In which Plants Look Weird

Sunday Leslie and I took the very strange twisted spiral cactus (that has been sitting on our front porch for years) to the California Cactus Center for repotting. While Leslie shopped I wandered around with my pocket camera. Here's some of what I saw until the battery ran out. (Click on any picture for The Big Picture.)

Copyright © January 29, 2006 by David Ocker

Pictures of Plants

The Docker Awards for Mozartean Commentary

The Docker Award for the Most Intelligent Comment About Mozart (MICAM) goes to Alex Ross - Celebrate Mozart by Ignoring Mozart He said: "If you really want to celebrate Mozart's world, Mozart's culture, Mozart's life, you would ignore the man himself and listen to music by a living composer."

However, the Docker Award for the Dumbest Comments About Mozart (DCAM) goes to physicist Mario Livio for his NPR interview. He said (at zero min. 37 sec.) "It goes up and then down and then up again in the same way and down again in the same way and then the same thing repeats itself twice. So this is the same type of symmetry you'd see in maybe wall paper design." Wallpaper Music, indeed.

And at 3'49" - "And this is what happened with Mozart or it happened with a number of mathematicians like the French Evariste Galois, who, you know, Mozart died at 35, Evariste died at 20. You know, they both did all their best work, you know, when they were teenagers essentially." Mario - you should ask, you know, a clarinetist (or any musician) when Mozart did his best work before, you know, going on mike.

Music Reviews

In which David Remembers Mozart

Yeah, today is Mozart's Quarter-Millennium. It's a really big media deal. So here's my big reverent obeisance to the master. Can't someone be honest about it and just start a Mozart Religion? Call it Mozartism.

Or maybe someone could be REALLY honest about it. An LA Times editorial today said "More nonsense has been written about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart than almost any historical figure except Jesus Christ."

When I was a college student I was part of a group who made Mozart's birthday a private holiday. Usually it was celebrated by smoking something we should not have possessed in a location where we should not have been. Like in a concert hall.

After college I decorated my first apartment with a large lithograph of Mozart that I had rescued from a scrap heap. It had a heavy wooden frame in very bad condition. Later my mother spent a lot of money on fixing the frame - refinishing the wood and adding new glass and matting. She hung it in her home proudly. Now Mozart hangs in my office, watching my every move from beyond.

Years ago I attended an LA Philharmonic concert which included a Mozart piano concerto. I sat through it, the critical professional musician cataloging problems: too fast, too slow, out of tune - whatever. I was not happy. When it finished, a woman sitting next to me, a complete stranger, turned and said: "Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever heard?" I learned an awful lot about music from her, mostly about not thinking too much about music.

Stories
Artifacts

30 Second Spots - Crashing Into Each Other

click here to hear Crashing Into Each Other - in the Elegant Buoyant Metal style which is typically very quiet.

Copyright © January 19, 2006 by David Ocker - Exactly 30 seconds!!

click here for an Explanation of 30 second spots

30 Second Spots

In which Business Is Strange

The corporate-owned media does okay reporting on corporate executives accused of crimes. Here's a list of few boardroom big bilkers.

More unusual is reporting about the stupid but still legal maneuvers that businesses pull. Here's a list of 101 business stunts - just from 2005.

You can read about farting shoes, eyewear for funerals and Jessica Simpson's plus-size clothing line. And many more.

(My first link to CNN, for which I apologize.)

Business

In which Musical Dots Get Double-Clicked

Here's a bit of fun. It's an interactive musical mixer at the San Francisco Exploritorium web site.. You move colored dots around on a musical field. Once you grasp concepts like "left/right" or "up/down" you can click on the dots, changing their color and their musical style. Clever. Combining and changing the styles fascinates me. (Thanks to Janet Davis for the link.)

Music Reviews

In which David Links Back

Art Jarvinen (the "west coast totalist") added a link back to Mixed Meters in my own bio at Leisure Planet Music. He also made some nice comments - and singled out my cat pictures for particular praise. Leslie and I have had lots of child-substitute felines and I take many pictures of them. Here is my favorite cat picture of all. (This is the late mackerel tabby Big Boy, the cross-eyed cat.)

Scott Fessler also created a link to Mixed Meters in his blog Notation Software Survey. Don't be fooled - it isn't a real blog, just a clever online vehicle for distributing results from his survey on music notation software used in higher education. Boils down to the question "Finale or Sibelius?". He wore out a lot of shoe leather knocking on doors collecting data displayed in cool colored graphs, perfect for compulsive comparison.

Cat Pictures

Four 30 Second Spots in the form of a Horoscope

I'm writing new 30 Second Spots faster than I'm posting them. Probably that's not important since the demand is underwhelming.

I've created a Horoscope to help you decide which new spot is appropriate for you.. The traditional horoscope has 12 settings, kind of a celestial tone-row. I've combined the 12 into 4 groups; select the one with your sign. Or you can use the day of the week on which you were born. Or just pick the ice cream which looks most appetizing.

If you are a Cancer, Leo or Virgo (or were born on a Friday or Tuesday) click here to hear Alright Baby - you like things to proceed logically from the start but are never satisfied with the result. The ice cream is Martian Topography. The music is in the Angular Hocketed Contrapuntalist style (Yes, in proper English the title should be "All right Baby")

Copyright © January 14, 2006 by David Ocker - 35 seconds


If you are a Libra, Scorpio or Sagittarius (or were born on a Saturday or Wednesday) click here to hear Dayold - you are a student of occult musical practices and must work hard to avoid your natural bad attitudes. The ice cream is Crunchy Cherry Scab. The music is Systemic Alternative Tonicism.

Copyright © January 11, 2006 by David Ocker - 36 seconds



If you are a Capricorn, Aquarius or Pisces (or were born on a Sunday) click here to hear So Have You Kicked It - you have achieved an inner peace that is ruined by bad intonation. The ice cream is Butter Mud Twirl. The music is Perforated Parodistic Pointalism.

Copyright © January 18, 2006 by David Ocker - 34 seconds




If you are an Aries, Taurus or Gemini (or were born on Thursday or Monday) click here to hear Professional Potatoes - you are a workaholic without good ideas so things tend to go bad in the end. The ice cream is Banana Eyeliner. The music is Unprincipled Faux Minimalisticism.

Copyright © January 17, 2006 by David Ocker - 35 seconds



click here for an Explanation of 30 second spots

30 Second Spots

Karnak

Near the end of the nineties I heard about a band from Brazil on NPR. The reviewer compared them to Frank Zappa. Based on just that I ordered the album. Of course, once it came, I didn't hear ANY relationship to Frank's music - but I fell in love with the album.

The band's name: Karnak. The album's name: Karnak. I couldn't stop listening to it - it is still one of my (very few) favorite albums. It actually makes ME dance around (people who know me will confirm that one of my life mottos is "Musicians Don't Dance.") This music makes me happy.

The music is both very Rock & Roll and very Brazilian, neither genre is a particular favorite of mine. There are lots of catchy pop-style melodies. Luckily I don't understand a word of Portuguese, but I suspect some songs have a political attitude. The music is exceptionally eclectic with all sorts of ethnic and pop styles, classical quotes and lots of found sounds. And it's an extraordinarily well performed and produced studio recording. Okay, that is a bit like Zappa.

Years went by. Thanks to a colleague of Leslie's from Brazil I acquired two more Karnak albums. Well, I gave those only an A-minus, but they were still wonderful. I've been known to put all three discs in the player and listen continuously.

More years went by. About a week ago I found a new Karnak double live album on Amazon - it came yesterday. It's called Os Piratas Do Karnak (I think that means the Pirates of Karnak). I've only listened to it three times. Of course live recordings can be "tweaked" to sound better but this is one extremely tight live band.

They were once booked to play at the Santa Monica pier - I would have been there, but the concert got canceled. I wonder if the Karnak song "3 Aliens in LA" is about that. Now I've learned that Karnak has disbanded - and they only get together once a year in Brazil. But apparently their following in Brazil is still strong.

I wasn't sure what to expect from live recordings after listening to all the studio tracks so often. But some things are really better live. Plus the helicopter at the beginning sounds amazing. And they seem to be doing some humorous stage business. Okay, the NPR guy was right - it is like Zappa. Only the sounds and music are completely different.

I've been intending to create a little list in the sidebar of my favorite albums. This is going to be the first entry. It may be a while before I add another entry.

Estamos Adorando Tokio is a Karnak album - you can apparently hear the whole thing on this Brazilian website.


Music Reviews

In which David Needs Help With a Feed

Yesterday I tried to create an RSS feed for this blog. There are a couple of new links in the sidebar.

If you don't have the foggiest notion what "an RSS feed" might be, click here.

On the other hand, if you do know and you actually use it, please let me know if it works. Or not.

I unsuccessfully tried to validate the feed. I have no clue how to fix the errors. The whole process became a time consuming hassle - reminding me why I named my imaginary computer support company "Computer Headaches"

Computer Headaches
Cat Pictures

30 Second Spots - Girls Kick Ass

click here to hear Girls Kick Ass - The title was suggested by a license-plate frame I saw on a car while waiting for a red light. The music was written in Starbucks and, as always, has nothing to do with the title, except maybe it does subconsciously. The music is a good example of Plectral Spastic Contradance, which, as always, means nothing much really.

Here's a link to a new blog called Twelve Minutes, where the author, who lives in Hong Kong, goes to Starbucks every day, observes the current environment for 12 minutes and then writes creatively about it. I can relate. Starbucks in Hong Kong sounds frighteningly similar to the ones in Pasadena.

Copyright © January 4, 2006 by David Ocker - 44 seconds (very long!)

Explanation of 30 second spots

30 Second Spots