Unbeknownst to Me

I finally got an audio interface for my computer and have finally preserved something I thought was going to die on some fragile magnetic media: my final project from orchestration class from my long-ago days as a music major. Despite the fact that it’s a college orchestra on their second sight-reading (and, ahem, not taking it all that seriously), I think it still comes across really well. My one regret: doubling the violin with the trumpet. Sure, Franck did it, as my prof instantly noted upon hearing it, but it ends up sounding very 1930s movie score to me, instead of 1920s modern composition, which is more what I was going for. I think I did it pretty well apart from that, though.

See what you think. It’s Alexander Scriabin’s Prelude in G minor, Op. 27, No. 1 for piano, orchestrated for full orchestra by yours truly.

Scriabin Prelude in G Minor Opus 27, no. 1, arr. Smith

Update: updated the link, should give you more than a preview now.

I’m very sad to hear about Senator Kennedy’s malignant glioma, because I’ve unfortunately watched a man go through it before. The most common type, unfortunately, is also the worst, and it’s not a pretty process.

When I was in high school, I was interested in a jazz and media program at the local university. My piano teacher, who didn’t have any experience playing or teaching jazz, arranged for me to get private lessons with the jazz piano prof, John Emche. John was a sweet guy, very friendly and generous with his time.

After a few months of lessons, I knocked on his door as usual and he opened it, clearly woozy and with the lights out. He was sorry, he said, he had been sleeping because of some muscle relaxants the doctor had given him for a sudden series of debilitating headaches. The next time he had forgotten to cancel the lesson and was somewhat confused.

Then I learned he had a brain tumor and was getting surgery. The next time I saw him he was bald with scars on his head from the surgery. He was clearly much better, though his eyesight had been affected. But in a couple of months he was confused again and would drift back and forth. After that he quit teaching while he got radiation treatment.

It looked hopeful for a while, but I never had another lesson with him. Apparently the doctors determined, as is usual, that it had spread and there was little else they could do. So they quit treating him, let him regain his strength, and he and his wife went on a cruise together while he was still functional enough. Apparently it was good for both of them to relax and enjoy something together.

Very soon thereafter, he passed away. The whole process took about a year from what I recall (bear in mind this was 22 years ago). Now fortunately for Senator Kennedy, he has more resources and, more importantly in the world of medicine, more influence to ensure he’s not in the control group of an experimental study. But  depending on the severity and type of tumor, he could be gone very soon.

Whatever you may think of someone or their politics, it’s a frightening prospect, hard on them and their loved ones, and I really hope the outcome is better for him. But the odds are not good, and I don’t wish that on anybody. One small consolation is that Senator Kennedy had a good long life until this point. John Emche was in his thirties–this disease doesn’t really care who you are or what you’re like. And John Emche was a great guy who deserved more time with us.

By complete coincidences, I found both of these items on the intarwebz today.

First, a namesake who’s a “psychic, medium, and animal communicator.” Because maintaining the skill to plausibly “read” real people is too much, you have to go after the clients who can’t refute your bullshit. If the victims weren’t so mind-bogglingly stupid, I’d feel worse about them being taken advantage of by a harpie charlatan.

As if in commentary, my RSS reader gave me this cartoon from the wonderful xkcd:

Every white person who wants to act like they’re all spiritual and know Indian lore and stuff always has to start with “well, Coyote is the trickster god.”

Bah. The crow is e’r more a trickster and sends your god loping up Wayne Street.

To clarify: this morning, as I was walking to work, I noticed a crow caw and alight on a power line near me. As I passed underneath I muttered a “hello” as I am wont to do to noisy birds. Another crow joined the first. A mockingbird thought he’d mix it up with them, but flew off suddenly–and a third crow arrived.

After I’d passed, the crows started kicking up a fuss. Usually a bunch of birds freaking out means some predator, sometimes a cat but often something more interesting like a snake, is nearby. I couldn’t see what they were after, so I turned the corner onto East Alexandria Avenue and kept on my way.

Suddenly the noise got more intense and was clearly moving up the street. I looked back, to see what the fuss was, when a freaking coyote loped up the middle of the street. Fox-like ears, thin tail, 25 inches at the shoulder, thin legs, tawny coat…a freakin’ coyote. At 9:50 AM.

Clearly some yuppie had been spewing some Joseph Campbell-inspired wankery and the real trickster gods, the corvids, decided to call them out by driving their coyote out…and thus revealing why there have been a bunch of missing kitty posters.

Hey yuppies: you don’t care about the damage your little predators do when you let them out to roam around the neighborhood to eat the wildlife, so don’t expect me to be sad when the wildlife eats your fluffikins. I’m hoping they’ll also take out some of the screaming toddlers you ignore while talking on your cellphone in restaurants.

A long, long time ago, I was a musician, or so I defined myself. As such, I had to give a lot of public performances, ranging from a few other students’ parents in the neighbor’s basement to a thousand or so people in an auditorium. Afterwards, the scene would be something like this.

Well-meaning person: I enjoyed your piece very much. It had good rhythm.

Me in hyper-self-critical-performance-analyzing mode: Well, that was about the only good thing about it.

Taken aback well-wisher: No, it was lovely, really, I-

Me: Yeah, sorry it couldn’t be better.

And so on until one or other of us broke off, embarrassed.

It wasn’t until I watched a former professor of mine after a recital, just a small one on weeknight, when he dealt with the inevitable little old lady who attended any classical concert and thinks it’s just lovely:

Little old lady: Oh, thank you so much, that was just lovely.

Professor, smiling warmly, looking her directly in the eye, and shaking her hand: Thank you!

That was it. She turned away, satisfied, and left, without any embarrassment on either part.

It was a revelation to me. And after learning the technique I found that public situations (except talking to strange women in bars) got a lot easier. It’s really no big deal: everybody is usually wanting you to do well because they don’t want their time wasted, and everyone who comes up to you afterwards had a nice time and just wants to express that. There’s really nothing so scary about it.

I thought I was just particularly socially inept, but now I read Stephen Fry’s second-ever blog post (no, each post is not called a blog, thank you very much), and how he got the same lesson from John Cleese, of all people:

“Oh, nonsense. Shut up. No really, I was dreadful.” I remember going through this red-faced shuffle in the presence of the mighty John Cleese who upbraided me the moment we were alone.

‘You genuinely think you’re being polite and modest, don’t you?’

‘Well, you know …’

‘Don’t you see that when someone hears their compliments contradicted they naturally assume that you must think them a fool? Suppose you went up to a pianist after a recital and told him how much you had enjoyed his performance and he replied, “rubbish, I was awful!” You would go away thinking you were a poor judge of musicianship and that he thought you an idiot.’

‘Yes, but I can’t agree with someone if they praise me, that would sound so cocky. And anyway, suppose I do think I was awful?’ (which most of the time performers do think of themselves, of course.)

‘It’s so simple. You just say thank you. You just thank them. How hard is that?’

Granted, Fry writes as if he’s so British it might hurt occasionally, and thus he tends to a particularly English need for self-effacery, but I’m glad to see it’s not only me who needed a virtual clout about the head.

I’m trying hard not to do anything rash, but I’m experiencing unexpectedly severe burnout at work. I thought a few days off after Independence Day would hold me over until this fall when I was planning to take some time for travel, but I was mistaken.

Hopefully I can arrange some time off soon and can endure through the next week or two, but it’s been an increasing struggle to stay at all motivated this summer.

I got to see my friend Buffi tonight! She called me up this morning and said she was going to be in town with The Polyphonic Spree and was going to get me in to see the show.

Despite it having been a very full day of shopping and dealing with people, Amy proved to be the Best Girlfriend EVAR by going along, even though that’s pretty far from the kind of music she likes. It was also pretty far from my usual stuff, though technically symphonic rock is in the progressive genre, this sounded a little more like a concert of closers for some extremely happy broadway shows. Still, I think it’s been something like 12 years since I last actually saw Buffi in person, so it was wonderful to have the chance. She was very good with the crowd who kept coming up to express their appreciation to 1/24th of the band (no kidding).

My only disappointment was that they didn’t play the tune they played on Scrubs, which is the only one I knew.

But the 9:30 Club has Boddington’s! Who knew they would pick up such civilization when Ireland’s Four Courts has dropped it?

I am pretty sure I’ve never experienced drinking a soft drink with part of my tongue numb before. It’s an odd sensation.

ZOMG. I can’t fraking believe that there will be no new Battlestar Galactica until 2008. I mean, sure, wait until November or something, but January or later? Is there some sort of nasty contract dispute?

Urrrrrgh.