Tag: celesteh

Kucinich in the news

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/12/MNG57485GR1.DTL
I got email from his campaign a couple of days ago asking if I and others on his list would call people in Iowa. There was a link to click for a phone list and another link for a phone script. This guy is seriously grassroots. everything he does, he does with the support of people. Not plutocrats or mega corps, but dedicated people who rally to his message of peace and hope. It’s rare that a politician gives a reason for hope. Rarely do they have the honesty. Nader’s got it (hearing him speak is incredible) and Kucinich has got it.

Some dems hate Nader because it’s easier to blame him than widespread election fraud. Those Nader-haters should love Kucinich because he can draw all the traitorous leftists back to the party. A huge number of people didn’t bother to vote last cycle. Gore failed to sufficiently differentiate himself from Bush and many folks concluded that it didn’t matter which of the two evils that they voted for. And, of course, voting for a third party would be “throwing away” a vote. Well, here’s a guy that has a real difference who can bring back disaffected voters and who, as a major party guy, is not a throw-away vote.
Kucinich is the best hope for progressives and the best hope for the Democratic party and a real pacifist, the best hope for the world. We owe it to the world and future generations and to ourselves to at least try to get a progressive into office. Kucinich can win, more than Dean can win or any other dem can win. Kucinich is our best hope.

Quick JJiCalc Tutorial

Launching JJiCalc

After you download the software to your computer, you can run it by
double-clicking on JJiCalc.jar. Or, if you have a command prompt,
you can type “java -jar JJiCalc.jar” .

Opening Files

Once the software is launched, click on the file menu and select open.
A dialog box will come up listing files and directories on your computer.
This box may look different from ones that you are used to. On OS X, the
box will list files in the root directory. If you want to get to your
home directory, click on the Users folder, then on your directory name.
Go to the directory where you put the software. In the JJiCalc folder,
there is a folder called tuning. Go there and open the file called
old_grandad.jic
Eight tuning ratios will appear in the top of the tuning table. The
title “Old Grandad” will appear in the title bar. (If you want to change
the name, just type in the title field.) On the top right hand side
of the application window are some buttons. One of them is called
“Comments.” If you click on comments, you can view the comments made about
the scale.

Lattice

Click the button marked “Lattice” to see the tuning lattice for the scale.
A new window will pop up, which shows ratios connected by lines. If you
want to hear a tuning ratio, you can click on it in the lattice. Click
on 3/2. The box around the ratio will turn gray and you should hear the
sound of the ratio being played. If you don’t hear anything and you’ve made
sure that sounds are working on your computer, you may need to update
your Java libraries, especially Swing.
If you click again on the ratio, it will stop playing. You can play
any number of ratios at the same time as you would like. Click on 3/2,
5/4 and 1/1.

Pop-up Menus

You can also play ratios directly from the tuning table. If you have a
multi-button mouse, right click on the numerator or denominator of one of
the ratios. If you are on a macintosh with a single-button mouse, option
click on the numerator or denominator. A pop-up menu will appear with
the options “Enable Sound”, “Freeze this Cell”, and “Clear this Cell”. To
hear the ratio, select “Enable Sound.” To stop hearing the ratio, right
or control click again and select “Disable Sound.”
Frozen cells can’t be played. Also, they can’t be cleared and will not
be sorted. To freeze a cell, right or control click on the cell for the
pop-up menu. To defrost a cell, do the same thing again, but select
“Defrost this Cell”. To erase the contents of a cell and remove a ratio
from the table, select “Clear this Cell”.

Cents, Hertz, Fret Position

In the middle of the bottom of the application, there is a section of
buttons labelled “View As.” Click the one labelled “ET +-Cents”. This
will calculate the closest Equally Tempered pitches, plus or minus the
cents needed to get your tuning. In the gray boxes below each ratio,
you should see a postive or negative number indicating the cents to add
or subtract, with the closest ET pitch below that. The JJiCalc assumes
that 1/1 is C0, so therefore 5/4 is E0 -13.7 cents.
To calculate Hertz, click the button marked Hertz in the “View As”
section. 1/1 defaults to 440. If you would like to use a different
base frequency, on the bottom right is a section called “base frequency.”
Type in what frequency you would like in the text area marked “1/1 freq”.
Then, click the button “Update Base”. If you play the ratios, they will
sound at the new frequencies. The displayed Hertz will not change,
however, until you click the “Hertz” button again in the “View As” area.
If you click the button “fret pos”, it will calculate fret positions
for you. The top number is the integer part of the fret position and the
bottom number is the decimal section. Below 3/2, there is 0. in the top
box and 3333 in the bottom box. Thus, for a string 1 meter long,
the fret position for 3/2 would be at 0.3333 meters.
You can change the string length by typing it in the text area labelled
“Str. Len.” and then clicking the button labelled “string len”. This will
cause your fret positions to recompute. There is a known bug: The
recomputed numbers will be incorrect. After you change the String
Length, click the “fret pos” button again to figure out the correct fret
positions.

Adding New Ratios

Go to an empty table cell and (left) click in the numerator box. type
15 and then in the denominator box, type 16. This adds a 15/16 minor
second. If you click the lattice button, you will see your new
fraction in the lattice.
The JJiCalc automatically reduces your fractions for you. In another empty
cell, enter in 32/30. As soon as you click off of the cell, it will
reduce to 16/15. There is an option under the Configuration menu to turn
this reduction off. This is a known bug: Your fractions will always
reduce.

The Configuration Menu

One thing that works in the configuration menu is changing the wave
form setting. You can hear your fractions played as sine waves,
square waves or sawtooth waves.

Sorting

all of our tunings are in scale order except for the new one, 16/15.
On the right is a button marked “Sort”. Click it to but the ratios
in order from smallest to largest.
All of the things in the gray boxes below the ratios will clear when
you hit sort.

Saving

When you save your file, all of the data including the 1/1 frequency,
the title, the comments, the ratios and the stuff written in the gray
boxes below the ratios all get saved. Saving a tuning gives you the same
kind of dialog box you got when you openned old_grandad.jic. If you
type in the name of a file that already exists, a box will appear to
ask if you’re sure you want to overwrite the old file.

Other Formats

If you don’t want to save anyhting but the title, the comments and the
ratios (but not the stuff in the gray boxes), go to the File menu, then
look in the Export submenu and select “Ratios only.”
JJiCalc also supports the Scala file format. To save your tuning as a
Scala file, select “Scala File” under the Export menu. There is a very
large set of tunings in the Scala format that you can download from http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/scales.zip. To open
these tunings, select “Scala File” from the import menu. Not all Scala
tunings are Just Intoned. If the Scala tuning that you open contains
some non-just tunings, JJiCalc will approximate them as fractions.

Daily Affirmations

I am a part of the universe. I will take things as they come. I will look for opportunities. I will do my best.

Repeating that to myself is oddly calming. also, doggone it, people like me.

Deconstruction

I am a part of the universe. I belong in the world. I have a place. I am not alone.
I will take things as they come. I cannot control the future. I cannot know the future.
I will look for opportunities. I will acknowledge my present. I will act on thigns or let go of them. If I can change something, I can try to. If I can’t change something, I can let go of it.
I will do my best.

Life Goes On

So Jean gave me her MacWorld pass and so I went to the Moscone Center and spent about an hour wandering around. Uh yeah . . new computers? Um, I prolly should have looked at those. Still, I think it was a good introduction to macworld, I guess. I thought I had gone once before, but I was mistaken. It reminds me of the county fair, but more high-tech. Actually, since I used to go to the Santa Clara County Fair, it’s probably the same amount high tech.
I talked ot the folks who make Audio Hijack and wanted to know why it doesn’t capture sound from SuperCollider. This is actually a silly question, because SuperCollider is an audio programming language. If you want to capture the auio to disk, you can just write a little thingee to do it for you. But the help files on that aren’t done yet and I was hoping for a faster solution. So I stood there and chatted for a minute, trying to recall what other oddball program that I run that I couldn’t capture audio from?? I finally gave up trying to remember and wandered off. Only just now, as I tweak the source code, do I remember that I was thinking of the Java Just Intonation Calculator. Oh yeah. That thing I’m lead developer on.

Clearly I’m much spacier than I think I am.
Maybe you’re wondering how I’m doing? Fine thank you. A bit distracted, I guess. somewhat sad. More relieved. Working to maintain optomism.
After I left MacWorld, thinking I must have seen all the exhibitions at least in passing (but that can’t be true, because I didn’t see digidesign or MOTU’s booths, which must have been there), I barted around homewards, but got off at downtown Berkeley, so I could get pants and undies. Went to Ross Dress for Less because I am cheap. No pants I liked. But I nought the only 2 pair of small boxers in the whole store. (boxers or briefs? boxers. now you know.) they’re kind of hideous. One is covered in patriotic patterns, the other is green plaid. there’s nothing wrong with green plaid, except that it’s really not a good color on me. mind you, this is not something i worry about because nobody sees my underwear.
And then as I was wlaking home, it occurred to me that I’m single now. Not only might my underwear be seen, but this might be a desirable occurance and one where it might not be best to be wearing patriotic patterns. oy! Ellen points out that there are chicks who go for the geeky thing. these chicks are clearly my only hope. (She didn’t use the word “chicks”)
Is it a little early to worry about dating again? Why, just because I’ve been broken up for less than 48 hours and have enough emotional baggage with me to charter my own airplane back to CT? So let me do a little public self-esteem building (in the spirit of blogs everywhere): what’s not for chicks to dig? somewhat intelligent. kind of have my shit together (depending on how you define “shit”). Cute in a geeky sort of scrawny geek boy kind of way. (Is “scrawny geek boy” still employed as a catagory for describing people? should it be spelled “boi?”) Have one or two pairs of nice underwear lurking someplace. (“lurking” might not be the best word for “in a laundry basket or drawer in connecticut.”) Have musical skills.
I’m trying to create a mental picture of what I’m looking for in the big, scary world, but I think I don’t want to post it, as posting it would cause me angst and thus would violate one of my new years resolutions. my goodness, the year has laready been so eventful.
I want to drink a lot of beer in a social setting. I want to crawl under my bed and hide. I want to get nekkid with geek chicks, but first I would need a lot of beer and then I might hide anyway.

Looking Forward/Looking Backwards

Party Report

At the party were: Esperanto Ed & Sandy (who left before midnight), Sarah Dotie + cousin Kareem and Brother Bob (who had to leave before too late so Sarah could go relocate mating Salamnders to a new pool as part of an abatement program or something), and Polly and Paul. And Ellen and I, of course. It was a small group. I made a mountain of gaucamole. I told Ellen that Californians eat tons of gaucamole and that you couldn’t make too much of it for a party. So last night, I ate a bunch of leftover gauc. Anyway, we chatted and ate food and totally missed the countdown. I looked at my watch at 12:02 and ordered Sarah to call popcorn to see it was after midnight. It was. So we toasted the New Year a bit late. One of my resolutions was better time management, alas. I started the New Year late, but at least it was under five minutes late.

We had several six packs of beer for the party. Of which four beers were consumed. Two by Ellen and two by me. Then I switched and had a glass of Compari + OJ, thus making me the heavist drinker at the party. It makes me nervous when I notice that I’m drinking more than everyone else, but fully half of the people there were non-drinkers and some folks who might normally drink were obstaining so they could go do things like interrupt salamander mating.
I thought it was oodles of fun. So did Ellen. She was impressed by the complete nerdiness of my social circle. Yes, I am a nerd. Most of my friends are nerds. I think she was worried that a bunch of really hip people were going to come over. Maybe I seem hip? That would be exciting. Do nerds suspect me of hipness?
I was very releived when Polly started talking about the decline of Santa Cruz. I had been concerned that it had always been uncool and for some reason I hadn’t noticed before. But no, Polly verifies that Herland did used to be an extremely hip hangout and the Saturn was awesome, etc. She said that less than five years ago, scruz was colonized by valley yuppies. alas. woe for the world. The homoginization of amerika is spreading even to liberal enclaves.
after the party, I played Ellen some MP3s of Polly’s flute playing. Ellen said it was the best, most interresting flute playing that she’d heard in her life. Earlier, she had been talking about how the flute was completely boring and I had argued that cool extended techniques existed. and indeed they do and Polly knows them.

A New Day, A New Year

Woke up early yesterday and full of energy and optimism. Had two cups of coffee and then felt even more energetic and optomistic. Thanks to the hard work of Ellen, I am now addicted to coffee. I woke up yesterday thinking, “If I get up now, I could have coffee!” I’m up to two cups in the morning. I think I will try to stay at that level. coffee makes me so awake and so smart and la la la. anyway.
We went to Half Moon Bay to try beachiness again. the sand there is a lovely yellow color. But it was cold, cold, cold, so I did not walk barefoot in the waves and ran up the beach a few times to keep my feet from getting wet. Ellen, however, got wet feet as she failed to successfully dodge the waves a few times. But she was laughing so much afterwards, I suspect it may have been somewhat on purpose.
the rains caused the streams that run to the ocean to swell. Torrents of muddy freshwater were rushing out to the sea. We walked down a sandy penninsula as deep, fast freshwater raced on our right and the ocean crashed to our left. I feel some sort of mystical connection to the earth and the sea when I’m surrounded by so much water. The ocean makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself. I feel the presence of a mother earth when I feel the salt and hear the crashing waves. It was quite lovely
As we drove further up highway 1, I was reminded of a trip I took there in 2002 with my parents and Christi. Sometime after brain surgery, when my mother could communicate, she indicated that she wanted to go to a restaurant in Moss Landing called the Distillery. She liked fish and the restaurant is purported to be haunted. She loved ghost stories and haunting and so the Distillery was one of her favorite restaurants as far as I know. My dad and her ordered crab cakes. I remember being impressed about the discretion of the waiter. I was worried about things like that then. On the way there, we drove through the farms of Half Moon Bay. We passed the Christmas tree farms, the pumpkin farms and the horses. My mom used to ride and show horses. I had the idea that she might like to do horseback riding and was looking to get her into a program for adults with disabilities. I asked her if she was interesting in having a horse. She said, “oh yeah. Maybe someday. Not now.” Her memory wasn’t good. We told her she didn’t have time left, but she couldn’t remember or didn’t want to. The word “someday” broke my heart. There was no someday. there is no someday.
Yesterday, Ellen and I drove past the distillery and stopped at a second beach a bit north of there. We looked at the sandy cliffs and more water rushing to finally again meet the ocean. I thought of the future. There is no someday. There is no control of fate. Take things as they come. Look for opportunities. Do my best. I might die tomorrow as my life rushes back towards the sea and the earth, but I cannot know. this is a kind of optimism. I will do my best. I will accept things as they happen. I will change what I can. I will accept what I cannot change. I am a part of the universe and I belong to the world.

Jean’s ritual

We came back to the East Bay and went to Jean’s New Year Ritual. there I discovered that my attempts at serentiy and new age hippy-dippy spirituality do not extend to political discussions. I cannot change some people’s minds, but damnit, I’ll try anyway. someone there thought that Kucinich was a Nader-like spoiler who must be stopped. For the record, Nader did not lose Gore’s election. Gore lost it. Because he’s as uncompelling as Gray Davis and because of massive voting fraud in Florida and probably other states with electronic ballotting systems, the same systems that are now all over the country. Made by Diebold, the completely partison republican voting machine company who does not release their source code and runs our elections for profit.
Simply, I would not have voted for Gore. I will not vote for anyone that wants to throw queer or poor folks or people of color or the third world to the wolves to protect corporate profits. The excuse cited is that a progressive would be unacceptable to middle america. but let’s pause for a minute and think of the massive role that corporate money plays in campaigns. Are candidates that think the country ought to be run for the benfit of the people rather than profits really unacceptable to middle america or are they unacceptable to the plutocrats that pay for campaigns? Kucinich has major labor support. the majority of americans agree with his platform. If you think that that you can’t vote you’re conscience because it will lose, then you’ve already lost. there’s no hope. You might was well go to work for Haliburton.
Jean’s ritual consists of list making. this year it was three lists. This ritual is a prayer more than it is making resolutions. the first list is things you want to leave behind in the passing year. I listed angst, procrastination and war. The second list is things you want to draw to yourself in the new year. I listed self-reliance, confidence, widsom, knowledge and skills. The third list is new this year and it is things that you are grateful for. Jean says that if she focusses on what she’s grateful for, she feels better about the world.
Jean passed out envelopes, which we self addressed and then sealed in our lists of things to draw in and things we’re grateful for. In the middle of next December, she will stamp the envelopes and mail them to us. For the list of things to leave behind, we went out to a small fire pit in the back yard and burned the lists. In years past, there’s been singing at this point, but this year there was only a little singing by a few people. I am guilty of non-participation. Jean asked me to hum the MIDI thingee I posted to my blog in mid-December, but I couldn’t remember it. I had forgotten about the pice, thinking it wasn’t worth working on.
For the last few months, I’ve been noticing a dearth of music. My stereo was mostly silent in Middletown and I noticed most other people’s were as well. I was thinking this was because I was at music school. We spend all day studying music and listening to pieces to analyze them and write papers or whatever and so don’t put on background music. But now I’m wondering if this is everywhere. Have people stopped wanting to sing? If we don’t have music in our lives, if we don’t listen, if we don’t sing, how can we live? How can we resist evil? How can we fight for good? How can we remember what is beautiful? How can we call for justice if we cannot sing?
So I’m adding a resolution to sing more. My voice is out of practice. Some Californians may recall my willingness to start singing at the drop of a hat, but lately, I’ve been more restrained. This restaint is not a good thing. (well, moderation is a good thing.)
One of the things that I like Ellen is that she sings. she sings to the cats. She sings to me. We should all sing to each other.
I saw Danica at the ritual. I asked what pronoun to use and the reply was “they.” It makes me feel silly to use it, but silliness is a good thing. they seemed very together and happy. I hope to see them again while I’m in town.
We came home from the ritual and I played the MIDI file that Jean liked for Ellen. Ellen liked it too. So I’ll work on it when I get back to my desktop computer where my notation software lives.
comments appear to be working again.

feedback requested

Christi’s brother built a green-housey kind of thing in the backyard of my Berkeley residence. Since then, several problems have emerged including lack of insulation, a leaky roof and most importantly, the ire of the Home Owners Association. Apparently, it had to be pre-approved by a Deisgn Review Comittee, a step I completely forgot about. We don’t own our backyard. It is an “exclusive use common area” under control of the neighborhood association. According to the CCNRs, they get to review any major changes to the backyard and even have the right to enter to pull weeds. The HOA is meeting on January 20th to deicde if they are going to require that the structure be torn down. Ed, my next door neighbor came over to look at it today and said that since it was obviously temporary, that they could probably be persuaded to let it stand. We told him about Ellen’s exploits as a composer and he seemed impressed and said he thought that it would prolly be ok and I should write a letter explaining things to the HOA. Any feedback on the firts draft would be appreciated. I don’t have much experience in the ways of small governing comittees.

Dear Members of the HOA,

This letter concerns the temporary structure in the backyard of Unit N. First, I would like to apologize for neglecting to get pre-approval from the Design Review Committee.

This structure is intended to be temporary. Ellen Fullman is occupying my unit while I am away for graduate school. I will graduate in May 2005 and dismantle the structure when I return. Ms. Fullman is an internationally known composer and the inventor of the Long String Instrument. When I offered her use of my unit, she said it was too short for her instrument and we came upon the idea of extending the instrument into the backyard.

Ms. Fullman has performed around the United States and Europe. In 2001, in San Francisco, she premiered a 45 minute piece that she wrote for her instrument and the Kronos Quartet. She was recently featured in the cover story of MusicWorks magazine. I feel that her work is both important and incredible. Having use of the temporary structure enables her to continue this work while she stays in Berkeley.

We are willing to be flexible and to take steps to mitigate possible water penetration issues. I hope that given the temporary nature of the structure and the value of Ms. Fullman’s work, that the board decides to temporarily allow the structure to remain.

Thank you very much,
Celeste

Has Santa Cruz changed or have I?

I swear that once upon a time the beaches there were really nice. Herland cafe and bookshop was a hip hangout. The Saturn Cafe had good food (it was the first place I aver had chai . . .). It was a really queer-firendly town. Crawling with lesbians.
I haven’t been to scruz regularly for ten years. I used to date a Santa Cruz girl. I would go nearly every week down to Capitola. I told my parents that I was participating in all night movie marathons at a friend’s house, but I was really going out to see this girl. Then, she dumped me and I went away to college. This was a smart move on her part as I was a complete asshole at the time.

Anyway, getting back to the present tense, or at least the recently past tense, when Ellen wanted to know where was a nifty place to go to the beach, I said that Santa Cruz was a hip little town with a nice beach. So yesterday, we hopped in the car and drove down a looong stretch of 880/17 to get to the beach. We hopped out at the Boardwalk. Ok, the boardwalk is not cool and never has been, but we walked down the beach aways and saw sea lions. The sea lions were pretty cool. the long dock near the boardwalk has pieces of it close to the water that sea lions were napping on and barking at each other.
the beach was grayish. Noise pollution from the boardwalk floated down it. I walked barefoot and let the frgid water run over my feet.
then we went to the downtown. Full of chain stores. I went to the Santa Cruz Dyke March a few years back. It was a small and fun affair. It included street theater, chanting, partial nudity and a brief protest outside of the Barnes and Noble store. It was the first chain store on the main street. Some subterfuge had been involved in it’s getting there. Some community members were outraged. those outraged people clearly lost that battle and maybe left town, i dunno. Baby gap. Urban outfitters. etc etc etc.
So we went to herland to get a cup of coffee or some hummus or whatever. It’s not a cafe anymore. It’s a bookstore only. They had to move down the street from their old location. the person behind the counter was a baby boomer goddess-worshipping type. The store was playing really bad out of tune folk music. the books were all published by Naiad press. Lame lame lame. I got a copy of the latest Dykes to Watch Out For book. The woman behind the counter said, “Since you’re planning to go out to lunch, are you sure that you don’t want a bag?”
Closetted? In Santa Cruz? What’s happened to the world? I’ve been whining that people on the East Coast aren’t out. But this is California. This is Santa Cruz, which in 1993 or 1994 was reported by the San Jose Mercury News to be 25% lesbian/bisexual/LUG. (The first place I ever saw the word LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) was in that article.) Did the whole world change when I wasn’t paying attention?
We walked through the yuppied throngs amidst the chain stores towards the Saturn Cafe. I was feeling discouraged. A piece of my youth is gone forever. Or was it always lame and I hadn’t noticed because I was young and breaking so many rules by going down there?
The Saturn Cafe was recently in the news for responding to the French Fries/Freedom Fires debacle by renaming their fried “Impeach Bush Fries.” Alas, now the menu just says “Fries.” And they’re not very good. The only hint of the activism and queerness that I thought still lurked in scruz was a manifesto on Saturn’s bathroom doors about how they were fighting against binary gender divisions by making their bathrooms officially non gendered. If only thier food was still good.
Ellen was a good sport. She said that it was a good learning experience and she’s glad we went all the way down there to find out she doesn’t need to go back.
Alas. either the town has completely changed or I have. Or maybe both of us. Everything in the world is different. The girl I dated isn’t even a girl anymore.