Les said, the better II

Dear Honorable Senator Feinstein,

I am writing to oppose the PERFORM Act. As you know, this act would outlaw MP3 streaming, as the MP3 file format contains no DRM. I am a musician and composer. I prefer mp3s for many reasons, including the universal level of access. MP3 players are available for every operating system, free of charge. When I stream an mp3, I know that I’m reaching the largest possible audience. DRM-laden streams can never possibly achieve the same level of market penetration. By their very nature, DRMs must be secret and proprietary. That means that a private company has to write them, which they do for windows and then possibly Macintosh as an afterthought. Linux is supported even less often. Should I choose to stream via a DRM-burdened format, I have to pay a third party company and in the end, I reach fewer people. This doesn’t help me as an artist. It doesn’t help me as a fan.

We already have copyright laws. Webcasters already pay royalties. From a practical standpoint, I know how to capture and record DRM stream as easily as a non-DRM stream. This law is unneeded and unnecessary and doesn’t solve any problems. It does, however, create problems for webcasters and listeners, especially ones on older systems or using linux.

Please withdraw the PERFORM Act.

Sincerely,
Celeste Hutchins

Tags: DRM, PERFORM, Celesteh

What lies ahead for summer? I’ve mentioned a whole bunch of plan possibilities. For instance, getting a job (how pedestrian, yet useful for being able to afford nice restaurants (I joke at pedestrianness, I would very much like to work next school year especially.)) I think my offer evaporated. Alas.

I have my apartment until August 1st, so if you want to come visit, you can come between now and then. I’ve mentioned both wanting to bike in the footsteps of Joan of Arc and also wanting to a little tour in Germany. These things can both happen, although the bike trip would have to be on a smaller scale. And it will be regardless. Joan walked over a mountain range to get to see the Dauphin! Not just a mountain range, but one without any tourist attractions. I like to combine my pilgrimages with sight-seeing and starting out with an incredibly difficult ride and not much else would present a problem in that I think I would quickly give up the whole idea or injure myself or both. Anyway, Joan did this in like March. That’s really nuts. Also, in March, there are really no tourist attractions.
So I’m thinking of biking along the Loire, where she was liberating towns. Also, there’s a peace ride in Germany that looks like fun. In between, I’ll be, you know, writing music and stuff like that.
Monday is what they call a “bank holiday” here. Why do they call it that? Anyway, 3 day weekend. Think I might go for a bike ride. The following weekend is also a bank holiday, so I’m going to Orléans (by train) because it’s the anniversary of Joan raising the siege. There’ll be a parade and god knows what, oodles of Jeanne d’Arciness in a big Joan-themed festival. yay.
In France, her image has been hijacked by right wingers. Joan drove France’s enemies out of the country. And you know, economic immigrants are exactly like an invading army trying to seize the throne! I think this festival is largely aimed at foreign immigrants who read Joan as a feminist icon (not well supported by evidence, alas) or a queer icon (ask to see my term paper) or um. I hope I’m surrounded by other foreign lesbians and not the followers of Le Pen. Or hell, maybe all those people come together for an odd combination of revelry and religious processions!

In language news

I recently realized that the reason the baker looks at me funny when I ask for pain au raisin (“raisin bread”) is because I’m inadvertently calling it pain au reason. Reason bread, raisin bread, what’s the difference? Anyway, it’s not actually rasin bread by actually a round thing that I think is called a “snail” sometimes in the US. It’s a sweet round flat pastry with some sort of creamy stuff on it and raisins. There is a very similar pastry called an escargot (“snail”) but instead of raisins, it has pistachio and bits of dried apricot. The creamy stuff for it is pistachio paste. I prefer it, but it’s not as widely available.
So I was feeling really good about my French, reason bread excepted. This happens when I listen to the Easy French Poetry podcast because it’s all in French, but I can understand it. And I had a bunch of successful interactions yesterday. But today, I tried to ask the baker if she had a nice vacation while the bakery was closed and it just did not get across at all, even when an anglophone interviened to help. Then, while I was returning home with my new baguette, one of my neighbors started talking to me. This never happens. Parisians don’t frequently speak to their neighbors. But the thing that causes French folks to become friendly are the cops! There was a swarm of police officers ticketing every car on my street. If you tended to divide the world into us against them, the cops are definitely “them,” which makes everybody else “us.” Therefore, in this brief oppositional moment, I became part of us. Except that I did not understand what she was talking about until she switched to English. bah. I’ll never speak this language.
Tags: Summer, French, Celesteh

Momus wrote an article in Wired recently about how the hip new geeky thing is to be offline and unfindable via google. I’m so unhip! I guess this new (heh) ideal is easier if you’re already a famous artist. It is alarming, though, how much one can discover about people via search engines. If you mention a brand name in your blog, it’s possible and even somewhat likely that a marketing type will find your blog and add it to a synopsis of what the internets are saying about Brand X. “I like to use Brand X shortly before I do something with my boyfriend that I would be embarrassed if I knew was being passed around a conference table and read about by people wearing business attire.”

However, this is not why I have not updated recently. I was in the midst of a mad post of d00m in which I talked about how I finished my Sonology app and then had a swell day wandering Paris with a Brit composer named David and the bread shortage the next day (half the local bakeries are on vacation. Lines and shortages! It’s like Soviet Russia!) and even some about how Munich is a really great place to spend a few days drinking when a sudden browser crash felled my prose! alas and woe!
So I will just now talk about Sonology. Regular readers will recall that I was gob-smacked when they sent email with an earlier deadline which conflicted with some (but not all) data from their website. Also, they wanted way more docs. Augh! Ann and Ellen helpfully and wonderfully located my missing paperwork, and emailed me images of it, which I could then print and include. In the mean time, I sent email explaining that their web page was somewhat confusing and they should consider rectifying that.
I got back email on Monday explaining that the the email they sent me had been in error. I don’t need the extra docs and and the deadline really was in June. Bah, ok these things happen and at least I got it out of the way. Alas, though, I won’t find out if I’m in or not until sometimes in June, which makes planning my life slightly . . . distant. If I get in to Sonology, I’ll be around for a visit sometime in August. If not, I’ll be around when my visa expires in September.
Today I got email promising to send me more information about the entrance exam. Ye gods! I haven’t done anything like counterpoint or other things which interest conservatories in years! I’m guessing the email is in error. Some might be annoyed by this, but I am not. It gives me a good feeling. All of my previous academic institutions have been somewhat disorganized on occasion. So it gives me a good feeling about getting admitted (perhaps even to the MA program, although I didn’t apply for it). and if I don’t get admitted, I can just say it was an accident.
If the school’s director of media relations googles and finds this, well, I didn’t say anything embarrassing about what my boyfriend and I like to do while visitting the school’s website.
Tag: Celesteh

Yeah, so my Sonology application is due May 1st. But their website, after you submit the written stuff, says June 1st. So I wasn’t worrying about it because it’s June 1st. But, no, alas, I got email today saying it is May 1st AND I need to have documentation proving I graduated from all the schools that I graduated from, which their website did not mention.

So today has been a fun day of panic and trying to get people to fax or email me stuff from the US. I know such great people who will do this for me. I had to go to my school and get the lab guy to write me a short attestation that I’m a student there. My school has no electricity. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding about the electrical contract and the power got turned off. I didn’t ask if they could make outgoing phone calls yet or that shut-off was also resolved. Nor did I inspect whether they have any toilet paper whatsoever, but last time I went to class there was none. I wonder if Sonology’s services are sometimes turned off or otherwise unavailable?
So tomorrow morning, I get to go find a place that will let me print my scans of Mills transcripts and my Wesleyan diploma and then take those printouts to the post office and then mail them to den Haag where the MUST arrive by May 1st. I feel panic when I think of this. Ack. Panic. The lab guy at school said that it’s actually slower to send stuff express. I don’t know if he’s bullshitting or not, but it sounds somewhat likely. Sending stuff via international express mail fromt the US to France is completely screwed up. Fedex is way better.
Nicole is suggesting that I send it twice, once express mail and once normal mail. This seems weird to me. What will they do with two copies? I’m going to call random french folks in the morning and ask them what I should do. Maybe I’ll call Sonology on Monday.
If I fuck this up, no Netherlands for me. I feel like such a dipshit. I should have know it was wrong when it said June 1st and I should have expected to have to send documentation about previous schools and I shouldn’t be all surprised and panicked now. I’m too old for school. Or I never learn. I HATE panicing. I thought I had plenty of time. grrrrrrrr!
Den Haag is only like 4 hours from here by train. A piece of mail should be able to get there within a week, right?
Tag: Celesteh

I have the idea that it might be fun and interesting to do a little tour of Germany over the summer. I know some folks in a few cities who might be able to help me play a bit. My dad gave my a German rail pass for xmas/my birthday, and I want to travel anyway, so this is just for fun and doesn’t need to pay for itself. Even 10 minutes as an opener would be great. If any of you, dear readers, have suggestions of who I should contact in Germany (or France or the Netherlands) about playing a bit, I would be very happy to hear about it. My email is celesteh AT gmail DOT com

I am just back from Munich and had a super great time. I will post more about it later. Some pictures are up. More coming.
Tags: Germany, Celesteh

1. Why do you want to follow the educational programme of the Sonology Course?

Legal weed!
Need to do something next year
All my friends are doing it. All the cool kids go there.
My MA advisor told me to. As did my friends here, and everyone I’ve ever met who ever went there. (true)
I hear it’s much easier to get gigs in den Haag. Plus it’s not far from Paris, so I could keep playing gigs here too (once I finally make some connections any day now, I’m on the verge, I can feel it). And it’s not far from Amsterdam, which is rumored to have a good electronic scene. Also, I mean, have you read your course description? Why wouldn’t I want to go? You even have an analog studio, so I wouldn’t have to be all digital all the time.

2. Which project(s) do you intend to realize during your study?

Algorithmic composition with adaptive tuning. I want to design a system, in SuperCollider or another language, that can, when given a timbre, construct a scale and some reasonable-sounding harmonies within the new scale.

I hate doing applications. Of course I want to go there, it’s a great school. Everyone that I mention it to says that I should go there. And they have a new PhD program-ish thing, which I might be interested in. Somebody told me that it’s a lot like the program that I’m in now except that they have more classes, a more regular schedule and there’s really an opportunity to get into the local music scene. So, everything I like about CCMIX and a solution to some of the things that I don’t like. Plus, it’s another thing to put on my CV or whatever when I do PhD applications next fall. And it’s another year of EU student visa.
They must have 83461378659873 applicants. I’m too old for school. I keep falling asleep in class (augh, it’s bad). I just want to compose someplace, sort of attached to something in some nice country someplace.
Tag: Celesteh

That means “monday.” Clever post title, eh? I just gave my SuperCollider lecture and have posted my lecture notes to the internets. It is a vastly distilled introduction which would normally be multiple weeks worth of lecture. But speed is of the essence and composers have their own, strange, idiosyncratic approaches to programming, anyway. Somebody could start to make music with that and if they have interest, they’ll explore more on their own, which is how all programming for musicians works and why composer’s programs look so weird.

My earlier tutorial was every bit as disorganized and weird as Ron claimed it was. Arg, I hate it when I argue with people and they turn out to be right. Anyway, maybe it’s time to resurrect the write-a-SuperCollider-book plan from the dead.
All the (native) anglophones and only the anglophones came. This may or may not have cultural significance. After dumping too much information at them, I went to Mariano’s house and he made dinner. It was nice.
I wonder if anyone will end up programming in SuperCollider after this. Now I must go write notes for what to say about SynthDef design, how to play buffers and how to get Pbinds to talk to your Synthdefs and bend them to your will. Also, must apply to Sonology while I still have time. And pay my rent. after my Western Union disaster of last month, my landlord told me to pay her mother. I just, finally, got a checkbook from my bank, so I wrote a check for the rent. First time writing a french check. I felt like such an idiot. I almost went to the bank for help, but then Cola found a website which said how to write it. Despite this, my landlord’s mother sent back the check with corrections. So I need to buy a stamp and mail it. Ahh, but how to buy stamps? I thought these ATMs outside of post offices must sell stamps, what with the little animated images of stamps, but they do not, at least not in an obvious way. Foreigner = clueless. Also, when I was buying a rhubarb tarte, the first bakery woman could not understand me. I asked the second one how to say the name of the tarte and it sounded exactly like what I was saying. How can I fix my accent if I can’t even hear the difference? I am even worse than Eliza Doolittle, who could at least hear that things sounds more gentile-like.
How much should I worry about this? How much time do I have left? Barely 6 weeks of school. I feel like I just arrived. I just survived winter. It can’t be time to leave, I’m not ready.
Tags: SuperCollider, Paris, Celesteh

“The illegals are probably better workers than the legal ones,” said Mike Gonya, who farms 2,800 acres of wheat and vegetables near Fremont, Ohio. “The legal ones know the system. They know legal recourse. The illegal ones will bust their butts.”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/washington/09immig.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=37ed6a9386660cda&ex=1302235200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
The undocumented workers are easier to exploit, so I prefer a system which keeps them in constant jeopardy and in which they are kept ignorant of their rights.
Did the NYT note the problematic nature of that remark? No they did not. Recently they ran another article about blatant union busting on the part of an airline, in which they blamed the union for management’s decision to go with more expensive maintenance facilities, where the workers were non-union and underpaid. Longer turn around. Less efficiency. But no danger of strikes! The union brought this upon itself, according to the Times.
This is supposed to be the liberal newspaper in America. There’s no hope for the country until some civic-minded individual burns their buildings to the fucking ground.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
When Jefferson or whoever said he’d rather have newspapers and no government, he really didn’t know what he was asking for. I mean, could he have imagined the Hurricane in NOLA, which showed that our government is indeed non-functioning coupled with the misanthropic, vile, worker-hating “news” media in the United States? I really don’t think he could have foreseen that argument as anything more than a rhetorical trick. Yet there y’all are with no functioning government (aside form, you know, bungling the waging of wars and putting people in jail in a blatantly racist and genocidal manner) and a bunch or publications purported to be newspapers. Maybe we ended up with neither thing.
Tags: NYT, Celesteh

It looks like the good times might be over. I want to draw attention to one quote:

Perhaps most famously, in a 1991 game against Notre Dame, a Stanford band member dressed as a nun conducted the band using a crucifix for a baton. The Fighting Irish indefinitely suspended Stanford from their stadium.

I was there. Notre Dame doesn’t send it’s band to all of it’s away games. About half the time, it calls in Catholic Highschool bands who quickly learn the Notre Dame fight song. And for this particular game, I was playing tuba on behalf of Notre Dame.
I had been to gay pride the first time the summer previous. (This can’t have been 1991, memory is funny.) It was the first time I ever really felt validated as a queer person. So when Stanford band came marching in, it looked a lot like gay pride, and I felt a surge of pride myself. The drum major, who I think was probably a man, was indeed dressed like a nun, in the flamboyant style of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. S/he was holding a crucifix on a long stick and using it as a baton. Behind, s/he was leading a man on a chain, who was carrying a small sign that said “boy toy.” They were trying very much to look as queer and as pride-like as possible. It was awesome.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame was sooo heteronormative. All the cheerleaders were all clean cut, the girls all had long hair. The male cheerleaders were manly, even. They did pushups every time Notre Dame scored. How does that fire up the crowd? Notre Dame’s cheerleaders sucked.
When half time came, a ton of band alums were there due to some sort of anniversary. They stood around the edges, but the rest of the band scrambled to form various shapes. The one that really pissed off Notre Dame? It wasn’t the drum major, as that’s a standard of pride events. No, they were enraged because the Stanford band formed a coat hanger.
I fucking love Stanford Band for that. They played for groups oppressed by the Catholic Church and it’s organs like Notre Dame. Not only that, but all us highschool kids were chafing under the restrictions imposed upon us. We wanted to be cool, like Stanford. We all wanted to be more like the band that was so so so GAY!
I fucking love the Stanford Band.
Tags: Stanford, Celesteh

Mariano, David and I went to the largest park in Paris, to meet the guy from yesterday who had the durian (Cyril). After looking around for a while (the largest park in Paris is fairly large), we found him and tried the durian. I had convinced myself that I must have eaten it before. But now I don’t know if it was my first time or not. It’s kind of sweet, but has a sorts of garlicy/oniony savory flavor that seems to put people off. Also, the piece I had was extremely slimy. I would eat it again.

After trying the durian, I heard a woman shout “Celeste!” It was someone from la Barbare, which is the lesbian / feminist separatist space where I had my concert. She was a friend of Cyril’s. She told me about a party later at a squat where her friend would be playing (along with like 30 other bands until 5 in the morning) and said I should come. Ok. Small world. She seemed very pleased to have run into me and as she left, I said I’d see her later that night.
After a while, there were only seven of us left. Cyril, 3 of his friends and us 3 composers. We re-conviened at a bar and talked for a while. One of the guys had lived in San Francisco for a few years (2 in the Castro, 2 in the Mission) and had gone to do engineering at UC Berkeley. Small World.
After the party finally broke up, I went to Mariano’s for a a little while and then went to la Barbare, hoping to get food and meet up with Solène. She wants me to write some music for recorder for her. Ok, cool. Need some ideas for that ASAP. Send your recorder ideas to _____.
While at la Barbare, I got contact info for yet another squat. I will one day be an underground squat sensation, if only I can ever get in to meet the right people. The squat plans for later in the evening fell apart when it turned out that the squat in question had closed the door to late arrivals. This was all relayed by cellphone, I missed the action. Anyway, it turns out that Cyril is also a good friend of Solène and some other musicians that she’s introduced me to in the past. Small World.
So it was fun chatting at the Barbare and I got two plates of food and a cup of tea, which I completely forgot to pay for. When the plans for squat hopping fell though, Solène and the woman from Cyril’s party decided amongst themselves that they would hang out until late in the night and ride back on the latter’s scooter. Eventually, Solène said, “you’re not waiting for us to take the metro are you?” Err, no. (yes) Shit it’s 12:30. I ran and caught the last train back.
So, in summary, it’s a small world after all. Durian guy turned out to not really be a stranger (Paris isn’t really all that big). And my life sounds more exciting when I summarize it on a week-by-week level rather than one day at a time.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh