Birds Who Don't Know the Words

The addition of a hummingbird feeder in our backyard plus my new pocket point 'n shoot with video capabilities has now produced its inevitable first result: a Mixed Meters Movie Moment - one minute of hummingbirds feeding to the accompaniment of my own music.



This is the first time I've ever tried to compose music to a moving image - hard to believe for someone who has lived in Los Angeles for almost 35 years. I probably broke every rule in the book. (Actually, I hope I broke every rule in the book.)

Both video and music are (c) 2007 by David Ocker.

Here's my best Hummingbird Still Shot. Click to enlarge.


Here's another MM post with a lucky picture of a hummingbird at rest.

Our cat Spackle showed an intense interest in the hummingbird movie. So I shot this video of her trying to catch the moving image of the hummingbird.



And she seemed just as interested in the video of her watching the video of the hummingbird.


Where will it all end?

The video of Spackle is dark and hard to watch when I play it from this page. Apparently if you watch it at YouTube it'll look better. Click here.

Recursion Tags: hummingbirds. . . cats. . . Mixed Meters Movie Moment. . . David Ocker

Half Grassed

If you find a good pun you should use it a lot, I always say.
If you find a good pun someone else probably thought of it first, I always say. Click here.

















Click on a picture and it'll embiggen. None of these shots were posed. The last one is graffiti on a corner of a wall; I enhanced the right side to make it greener.

Half-Assed Tag: Half Grassed...embiggen

It's Official, Christmas Season is Open

By my own definition the Christmas season begins on the first day I notice Christmas music being played at Starbucks. So today, Thursday November 15, 2007, is the first day of the Christmas Season. Merry Christmas everyone.

Only forty days (and nights) until I can start feeling completely comfortable in Starbucks again. (If Starbucks plays just one Hannukah tune during that time all will be forgiven.)


Of course, Christmas at Starbucks also means they will probably deign to play a few tiny bits of classical music - something which the Seattle Suit who "hand picks" their tracks obstinately refuses to do during the other 46 weeks of the year.

Come on guys - I'm not expecting Cage or Mahler or Gesualdo. But how can a movement of Vivaldi or Mozart hurt us during April or July if it's okay during December? Heck, it might even make us smarter?

(Of course, I haven't actually heard any real classical music at Starbucks yet this year - although I did hear Angelique Kidjo singing Ravel's Bolero last week. That's a classic, right?)

(And they're selling little knitted Christmas Penguins at S'bucks this year too. Click here or here for that rant.)

Classic at Christmas Tags: Starbucks Music. . . Christmas Music. . . Christmas Penguins. . . Angelique Kidjo

30 Second Spots - OK

It's not great. It's OK.

It's not my shortest 30 second spot, but it is my shortest title, okay?

Click here to hear OK



Copyright (c) November 11, 2007 - 36 seconds




According to an unsupported assertion in this Wikipedia article, OK is the most widely recognized word in the world, okay?

OK Tags: okay. . . OK. . . David Ocker. . . 30 Second Spots

Tower Records Aftermath

About a year ago the music world was abuzz with bloggers bragging of the bargains they had brought home from Tower Records. The chain was closing down forever, an early victim of the continuing collapse of the record industry. I don't miss Tower Records in the slightest.


But I did enjoy picking through the remains at the various levels of discount, a kind of musical near necropsy. Apparently I needed more clutter. I still have albums from the final 90% off frenzy which I haven't opened yet.

Today we visited the site of Tower Records Pasadena which is now the home of a mattress superstore: Sit 'n Sleep. Here's a panormaic view of what that space looks like now:


Click for an enlargement. If anyone wants to submit a picture showing what socially useful purpose has been found for their local Tower location I'll be happy to add it to this post.

Sit and Sleep is advertised on television almost continually by Larry Miller, its owner and pitchman, announcing in an annoying sprechstimme that "We'll beat any advertised price or your mattress is free." thus proving that we Americans are, as a group, not very good at logic.

I asked the saleswoman if they'd ever given a mattress away for free, knowing full well that they hadn't. She had her response down pat segueing easily into stories of what a great boss Larry is and how the illogical catchphrase had made the company into a huge success. They probably teach all that on the first day at Sit 'n Sleep University.

She also said lots of really disappointed people have been showing up at the store looking for Tower Records. Those must be the customers who only bought albums once every few years. There's still a large yellow and red Tower sign visible from the parking lot.

Here's a picture of Larry and his accountant Irwin as bobbleheads. Why would I expect logic from a bobblehead. The saleswoman wondered what the Chinese factory workers who make these things think of them. They cost $16 each, about the same as a compact disc. I didn't buy one, but I thought about it. Even a lousy compact disc that I only listen to just once would be better value for my entertainment dollars.




Read about Tower Records here.

Tower 'n Sleep Tags: Tower Records. . . Sit 'n Sleep. . . bobblehead dolls. . . CD sales. . . mattress

Found Cartoon - It Looks At The Atom

A paper, probably dropped by a student from the nearby high school, turned out to be this hand-drawn cartoon.

In the upper right corner a masked figure says "Give me ur money" while pointing a gun at the back of a spikey haired scientist looking through a huge microscope towards a small dot on a pedestal in the lower left. In the lower right is the caption - "It looks at the atom".



I'm sorry to discover that Pasadena scientists are afraid of being robbed while using an SEM. Click the picture to get more details.

Media: Ink on Paper 8.5 x 11", detail

Mugged Scientist Tags: cartoon. . . microscope. . . holdup

Creatures of La Jolla

In celebration of our fifteenth anniversary, Leslie and I drove to La Jolla for lunch at The Crab Catcher, a walk around La Jolla Cove and a quick tour of the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, among other things. And we wondered why Jahja Ling appears to be wearing a black glove while conducting.




















Click on any picture for a closer view.

Crystal Anniversary Tags: La Jolla Cove. . . Birch Aquarium. . . Crab Catcher. . . Jahja Ling. . . marine animals

Less Than The Paper It Isn't Written On

INVOCATION

Composer Daniel Wolf, whose blog Renewable Music survived the recent cut of my blog reading list, has broached the idea of writing a daily series of short pieces of music for posting online. He asked if anyone objected.

My initial impetus for Mixed Meters was to create a place to post my own short pieces. So, even though I present my pieces as audio files while Daniel would give us pdf scores, I've got opinions on the subject. To read everything he had to say plus all the comments (including mine) click here.

My quoted comments begin after the picture.

I say "whatever turns you on, Daniel." Writing a large number of short pieces can be a very good thing - something I've learned directly from my own experience.

In my opinion, however, your plan is already lumbered with a forest of precomposition. Why do you have to decide ahead of time to write "one piece per day for a month"? Why not two pieces on average per week until, I don't know, you tire of the formula or think of a better one?

And (also in my opinion) your pre-chosen title is overly pedagogical. I don't know who is having these "assorted musical problems" of which you speak, but they also could be writing a passel of short pieces.

My suggestion to you (which of course is worth less than the paper it isn't written on) would be "write a short piece in the next day or two. If you enjoy doing that, write another one pretty soon afterwards. Repeat."

The quote from Lou (or is it from Virgil) seems right to me depending on the exact meaning of regular appointments. I would prefer to base them on social periodicities rather than astronomical ones.

When you've finished a "bunch" of pieces, you might review them as a group. Maybe you'll notice similarities which you wish to avoid in future short pieces. Or maybe those very similarities will inspire you to some new intensity of composition.

Trying to create an exhaustive compendium of styles or solutions is going to make writing the last piece of your "book of etudes" excruciatingly difficult. I would suggest approaching each new piece with the same open mind and blank paper. Or with both blank mind and paper.

Creating an online library of new pieces unmediated by "traditional publishing institutions" seems like a fine idea. Good luck getting the people to browse the stacks.

Having written a half dozen paragraphs for your blog, maybe I should plunder them as filler for for my own. My own little bits of composing time have been drained by a 25 minute five movement behemoth. When I finally am happy with the sound of that beast ("real soon now") I fully intend to return to writing short pieces. They're easy and fun. And no one ever need know about the failures.

BENEDICTION

I believe there is absolutely NO reason for anyone to compose music unless they have a good time doing it because there are already so many composers cranking out so much music (not to mention all those classics and oldies haunting us from the past). Forcing oneself to compose for anything but the simple joyous experience of making the air vibrate seems simply irresponsible to me.

I once heard Frank Zappa say he wrote music because he liked to stick it in his ear. I've always assumed that means pretty much the same thing I'm trying to say here.

Paper Tags: composing. . . Daniel Wolf. . . blogs. . . new music

Christmas in October

This story also discusses the root causes of Halloween, stuffed penguins, various types of snowmen and green table grapes.

It all began nearly 2 weeks ago when I walked into my local Vons supermarket and was confronted by this small choir of snowmen.


Seeing this full-frontal Christmas marketing before I had yet come to terms with Halloween silliness was disconcerting. I'm glad there was no Christmas carol playing. Hearing "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" at that same moment would undoubtedly have given me a seizure.

But it IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In spite of the two major national holidays we will yet celebrate before Christmas, corporate America seems to be doing everything it can, as early as it can, to ensure a good bottom line at the bottom of its stocking. (Here's an article.)

And, of course, when big business prospers everyone benefits. Uh-huh. Higher corporate profits mean working people get bigger bonuses and longer vacations. More taxes are paid so welfare checks increase and more guns are shipped to Iraq (which eventually are stolen by terrorists so replacements can be ordered from defense contractors.)

As an article of faith, retailers believe that next year's Christmas season will be the most profitable ever. So they increase orders for shoddy Chinese merchandise and sweat shop workers in lead-paint factories can buy motor scooters and raise the demand for gasoline worldwide.

Christmas marketing makes it just one big win-win world.


Meanwhile I've been trying to suss out why Halloween has become such a huge adult holiday in recent years. Some of the solutions I've suggested to myself are:

• Adults really truly DO believe in witches and goblins and ghosts.
• Adults really don't believe in witches and goblins and ghosts but their irrational fears are alleviated by giving candy to children.
  
• Adults are jealous of their children getting all the goodies.
• Adults need a chance to get drunk and/or act silly.
• Adults need one (more) night a year to believe in pre-Christian paganism
  
• Adults are not happy with their own personalities and need a chance to pretend to be someone else.
• Halloween is one big practice party for Christmas and New Years - minus gifts and you spend it with friends instead of family.
• Adults are just being manipulated by retailers to waste money on Halloween junk.

I think the last one is the most realistic. Halloween really IS Christmas in October if you're a retailer - another chance to separate us suckers from our money over a Pagan-inspired holiday. According to the National Retail Federation, Halloween spending in the U.S. will top Five Billion Dollars this year. (Click here.)

Please notice the two Pumpkin Snowmen in the pictures; both are denizens of front lawns in our immediate neighborhood. Next year will we be seeing Halloween polar bears and reindeer as well? Or maybe ghosts of polar bears and skeletons of reindeer? I hope so.


Meanwhile, Mixed Meters' favorite crypto-zoological beast - the Christmas Penguin was out in full force in a Southern California drug store recently. I found three different soft cuddly Christmas penguin toys.


Here is a previous MM post Stalking The Christmas Penguin explaining why I'm so amazed by Christmas penguins.

Here is a positive-spin article about the Polar Bears Meet Penguins Coca-Cola Commercial which I discuss in that posting.

Here you can watch that very commercial online.

Here you can read about a musical for kids entitled How The Penguins Saved Christmas. The penguin has a great future as a Christmas animal when those kids grow up. Be sure to listen to some musical samples at the bottom of the page.


There's more to my story about the Vons supermarket.

After I controlled my surprise at the snowmen I shopped and purchased food. One thing in my basket was a 2 pound plastic box of green table grapes. The price was very reasonable. Here's the label on the box. Click it for enlargement.



When I got home I read the label more closely. Notice the line "UNITED STATES PLANT PATENT NO:PP17504". The grapes were uniformly large. They lasted a long time without spoiling. They had an intensely crispy crunchy consistency. They were ever so slightly, just barely a little tiny bit sweet - sorta, if you used your imagination. I hated 'em!!

"Yeah, so?" I hear you say ...

What better way to celebrate Halloween than by eating FRANKENFOOD.

The organic grapes I bought more recently from Whole Foods were completely delicious.

Here's the full text of the franken-grape label:

PRISTINE SEEDLESS
UNITED STATES PLANT PATENT No:PP17504

Green Seedless Table Grapes
Raisins Verts De Table Sans Pepins

Product of U.S. / Produit des E.-U.
Net Wt. 2 lbs. (907 G) / Poid Net 2 lbs. (907 g)

Distributed By/ Distribue Par:
Sun Fresh International
Visalia CA 93291-5143

Grown and Developed by
Anton Caratan and Son

Treated with sulfer dioxide for fungicde use / Traites ave dioxyde de soufre comme fungicide.



ADDENDUM:
Here's an article about these grapes which indicates they probably aren't genetically modified. Even so they are clearly an engineered product, created more for the producers benefit than for the consumers. Here are two descriptions of the little beasties from the article:

large, crispy grapes that have characteristics retailers covet, including long shelf life.

the taste profile -- starting with a sweet vanilla streak and ending with a zesty Granny Smith apple finish -- is unique.


.Franken-Tags: Christmas. . . Halloween. . . Christmas marketing. . . pumpkin snowmen. . . Christmas penguin. . . Frankenfood

Mister Composer Head Goes Solo

Mister Composer Head, for whose blog "Mister Composer Head" I've been serving as amanuensis, has mastered the art of posting his own writing to his own blog (thereby avoiding the bottleneck created by his amanuensis).

In fact two weeks ago he added 5 (count'em, five) new posts to M.C.H. Nothing since then. The ball's in his court.

I created a Feed Digest feed to automatically announce recent M.C.H. posts here at Mixed Meters. Look over in the left column not too far from the top. (You can also click on Mister Composer Head in the M.M. Index at the top of the left column.)

For each C.Head post you'll see the title, the date and the first hundred characters of the text - sometimes cutting off abruptly in the mid...

Click on any title to be taken to that particular post.


Mr. CoHead asked if I'd add some of my pictures to his posts - but I begged off by suggesting that he could easily learn how to embed pictures directly from my blog(s) into his. Here's hoping he takes the bait and learns the trick of web plunder.

(In fact, if anyone else wants to use some of my pictures, please get in touch.)

Meanwhile, I saw the Composerheads in person at a recent avant-garde function. I can report that they seemed well and in good spirits and were enjoying the program considerably more than I was.

Feed Tags: ComposerHead. . . blog feeds

Artistic Politicians

I came across this Life magazine in a Pasadena antique store Saturday. I showed it to Leslie who literally gasped at the picture. Yep, Richard Milhouse Nixon, age 14, holding a violin.


Click to enlarge the picture. Curiously, he seems to be wearing a wedding ring. Here's the text of the cover for Mr. Google's robots:

LIFE
November 6, 1970 50 cents
THE YOUNG NIXON

• His career as an actor
• The steady girl he didn't marry
• Breaking into the dean's office
• Poker champ of Green Island atoll

and the caption of the picture:
"At 14, Nixon played second violin in his high school orchestra"

Inside the magazine, which contains actual cigarette advertisements, the article about pre-political Nixon (who was of course POTUS in November 1970) is set off with these call-outs:

• 'He wasn't a boy that you wanted to hug'
• He ran for student body president - and lost
• The symbol of his club was a wild boar.
• 'He was a brute for discipline. He couldn't get enough of it.'
• 'He sounded like he was close to quitting law school'
• He helped break into the dean's office
• He asked Pat to marry him the night they met
• 'He was the finest poker player I ever played against'

Meanwhile, one or two of my three readers may remember that I've been reading The Third Reich In Power by Richard J. Evans. Here are a couple passages that caught my eye about another young artist who became a wildly successful politician whose career ended in disgrace:

Hitler toured the [Degenerate Art] exhibition before it opened to the public, and devoted a major part of a speech on the eve of its inauguration to a ferocious denunciation of the works it showed. ... He even instructed the Reich Interior Ministry to investigate the defective visual capacities he thought had partly led to such distortion. They were, he thought, inherited. Cubists and others who did not stick to slavishly accurate representations of their human subjects were to be sterilized.

This is on page 172. The footnote to this passage, which also includes a bit of Hitler's speech, is as follows:

142. Merker, Die bildenden Kunste, 148-52. The instruction does not appear to have been carried out.

Hitler was, of course, a failed artist. (Just like I'm a failed composer.) Here and here you can see Hitler's own work. This not entirely agreeable site has more pictures including the Hitler drawing above.

On page 298 of Evans' book we read:

In November 1938 Hitler launched a furious attack on intellectuals, amongst whom there was little doubt that he included university teachers and professors. He declared that intellectuals were fundamentally unreliable, useless and even dangerous, and contrasted their irreducible individualism and their constant critical carping with the instinctive and unquestioning solidarity of the masses. 'When I take a look at the intellectual classes we have - unfortunately, I suppose, they are necessary; otherwise one could one day, I don't know, exterminate them or something - but unfortunately they're necessary.'

What a different world we live in - where cigarettes are not sold in magazines and artists need not fear for their reproductive abilities. And teachers need not fear for their lives except when a student brings a gun to class.

Click here for a previous MM post about cigarettes, another artistic Republican president and my mother.

Here's another Mixed Meters' post about republicans and Hitler.

Here's where Mixed Meters asks who is giving the Nazi Salute.

Click here to hear two songs sung by another mass murderer.

I confess that George II makes me nostalgic for Richard Nixon. Hitler makes me thankful for George Bush. Here's one of the cigarette ads from Life which may awaken your own feelings of nostalgia if you're of a certain age. (Note that the cigarettes and the steam from the cups all point towards the girl. I'm sure that's some sort of graphical accident not subliminal manipulation. Yeah.)



2nd Violin Tags: Richard Nixon. . . Life Magazine. . . cigarette advertising. . . Adolf Hitler. . . Degenerate Art. . . Richard J. Evans. . . The Third Reich In Power