the gate, and was passed by a 12-year old in the last minute!  Felt like I was going to throw up, who designs a course to end with a large hill?

This year I paced myself, going comfortably for the first mile.  I was shocked and psychologically uplifted as I passed people for the last half of the race, but still managed to basically get the exact same time, only about 30 seconds off my time from last year.  And I still wanted to puke.

Races are fun.  Free food is great.  And people do some funny shit warming up.

Archie Bell – “Tighten Up”

Very subtley remixed by me, as i slowly learn to use logic pro!

Girl Talk delivered a rocking dance party/concert.  The references are too many to list, but my favorites were The Band, Lil’ Jon, and “No Diggity.”  Currently I’m a little deaf, covered in the sweat of underage skateboarding Aspen locals, but still happy.

Caitlin has a blog! Check it out!

http://caitlinseeley.wordpress.com/

• our blog is no longer being viewed! maybe we need more diversity of content (ahem, ray and em).  and some food and music reviews….
• any music that needs to be justified is usually bad
• (for instance, i wrote a fanfare the other day, entitled “(expletive) funfare!!!!”  It needed and received no justification, and was a hit!

from alex ross’s blog, a link to a video about the production of bernd alois zimmerman’s opera in new york, which looks like it defies explanation….all i can say is, any opera that involves the audience being shifted in location rocks!

watch it here!

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11  – Lawrence Wright

Foreskin’s Lament – Shalom Auslander

Alternadad – Neal Pollack

The Blind Side – Michael Lewis

This speaks for itself!! Remember, we all have this gene running through us. Honor it!!

last week, and at various points over the last 5 years, i’ve often been caught in conversations and arguments about what the role of modern composers ought to be, why they are doing what they are doing, and why they seem to fall so easily into the categories of “audience-hating” or “audience-pleasing,” and unfortunately rarely into the category of “inspired and original and risk-taking.”

which is why a lot of people are rightly drawn to other venues of music outside classical music. given a narrow random exposure to the genres of classical music, indie rock, and electronic, i’d say a person couldn’t be blamed for finding more originality, unabashedness, and innovation in indie rock and electronic. they’d also hear some stuff they wouldn’t like, but often-times those genres will provoked a reaction whereas classical music sometimes induces boredom. oversimplification? yes! but the broader point holds, in that we in classical music don’t spend a lot of time examining why people ought to want to listen to our music. and how the same things we value in classical music can be expressed elsewhere, with slight modifications, yet increased creativity.

now this is a philosophical rant, but as an example, here is a track i’ve been listening to with awe lately, an 18-minute charles mingus fantasia entitled, “Stop! Look! And Sing Songs of Revolutions!/Saint and Sinner Join in Merriment on the Battle Front/Of Love, Pain And Passioned Revolt, Then Farewell, My Beloved, ‘Til It’s Freedom Day.” My point is that this is a track that would be laughed at or ignored by a lot of classical musicians, but which has a density, complexity, and fascination with sound that is sort of the reason we tend to be drawn to classical music. Check out that guitar entrance at 1:40, and if you don’t get goosebumps, try again!