Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins

I was walking home from the dentist, and i noticed a building which said ‘Whitechapel Bell Foundary’ on it. The papers posted in the door indicated that it was actually still a functioning foundary and that people could come in, so I did. A woman greeted me and told me to look around. Their front room is a tiny museum.

While I was looking, I could hear occasional dings coming from the foundary area, where I guess they must have been tuning bells. This foundary was established more than 400 years ago. They cast the bells for Big Ben and, less successfully, the Liberty Bell, which cracked on its first ringing and was subsequently recast in the States.

They also make smaller bells, including handbells and offer sheet music for sale.

I peeked out into the courtyard and saw a group of new bells resting there.

This is very exciting. In my first semester at Wesleyan, i got really interested in bells and their physics, but some of my questions about how shape effects sound didn’t seem to have much published material. Ron suggested that I get in contact with a bell foundry. I put the idea aside instead.

I had gone to a lecture about medieval monestaries. The professor giving the talk mentioned archeological remains of bell molds. In medieval times, bells were usually cast on site, so archeoligists have found pieces of the molds. Bell sounds were very important to Joan of Arc, so i started to wonder: if we could find enough mold fragments to project from it the shape of the entire mold, could one construct from that the timbres of the resulting bell? Could i feed some arcs into a program and get from it a synthesized bell sound that matched?

So, the material has a little effect, but not a lot. But bells are tuned after they’re cast. Parts of them are cut off. So, i don’t know if it could work or not. Also, is there an existant mathematical model which predicts timbres based on shape? Hey, bell founder, give me your trade secrets!

I did learn,  though, that new bells were often based on old bells. They would form the mold directly from the old bell and them melt it down for the material to cast. So you can’t hear the bells from 1429 in any cathedral, except, sorta you can.

Anyway, now i have a bell foundary very conviently located near my abode. Do i want to actually do this project? Is the math beyond me?

Bells are so cool!

For those who desire to reach me via post, here’s my mailing address:

9 Matilda House
St Katharines Way
London
E1W 1LQ
United Kingdom

Also, I have some ability to offer short term lodging, so if you’re planning a trip to London, contact me and maybe you can sleep on my couch. And if you don’t want the couch, contant me anyway and we can hang out.

Hopefully, this is my last day of no internet.

This is highly overdue, alas.

So, officially, my reason for my last visit home was to play in this concert. Alas, a travel budget was illusory, so it was more like a working holiday. I spend a lot of time practicing with Polly and pulling the piece together. It’s really hard to practice for something when you don’t really know what’s going to happen.

I arrived in California with working hardware, a vague idea of some structure, a working visualizer and one drone sound. While there, Polly and I hashed out a slightly less vague structure and got the ‘working’ hardware to actually function. I added another texture/drone and recorded some samples. We also talked about what we thought might happen. Polly envisioned something intense and serious.

We showed up to the venue and did a sound check, which took forever because of the wonkiness of my hardware setup. Also, processing.org, the video language that i used, plays everything in a window with a top window bar. I hadn’t thought to research how to get rid of the top bar, so the ‘solution’ was to point the projector such that the top bar mssed the screen and went up towards the rafters. This was suboptimal. I also had to do some code changes to make the window bigger, which, fortunately, didn’t cause side fx. (I wonder if i can embrace a top bar as part of my lo-fi asthetic, or if that’s too lazy.)

There was a pre-concert talk, which had more attendees than i expected. It turns out that many or most of them were working at the festival, but there were as many folks present for the talk as there were for my last edgetone gig, so i was a trifle intimidated.

The theme for the evening was ‘sonic light,’ which meant anything with a video projection. Technically, that fit us, but my projection was just, literally, a moving graph of the data. I think our piece needs the graph or else the tie to biometric data is just way too unclear, but it’s not like great art or anything. One of the other groups had a real-time changing holographic projection. The other had a really high-seeming hippie filmmaker who was so brilliant that he could barely form a coherent sentence. (Note: not snark.) I felt outclassed. Thank god we were opening.

Our video was more of an aside, an adjunct. Worse, only the third one i’d ever let into the wild. I’m a beginner. I kind of expect all my videos to be asides. We live in a really visually dominant culture, on the one hand, so if there’s a video, it tends to dominate. But some folks think that laptop music has too little of a performance aspect. So the challenge is to come up with a video that functions as a perofrmance aspect. The visuals must not dominate, but just augment the piece. That’s my aim, but these guys were much more visually oriented.

Polly explained, during the q&a, that she had this idea because she felt separated from the audience when she improvised and performed. There was always some artifice between her and them. She hoped that by being wired to a truth-decting device and questioned that they could really get at her inner self. Pretence and division would be stripped away.

This was really interesting. I had never thought to ask why Polly had the idea for the piece. Also, it’s an interesting idea. I mean, sometimes what’s interesting about a piece is the peek into the mind and heart of the creator. Certainly, as a creator, i expose myself in certain ways. As a listener, do i listen for the art – the artifice, notes, spaces, sounds? Or do i listen to what i must presume to be the heart of the creator? Or some combination? Also interesting is how one-way this exposure would be. Actually, there’s quite a lot there that’s intersting, but moving along .  . ..

Our audience ‘ringer’ was justifiably miffed by being caught in a trans-continental miscommunication (one of many, alas. Colaborating via email is challenging.) and so did not show up. I hastily recruited my girlfriend, who is shy and was displeased to be asked to be the first to speak.

We came on stage and i got everything started and began reading the pre-arranged ‘control questions.’ “Is your name Polly?” “Are you on a stage?” Etc. After she answered in the affirmative, i pressed the ‘true’ button. Then, still as control questions, “Have you ever told a lie?” Polly said no. I pressed the ‘lie’ button and the word ‘lie’ flashed on the projection. The audience burst into laughter. So much for revealing her inner soul.

Casual listeners didn’t know what to ask, being somewhat limitted by the yes/no format. So most participants already knew Polly. They were all game too, which is nice because if they’d left us questionless, we would have floundered. People sort of struggled to come up with questions. Most didn’t stick in my mind. One person asked Polly if she had any intention of ever returning some equipment that she’d borrowed. She said yes. I hit the lie button. Lughter ensued. A co-worker asked if she had been the one to allow a soda can to explode in the break room freezer. She said no. I hit the lie button. Matt Davignon asked if I was just hitting true or lie buttons on a whim. Towards the end, in a dramatic moment, Pamela Z asked if Polly wanted a cracker. Despite owning a pet parrot, Polly is sensitive to this taunt from her youth. Her heart rate sped up, her palm became sweaty, her temperature rose. I don’t know if anybody noticed, but it was the least-faked moment of the evening.

Then, at the end, Polly rose and began asking questions of the audience. She asked them en-masse and so they shouted back their answers. “Should I quit my day job?” got mixed replies. This section made me uncomfortable. There’s a sadistic streak to american humor, which has always been present, but has risen greatly in prominence since i’ve bewen gone as the dark and mean mood of the ruling party penetrates even san francisco. I couldn’t tell how friendly things were. When Polly ad-libbed “Are you fantisizing about Les right now?” I ended the piece. Earlier than I was supposed to.

Peolpe talking about the piece later were generally positive. Ellen Fullman said it was ‘weird.’ Was it music? Was it theatre? (Was it comedy?) It is weird. I still really don’t know what to think about. I put the musical bit kind of in the background, to enable the question and answer to flow as smoothly as possible. I haven’t heard a recording yet, but i suspect that’s it’s not a piece friendly to that medium. Was it carried by the novelty? Would anybody ever want to see it twice? If you allowed more than yes/no questions, could it work with strangers? Would they be interested? Was it more a sort of elaborate party game?

As a final thought: lately, i’ve had the problem of people asking me too many questions. Alas, this is a side effect of transitioning. I’ve been trying to discourage folks from asking me stuff. So its weird putting my friend in a situation that i would not consent to occupy. I mean, except for PZ, nobody pushed any boundaries and she had me moderating and it was all very polite, but I wouldn’t do it. How many people would?

Was it Shakespeare who wrote, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more temprate and more sweet.”? It was some Brit. Frankly, if somebody from London or the Midlands said that about me, i’d be fairly displeased. Shall i compare you to summer in san frabcisco? You’re just like Ocean Beach on a cold day in June.

I’m glad I got a couple of weeks in Berkeley, Oakland and the South Bay. Anyway, that’s my quota for whining about the weather. Life is hard for expats from Camelot. “It rains after 10:00am!”

I’m nearly unpacked. Alas, my landlord’s furniture has the dual disadvantages of being large but unroomy inside in addition to being already full of his stuff. There also seems to be something of a moth issue. I wonder how to discourage them without permeating my clothes  with the smell of pesticides. Clothing-type moths are new to me. My previous experience  is mostly with the sort that want to lay eggs in my rice. (Beware the segmented rice grains that move!) The anwer to that is airtight containers- but this seems inapplicable to my duvet- or would seem inapplicable if i could find a place to put it.

You may be wondering how i manage to post these vitally important missives. There’s an open wifi network which reaches a nearby park. Picture me with a little PDA, standing in the rain while a highly impatient dog strains desperately against her leash towards a tree barely a meter out of reach.

Um, anyway, it’s easier to post than browse or get email. I can blahblahblah ahead of going out, like putting a message in a bottle. But i don’t have offline mail reading.  I don’t know what’s going on in my city. So I’m having a week or so of relative solitude. Like, even more than normal. I wonder if my life would be easier if i just never went home. But: This will all pay off somehow. And soon. Or else i can just go buy a Time Out or something. Heh. In the mean time, Python tutorials!

As i type, i’m riding the tube towards xena’s kennel to retrieve her. I’m sure she will be much relieved at her release.

I don’t recall what i last blogged in california and i won’t have internet until friday. The big news is that i’m due to become an uncle next december! I went to visit my brother and his wife on sunday. It’s kind of stupid to fly to oregon just for dinner, but, in this case, well worth it. Elizabeh is looking well, even if plagued with morning sickness to an exceptional degree.

I also saw my dad. He brings up my ttansition fairly often when we talk, which i guess is a good sign. He refers to it as ‘this thing you’re doing.’ I’m not sure how much i want to talk about it with my family, but i was glad to learn my dad has been talking with the mother of an mtf.

I love my family, but, i dunno, i feel pretty uncomfortable around them lately. This is really unfair of me. I should give them a chance. Things didn’t go so well with them when i first came out as queer, but that was 18 years ago. We’ve all changed a lot in the meantime. My brother and i were kids then, but not now and that’s an important difference. Also, membership has changed through death and marriage (and soon via birth).

I never get to see everybody when i come home, alas. It’s always too short. Therefore, i would like to encourage you all to register to vote and then cast a ballot for Obama. If McCain gets elected, all my trips back will be short stays. But don’t do it for me. Do it because attacking iran is a disasterous idea.

The day after my gig, I went to the South Bay to meet some people, including my tax accountant.  I took the train down from Berkeley to San Jose, where it depositted me next to the Sharks Arena at Diridon Station.  I biked several miles to my friends house in Los Gatos, on the far side of Lake Vasona.

She told me to take the Los Gatos Creek Trail, a bike route that runs next to the creek, through several natural areas and some large parks.  There arent that many dedicated bike trails in the states. This one was exceptionally nice, as it rolled along next to the sleepy creek.

I passed the native and invasive plants whose names I learned at childhood summer camps, but which I no longer remember.  I played along a similar creek when I was 11, trying to catch minnows and chewing on fennel.  As I biked and looked at the lazy water, I smelled the fennel plants, baking in the sun and I was transported back then.

Ive seen lots of greenery in the world, but that smell, so specific to this one place, made me feel so happy.  And then I passed a space where a skunk had been startled within the last day and then, in the park, tanbark baking in the sunlight.

Tan bark is the shredded bark of redwood trees, used as mulch.  Its distinctive.  As for skunks, they dont smell the same here as they do in other places. The reason that some marijuana is called skunk is because it smells like the skunks that we get here.  The smell fades quickly in direct sunlight.  So if your dog tries chasin one, you get an overwhelming weed odor that goes away within a couple of days.  (In connecticut, it smells like that plus burning tires filled with boiling vomit and lasts for months.)

I met my friend – actually the girlfriend that I dated in highschool and we talked and picked fresh peaches and tomatoes from her garden.  Later in the evening, I went to another friends house and had food cooked from garden fruits and vegetables. Everyone there was old California: families from Silicon Valley when it was still known as Santa Clara Valley and from when we grew fruit on the richest farmland in the world. We talked about what was in season, what was growing well this year and splitting cots. (Cutting apricots in half and removing the seed in preparation to dry them.)

Today, I went to the Grand Lake Farmers Market in Oakland and got fresh local zuccini, heirloom tomatoes, peaches, anaheim peppers, all this fabulous fresh produce.

I could live here.  I could live in Berkeley and plant fruit trees in the yards of friends and grow tomatoes outside my backdoor and ride the train to some technichal job and bike everywhere and take my dog to the park at the marina and have warm, sunny days 300 days a year.

When the Spanish arrived, the came to the San Francisco Bay and it was too shallow to sail their ships into, so they went down the coast to the Baja tip and did not sail all the way up.  So they thought they had found an island.  They gave this new island a name from a work of fiction. There was a popular book about an island paradise.  So they named my state for the fictional island in the book.  Where everything is beatuiful and grows and lovers can pick low haning fruit from trees and swim in the ocean and ride their bikes amidst baking fennel and semi-friendly skunks.

I could stay in this land of mythically good weather and food with the people Ive known my whole life (and some who knew my mother and grandmother) and live only a few miles from where one of my great grandfathers grew cherries and another practiced dentistry.  Or, I could go back to England, the country which the cherry-growing great grandfather fled.

I had this idea of an ancestral homeland, but it was romantic and uninformed.  I come from California, from the farming and land, from the chip fabrication plants, (alas) from the software industry, from Castro Street and the White Night Riots, from the Free Speech Movement.  All of this – the Black Panthers, the growing Trans movement in San Francisco, the constant social tumult and change spanning at least 150 years – this is home.

But Ill go back to England in a few days and stay there to finish my degree.  Maybe my home will decide to catch up with the 20th century and fix some of its political problems.  The other day, I saw a weeping woman begging for spare change and it shocked me. She so clearly needed help and there would be none forthcoming.  All the fine weather in the world is no substitute for food, shelter and healthcare.  How far are any of us here from weeping on the street?  A few paychecks?  A lost job?  A bout of depression and no help to vanquish it?  How can some place so idyllic still be so fucked up?

The things is, that political will and work from the people can fix the problems of unrestrained capitalism.  All the protest in the world cant make perfect weather or rich farmland.  So I hold out hope.  I already see positive changes in the space of the last year.  One day, Ill come home again.