Les said, the better II

Please take a moment to email or call your senators and ask them to filibuster Alito. I just sent two emails and it took all of ten minutes. (Not willing to call from France, alas.) Do it for choice. Do it for queers. Do it for people of color. Do it for you! (Even straight white men need the privacy rights.)

I’ve had a lot of school recently last week and again this week. Also, I wrote a vocal piece. Latest project is writing a little presentation on my music for La BarBare in English and in French. I’m trying to explain what I’m up to by quoting William S. Burroughs The Ticket That Exploded. (There’s nothing that clears up confusion like a few well chosen run-on streams on consciousness from Burroughs.) The french title for this books is Le Ticket qui explosa and it does not appear to be indexed by Google books or anything (or maybe the Chinese government asked them to remove it). So I might go looking for a quote in The Electronic Revolution instead, because it’s also posted in translation. Yay for copyright violation. You know, since I tend to end up periodically quoting The Ticket That Exploded I should just go buy the damn book instead of just using Google Books to find the relevant phrases I remember from when I had it checked out of the library. But I’m not buying it in French. Anyway, this very nice conservatory student is helping me with it, so I’m going to send her a draft after I figure out which Burroughs to quote.

When I’m not busy going to classes about Stochastic theories of statistical whatever, I need to write the flute piece that I forever talk about and never write. I was just listening to some piano something by Messiaen. (Ah, I was trying to listen to the Radio Vatican podcast on my ipod while riding the metro because they speak french very clearly, but I accidentally turned it to something that didn’t give me hives.) It’s sparse and lovely with a lot of open sounding chords that I think have 6ths in them in the manner of modern harmony and heavy metal. What was especially wonderful was the dynamics. The pianist would hit a phrase pretty hard and then follow immediately with a much softer, lighter variation, like an echo. So repeated variations with dynamic differences is definitely going in the flute piece.
I intend to actually write the damn thing down while at the same time writing a SuperCollider plug in to do waveset distortion. The plugin will analyze a waveform to find zerocrossings and the peak and minimum of one period of the waveform between two zerocrossings. It can then introduce distortion by replacing the real waveform with a sinusoid which conforms to these shape parameters of the pre-existing wave form, or a triangle or a square or just zeros of x out of y wavesets. This form of distortion was invented by Trevor Wishart and as far as I know, is not in SuperCollider currently.
Speaking of Trevor Wishart, he’s playing this weekend at The Lab in San Francisco and I highly recommend going to hear it.
Tomorrow, I’m going to help Michelle sort out CD burning on her new laptop (she’s the secret girlfriend of the soon-to-be-famous Cynthia). Saturday, my dad comes into town and stays for a week and a half. He’s staying in the hotel next door and he’ll probably want to see a bunch of museums that I’ve already been to, so it won’t be super-intense 24/7 with Dad time for the whole stay. It’s been a darn long time since I’ve last seen him.
Last weekend, I saw two concerts. One was a free concert at Radio France. I showed up too late to get into the show I wanted to see and ended up at the one immediately following it, which was a little disappointing, but still free. They played some Prokofiev and another early 20th century work by another composer. Both pieces tended to have melodies where short notes connected longer ones. da duuuuum da da da duuuuuuum da duuuuuuuum da da duuuuuuuum. Then, in the second half they got much more recent and the melodic lines tended to feature faster runs of short notes da da da da da da da with nice chords like Messiaen, which is the kind of music I tend to write for instruments. I felt validated.
The other concert was on a boat! It was called something like “Chicks Who Rock” in english. All these feminst/lesbian rocky things feature signs in english. Because english is sooo kewl!! Or not. I have no idea why that’s so. Anyway, one of the bands, called Anatomie Bousculaire, was exceptionally awesome. They were really tight and the drummer had a very nice groove in which she would introduce, say, a slight delay in a particular beat in a rhythm and play that way in every bar, giving things a nice synchopated and slightly off feel. The bassist and the guitarists also sang and both had very nice voices, although disturbingly, they looked like twins… sexy twins. They sound great on their CD too, which I bought. Check them out.
I went to see both those concerts with Autumn and Stephen who were being tourists here for the last few days. I dig hanging out with folks from CA, it’s nice to get visitors. Also, I drink much nicer wine when I have guests over. 🙂
In my last bit of news, a leetle record company contacted me saying that they’re doing a compilation of solo analog synthesizer music, would I like to be on it? Oh, heck yes. The only catch is that the piece must be under 2 minutes. Um, I wrote something under two minutes once, but it was a choral, which doesn’t exactly fit my image as a noise musician and also Sophie said it sounded like it was written for a class. Problem! Solution: I played a solo show in May 2004 which was webcast with a laptop and a room mic. I have a copy of the file created by the webcast. I just need to edit a nice 2 minutes out of that. It’s a quicktime movie file type, so I need something like protools to open it, which we have at school, so as soon as they get the internet back up there, I can download it and work on it.
I don’t think I have anything else to report. I haven’t seen my conversation partner in like 2 weeks, which is too bad. I should have scheduled him for this evening, but I blanked on it. Um, and I set one of my gmail filters too tightly and it was dropping messages into a subfolder where I didn’t see them until too late. arrrgh. Anyway, I’m keeping relatively busy.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

My previous version os a program note has been described as insufficient (I think the word used was “meaningless”). Therefore, I am trying to write a new one. It’s hard to say who you are and what you’re about in two sentences. Especially since I can barely talk about my music anyway. I can talk about materials and processes, but not so much the sound. Anyway, this time, I’ve got a genre, at least:

Celeste Hutchins is a Californian composer who uses the words of right wing pundits as found musical material. She uses a computer to to cut their speech into phrases and rearrange them as text-sound compositions, both to explore the sounds of the human voice and to highlight the words and meanings in political speech.

And in bad french:

Celeste Hutchins est un compositeur californienne qui utilise des mots des hommes politiques à la droit comme objets trouvés de musique. Elle coup leur discours en des phrases avec un ordinateur. Elle les réarrange en poésie sonore, pour examiner les sons de la voix et la signification des mots politiques.

I know that pundit is not the same as homme politique, but the words the dictionary is giving me back for pundit (expert, érudit, pontife = expert, learned, pontiff) are not right.
the person who needed this stuff yesterday seemed a bit pissed off when I ran into her tonight. alas.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

I’ll be playing March 11 at 9:00 at La Barbare. That’s at 46, rue Gambetta 93100 Montreuil. Metros: Croix de Chavaux and Bérault. Tél: 01 48 59 71 76

So I went to their meeting last Sunday and talked a bit about my music. I was able to actually talk about myself in French, which was good. I had been provided with a translator who speaks French fluently and English very well. However, at one point, I think she missed that I was speaking in French and proceeded to repeat what I had just said. Funny! Must also mean that my french wasn’t too awful, or it would have caught her attention, I think.
No men can come to my show. This means that none of my colleagues or teachers at school can come. Also, they have rules against using male voices in music. Um, well, errrr, I said. Fortunately, they have decided to make an exception for me. But I must first speak about my work, to tell people what the english words mean and why I use male voices. I can’t just surprise people with radio announcer guy voice saying “And now! A message for the president of the Unites States! George W Bush!”
This generated a discussion of why they ban male voices. They seemed happy to consider the meaning of this policy and the discussion was lively, although I didn’t catch all of it.
I talked a bit and they decided they wanted me, and then they asked to hear my stuff. They apologized kind of. Hearing music is NOT part of their decision making process, but they were all very curious. Thank you for the indulgence.
I’ve been assigned somebody to help me prepare my presentation and make a flyer. I waited until today to send off my program note, which apparently was a problem. damn it. Last week, I had class from 10-18 every day but friday and then came home and worked on my vocal piece until I was too tired to move. I didn’t meet with my conversation partner either. My french degraded somewhat. I tried to make up for it by listening to french language podcasts from the Vatican radio while riding the metro, but thank god this didn’t work. I can’t hear the podcast over the noise of the train. Anyway, yesterday I did nothing chore-like because I was tired, but I prolly should have written the barbare woman. However, the email address she gave me had an error in it, so I would have had to call her, etc etc etc. the moral of this story is that I need to have a site which is at least somewhat bilingual. I maintain it to act as my press kit and to be able to tell people where to find bios and notes and stuff. (see previous post)
I hope that I can make some connections through La Barbare and maybe get some gigs that my classmates could come to. It would also be nice to play with some of them. If two of us play a gig, then both of us might be able to make connections that we can use and share and then we all get more gigs.
Anyway, I also agreed to join the collective or whatever it is. Tonight, they’re having a “Méga brocante SOUTIEN A LA BARBARE” which is shortly going to send me to a dictionary. The “méga” sounds promising though, assuming it’s a cognate. So I might go over so they don’t regret programming me. Also, I want to feel out whether it would be ok for me to do a Sarkozy piece. I kind of hate that guy and he’s probably going to be the next president. but I’m not French, so maybe it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it too much? Anybody who wants to clean out the suburbs with high pressure water hoses deserves some censure.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

I clearly need a multi-lingual website for my professional bit. Also, my current site is ugly and should be changed. I need at least a short bio in French and a relevant program note. Francophones, can you tell me how far off my French is?

In English

Celeste Hutchins was born in California in 1976. She went to Mills College in Oakland, California and graduated with a B.A. in 1998 and from Wesleyan University with an MA in 2005. She has played at several concerts, appeared on a CD put out by Ibol Records and has had radio and internet play. Celeste is currently enrolled at CCMIX in France.

In French

Celeste Hutchins était née en Californie durant 1976. Elle obtint un diplôme de Mills College à Oakland, California durant 1998 et de Wesleyan University durant 2005. Elle joua dans beaucoup de concerts, et dans un CD de Ibol Records et le radio. Maintenant, elle assiste à CCMIX à Alfotville, à pres de Paris, France.

And a program note

Celeste Hutchins est une compositeur californienne qui utilise les mots des hommes politiques à la droite dans sa musique.  Elle y examine et refute des arguments.

Wow, my first use of pasé simple! There is an extremely handy verb conjugator which I make use fo for writing.
Tags: French, Celesteh

I’ve got lots do to, so instead of doing it, I thought I’d whine about it on my blog. Let’s see, I have to write a vocal piece by wednesday. Only 5 minutes long. Jean Sirius wrote a poem for me to set and the poem’s fairly long for a 5 minute piece, so it’s got to be a fairly fast temp and I think I want it to be a string bass / vocal duet and that’s about as far as I’ve gotten aside from some solresol junk, which is starting to sound good to me after listening to it 23146831584 times, which is not a good sign. (“I worked so hard on this, there must be something redeeming… Actually, it sounds pretty good!” (no it doesn’t.))

And tonight at sometime between 5 and 6 I’m going to a lesbian separatist commune in a Paris suburb to give a little presentation on my music. Fortunately, a German woman has offered to translate for me, so I don’t have to figure out everything I’m going to say in French. I haven’t written anything worthwhile or with live realization since I left Wesleyan, so it’s the same old stuff. But it’s never been heard before in France, probably because it’s all in English. I think I can work the political protest angle, but maybe they won’t care. My text algorithms don’t work in French because the syllabification puts spaces in different places.
I have class all next week 10:00 – 18:00 monday – friday. So I think I’m going to go work in an internet-free café. But maybe not, since I feel like I have to have some sort of statement prepared in French, rather than just being a foreign barbarian with music which is extremely, self-consciously american.
This is the jump-into-the-deep-end method of dealing with social anxiety, right. And if I get the gig, the hosts are separatists, which means that nobody from my school can even come because they’re all men. However, despite these oddities, I would really love to play such a venue. First of all, the space is really nice. Secondly, any story that starts out with “So I was playing a gig at a lesbian separatist commune in a paris suburb and . . .” is a good story. The soon-to-be-famous Cynthia introduced me to these folks and got me the connection. Huzzah for cynthia.
Now, I must take a bunch of deep breaths and try to think of something to say in French about Just Intonation and right wing pundits.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

1. How does one get a music contemporaine gig in Paris playing anglophone text sound poetry which has enough musical meaning to work for non-anglophones? What about doing other contemporaine laptop music without words?

2. What are some good movies I can find in French with English subtitles? In the US, it’s easy. You walk into any decent video store (ok, you walk into Reel in Berkeley) and head over to the French section. Everything is good. Everything is Version Originale. Everything has subtitles. Crappy moves don’t get imported into the US. Reel would not stock something as gauche as Version Anglais. Everything has some kind of anglophone aid or component. If you think I would learn more French by having no idea what was going on, trying to follow idiom and slang with no cues from a subtitle, you’d be wrong.
There’s many other things I want to know, but these are my main goals right now. Ranked by importance.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

and they might publish it.

Editor — Wednesday, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. refused to say that Roe vs. Wade was settled law and refused to disavow his writings in the 1980s, in which he said it should be overturned.

There can now be little doubt that Alito is an enemy of the rights of women. What was wrong with Harriet Miers again? Oh yeah, she looked a lot like a secretary … I mean woman.

People keep track of such letters. Your voice counts, even if they don’t publish it. Write a letter!
Tag: Celesteh

Alito refused to say that Row vs Wade was settled law. He’s refused to disavow his writings (from the 1980s) in which he said it should be overturned. He used to belong to an alumni group whose purpose was to keep women and people of color out of his alma mater. He was so proud of this membership, he used to put it on job applications. Maybe he’s mellowed out and maybe he hasn’t, but he won’t even say what Justice Roberts said.

Write your congress person! Also, write a letter to the editor! Yes, your congressperson’s staffers check your name off a list and dutifully ignores you (write the email anyway). They also pay attention to letters in newspapers, which can also sway the newspapers themselves. So do both. How to write the SF Chronicle. They want 200 words or less. Say you oppose him and say why and that’s it. You can send the same letter to your two senators and your local paper.
If you write the same letter to a bunch of newspapers, that’s called astroturfing, which is considered dishonest and bad. And people at right wing think tanks are doing it right now to support Alito. Make sure to use an address local to the newspaper which you write.
Californians should note that Senator Dianne Feinstein is on the committee so make sure to drop her a line: http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html
Tags: Alito, SCOTUS, Celesteh

Somebody remind me what was so wrong with Harriet Miers? Can she be the nominee again? TV5, the French media outlet, described Alito as ultra far right, which he is. The Washington Post is playing nice with him. And MSNBC had all right wing republicans on their panel discussion about the hearings. He’s clearly going to be confirmed. Roe vs Wade is history. Also, I have a feeling I’m going to miss the right to practice sodomy.

Yeah, Miers might have sucked, cuz she had icky woman bits and might have wanted to keep Roe. Also, um, didja ever notice how she kinda looks like a woman? By which I mean a secretary?
Speaking of international media, French folks were all pissed off at the Americans for misreporting that Paris was burning to the ground during the riots of a while back. “They aren’t even in Paris!” several complained. So when there was all that rain and whatnot a while ago in the Bay Area: “Oh my gosh, I saw on the [French TV] news that there’s flooding in San Francisco” Not quite. This getting locations wrong thing goes both ways. However, I’m still inclined to agree with their characterization of Alito.
The comments sections have been rather empty fo late, so I’ll give you a topic: Solresol: compositional tool, or crutch?
(so wtf is solresol? It’s a conlang of course. wikipedia article, Official grammer (translated into english), itty english/ solresol/ french dictionary, the most official website these days, the yahoo group, the official gigantic (and poorly formatted) dictionary, but only in french . . . want to set a poem to music? You can just translate it to solresol and instant notes. Maybe they don’t make any sense, but they’re notes.)
Tag: Celesteh