System Preferences > Language & Text, click Input Sources. Check the box for Keyboard & Character Viewer, and for “Show Input menu in menu bar.” Click your new menu bar icon and choose Show Character Viewer. Then in the dropdown for View, select Code Tables, click the Unicode tab, and scroll down to 00002300, titled Miscellaneous Technical. In the grid below, you’ll see ⌘ (command symbol) in row 2310, column 8. Double-click it to use it. Optional: add it to the Favorites tab by using the gear button at the bottom-left and select the ⌘ icon to insert.
⌘ as a Key Commandin Text Edit
System Preferences > Language & Text, click Text tab. Under Symbol and Text Substitution click “+” to create a new key command. In Replace column of the new key command type option-6 (§), for example, in With column insert ⌘. This works in TextEdit but not in WordPress. For my purposes (keyboard shortcut notes in Pro Tools or Sibelius) this shortcut saves a lot of time and is an effective memory aid.
Composed to celebrate the French bicentennial, Okho is scored for three performers on djembe and bass drum and was premiered at the Paris Autumn Festival on October 20, 1989. Xenakis first encountered the West African djembe in the studio of trio le cercle, to whom the work is dedicated. Okho finds a rare balance between the visceral and cerebral, creating a kind of tribal modernism. The work is in eight sections featuring extremely limited rhythmic material recombined in solos, duos and trios.
Okho Part 2
Iannis Xenakis was born on May 29, 1922 in Braïla, Romania. He studied composition at Gravesano with Hermann Scherchen, and at the Paris Conservatoire under Olivier Messiaen. Xenakis was an innovator of the mass concept of music: stochastic and symbolic music through introduction of probability calculus and set theory into instrumental, electro-acoustic and computerized musical composition; he was also an inventor of several compositional techniques constituting the “lingua franca” of the avantgarde. He was also an architect; his work included the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958, the Couvent de la Tourette (1955); as well as sonic, sculptural and light compositions: Polytope for the French Pavilion at Expo ’67 in Montreal; the music and light spectacle Persepolis set among the ruins and the mountains at Persepolis, Iran (1971); Polytope de Cluny, Paris (1972); Polytope de Mycènes, set in the ruins of Mycenae, Greece (1978); and Diatope for the inauguration of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1978). He was the founder of the Center for Studies of Mathematical and Automated Music (CEMAMu) in Paris, an Associate Music Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington (1967-1972) and founder of the Center for Mathematical and Automated Music (CMAM), also at Indiana University. He held a research position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris (1970); was Gresham Professor of Music at City University London (1975); and Professor at the University of Paris ISorbonne (1972-1989). Iannis Xenakis died on February 4, 2001, in Paris.
To chronicle the process of reading Ada would be interesting as its rich text leads the reader in many directions, including broad topics such as linguistics (grammar, semantics…), science, architecture, painting, literature, philosophy, religion, history, etc. as each sentence contains a microcosm of references real or fictionalized. To get a sense of what I mean visit Adaonline.
A taste
indirect object
noun Grammar
a noun phrase referring to someone or something that is affected by the action of a transitive verb (typically as a recipient), but is not the primary object (e.g., him in give him the book). Compare with direct object .
direct object
noun
a noun phrase denoting a person or thing that is the recipient of the action of a transitive verb, for example the dog in Jimmy fed the dog. Compare with indirect object .
intransitive |inˈtransitiv; -zi-|
adjective
(of a verb or a sense or use of a verb) not taking a direct object, e.g., look in look at the sky. The opposite of transitive .
transitive |ˈtransitiv; ˈtranz-|
adjective
1 Grammar (of a verb or a sense or use of a verb) able to take a direct object (expressed or implied), e.g., saw in he saw the donkey. The opposite of intransitive .
waif |wāf|
noun
1 a homeless and helpless person, esp. a neglected or abandoned child : she is foster-mother to various waifs and strays.
• an abandoned pet animal.
draggle |ˈdragəl|
verb [ trans. ]
make (something) dirty or wet, typically by trailing it through mud or water : [as adj. ] ( draggled) she wore a draggled skirt.
• [ intrans. ] hang untidily : red hairs draggled from under her cap.
• [ intrans. ] archaic trail behind others; lag behind : they draggled at the heels of his troop.
ORIGIN early 16th cent.: diminutive and frequentative of drag .
bedraggled |biˈdragəld|
adjective
dirty and disheveled : bedraggled refugees | we got there, tired and bedraggled.
DERIVATIVES
bedraggle verb
ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from be- [thoroughly] + draggle + -ed 2 .
nosegay |ˈnōzˌgā|
noun
a small bunch of flowers, typically one that is sweet-scented.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from nose + gay in the obsolete sense [ornament.]
satyr |ˈsatər; ˈsātər|
noun
1 Greek Mythology one of a class of lustful, drunken woodland gods. In Greek art they were represented as a man with a horse’s ears and tail, but in Roman representations as a man with a goat’s ears, tail, legs, and horns.
• a man who has strong sexual desires.
2 a satyrid butterfly with chiefly dark brown wings. • Tribes Satyrini (including the Eurasian genus Satyrus) and Euptychiini (the American wood satyrs), subfamily Satyrinae, family Nymphalidae.
DERIVATIVES
satyric |səˈtirik| adjective
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French satyre, or via Latin from Greek saturos.
putto |ˈpoŏtō|
noun ( pl. putti |ˈpoŏtē|)
a representation of a naked child, esp. a cherub or a cupid in Renaissance art.
ORIGIN Italian, literally ‘boy,’ from Latin putus.
sarcophagus |särˈkäfəgəs|
noun ( pl. -gi | -ˌjī|)
a stone coffin, typically adorned with a sculpture or inscription and associated with the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Rome, and Greece.
pediment |ˈpedəmənt|
noun
the triangular upper part of the front of a building in classical style, typically surmounting a portico of columns.
querulous |ˈkwer(y)ələs|
adjective
complaining in a petulant or whining manner : she became querulous and demanding.
Balthus was an inventive boy, loved by his mother and adored by his mother’s lover, Rainer Maria Rilke. At the age of 11, he started his first major work of art, 40 pen-and-ink pictures telling the story of a boy (himself) who finds a cat, adopts it, leashes it and finally loses it. Rilke, the first in a line of idiosyncratic father figures for Balthus (Antonin Artaud and Andre Derain came later), was so taken with the drawings that he wrote a preface and found a publisher for them. The book was called ”Mitsou.”
Weber loves ”Mitsou” too, but not for the reasons Rilke did. Rilke’s preface to ”Mitsou” was all about elusiveness. Weber thinks ”Mitsou” reveals the suffering boy within the secretive old man. ”The final image, of the little boy crying, wiping away his tears with his hands” after he loses his cat, ”was a vivid self-portrait,” Weber writes. ”It was both the first and the last time he would let the world see him quite so helpless.”
I have a first edition Ada, Vladimir Nabokov’s 1969 masterpiece. Discarded by the Kenora Public Library this hefty treasure found its way to the Exchange District in downtown Winnipeg and onto a second-hand fiction shelf in Aqua Books, where I snatched it for a later time when I would read a string of his works beginning with Speak, Memory.
Now is that time
Around my 2012 birthday I read Nabokov’s autobiography Speak, Memory and fell so in love with the writing (a passion for language and entomology, especially lepidoptera – a recurring fascination that inspires much of his literary flow, expressed with a poetic/scientific precision that spurs a superlative mind recounting his privileged boyhood) that, after lavishing in its language for as long as I could, I had to dive into another. I’ve tried this with other writers and for the most part it doesn’t work. I need a different perspective.
This was, in a way, what I did by picking up The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. A pseudo-biography of a Russian-born English fiction writer by his half-brother. The Narrator’s voice, though unique and completely distinct from the real author, could only have been created by Nabokov but it resonates with a flaw of harmonious discord: his erudite, precise, artistic style reveals a misguided, ill-prepared, and psychologically perplexed writer.
I then tried Glory, a seemingly unremarkable unfocussed and apolitical protagonist that literally disappears in the end. Though at times tedious it was Nabokov’s attention to detail and poetic style that lead me to Despair: a murder-mystery whose unreliable narrator, a compulsive liar, recounts the events leading up to the murder of his doppelganger (a drifter with actually little resemblance). I had no idea who was telling what story until two-thirds of the way in when everything became much clearer, though it raised many questions and anxieties about the direction the book was heading.
When I finished Despair and understood it’s structure, a confession not dissimilar to Lolita (though the writer has yet to be incarcerated), I reread the first part and marveled at how Nabokov pulled it off. Inspired I considered An Invitation to a Beheading (the first book of his I read many years ago that reminded me, at that time, of Albert Camus, L’étranger, 1942: “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday. I can’t be sure.”) but chose instead Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronical.
Ada, like Lolita, is a nymphet (“Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic.” Humbert Humbert, Lolita) at the time when she and her cousin/brother fall in love. One wonders where Nabokov’s infatuation/obsession resides. I believe this mystery lies within metamorphosis.
If you’re a guitarist and don’t know Pat Metheny then you should check him out. In concert is of course the best venue, then recordings, and finally on youtube.
In this video Pat Metheny discusses the impact of Youtube culture on live performance, spontaneity, impromptu sessions, and the development or destruction of careers. It’s short and I would like it to go much further but he makes a few interesting points: Big Brother is becoming ourselves, the relentlessness of people video-recording absolutely everything, usually while texting; but the third and most important for a “serious artist” (one committed to creating and releasing fine work that meets their standard) is that he has seemingly no control over what people upload to Youtube. Bob Dylan has a very controlled presence online, which I respect, though he can afford the luxury of exercising his quality and quantity of his visibility.
It’s a complicated issue. On one hand it’s great to have access to so much stuff online, but are we not becoming over-saturated with it all? Is there anything still special out there to see? Something that has an impact and lasting sensation. And add to that the artist’s perspective. It’s not unlike how photography used to be, where photographers just snapped whatever they wanted, without concern for the subjects.
“The discovery process of who you are as an individual.”
An inside look at the creative process guided by Herbie Hancock, Possibilities reveals the mysteries of musical expression and the influence of Miles Davis, specifically when, in his twenties, a member of his band: standing up for what you believe in; listening; turning whatever happens musically into something of value; leave judgment out of the picture and to make something happen. Miles Davis provided the platform for members of the band, encouraging courage, trust, and the freedom to reveal yourself. Herbie Hancock simply carries on this tradition.
In a perfect setting, the studio, artists come to the table with only themselves and their talent and creativity. The rest is the magic of the process under the microscope of wiry microphones into the dancing meters of the mixer. Doug Biro and John Fine‘s DVD Possibilities documents the process of developing a recording at the session.
The recording and documentary reflect many gems of illustrious moments in musical time but the highlight for me is Lisa Hannigan singing Don’t Explain.
An extraordinary talent most famous for his work with Miles Davis, Gil Evans lead a creative life as an arranger. Keen, astute and heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong he began developing artistically after the second world war. This documentary gives a glimpse into his life and work.
I know his work with Miles Davis best. Inspiring, beautiful. I want to check out some of his other works.
If you’ve ever lived with cockroaches you come to know they are devious, resilient, relentless and next to impossible to get rid of without the use of extreme force. Their ability to hide and out-maneuver humans disturbs me the most. House centipedes remind me of cockroaches, but bigger and with a lot more legs.
They like to live in damp, cool places outside during the summer, move into your basement in the fall and then lay eggs in the spring. They like to explore indoors for prey so it’s not uncommon to see them upstairs and even in a bedroom. They feed on insects from bedbugs, spiders, termites, ants and – da da dah – cockroaches using a venom released with a sting; they can even take on wasps. Though they rarely bite humans their sting is similar to that of a bee.
I am going to try to be a little less aggressive the next time I see one because in fact they are actually keeping the insect population under control.
I am especially fond/intrigued with Edgar Mitchell describing his search for a name to accurately describe what it felt like to see the earth from space: “…savikalpa samadhi, which means that you see things as you see them with your eyes, but you experience them emotionally and viscerally, as with ecstasy, and a sense of total unity and oneness.”
Savikalpa Samadhi
In savikalpa samadhi, for a short period of time you lose all human consciousness. In this state the conception of time and space is altogether different. For an hour or two hours you are completely in another world. You see there that almost everything is done. Here in this world there are many desires still unfulfilled in yourself and in others. Millions of desires are not fulfilled, and millions of things remain to be done. But when you are in savikalpa samadhi, you see that practically everything is done; you have nothing to do. You are only an instrument. If you are used, well and good; otherwise, things are all done. But from savikalpa samadhi everybody has to return to ordinary consciousness.
