I promised Mom a Maple post, and here it is.

The following picture, and some others on here, are misleading. She is usually sleeping, not playing. Be that as it May:



Here's a picture Nate took once. Now this is the quintessential May.



This also is pretty typical:



If we could only all be so blissful all the time. Or retreat from the world so well:



May likes to sleep on things (I think most cats do). Here she's not actually on the books, but she has clearly claimed the Baroque anthology for her own:



And, talented and musical cat that she is, she even enjoys reading Schenkerian graphic analyses:



I'll finish with a short video. We recently found that there's one thing she'll consistently play with. Here it is:

Holy cow, it's beautiful out! Above freezing and sunny....

One of the things I love about this school is the neat projects one can put together and participate in, if one makes the right contacts. Two days ago I sang in a Latin mass at a Catholic church in Ellettsville. A friend of mine in the Early Music Institute apparently sings there sometimes, and when they decided to put together a Latin mass (and got special permission to do so, of course) he contacted me and several other people and we sang several motets by Victoria, Lassus, and Pergolesi. Fun stuff! Now they're putting together a Latin high mass for the end of the semester, with a full mass by Josquin or some other such person.

I also got an email a few days ago about a conductor friend's project: he's putting together a group to do a concert that will go for a more "total" experience, involving lights and some choreography. He's putting together William Grant Still's oratorio "And They Lynched Him on a Tree." So I suspect it will be a pretty intense concert, but sounds neat.

Finally, I'm putting together a group for the Graduate Theory Association recital in April. We'll sing some Gesualdo and Zarlino--some really dense counterpoint, and that should be really fun.

Just a couple of days ago, it was beautiful outside. It's pretty cold now, and extremely cold with the fierce wind. Oh well. Sara and I managed to take advantage of the nice weather while it lasted: we biked out to Griffy Lake and went on a little walk. It was beautiful out, and the play of light and shadow among the trees was very attractive:



As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Sara loves trees, and she can always pick out particularly beautiful or striking ones. I was surprised and pleased at how well this picture turned out:



Speaking of growing plants, a few weeks ago I made an impulse buy at Kroger and got two packages of seeds: cilantro and parsley. Sara helped me plant them, and I've been keeping them well-watered and in the sunlight. The cilantro really popped up fast, and I was starting to worry about the parsley, but just this morning I saw the first parsley plant poking its little head out! Here they are, cilantro on the left, parsley on the right (the top left parsley is barely showing), and (in case you couldn't tell) the sun in the direction that they're all leaning:

Sara had the brilliant idea yesterday to make mochi with red bean paste inside. It was a lot of fun and pretty easy, so I figured I'd share. The only ingredient that is at all hard to get is the rice flour, but I think it might even be available (and overpriced) at big grocery stores, and you'll definitely find it for not too much money at Asian grocery stores.

For the bean paste:
1. cook (or rinse overnight then cook) 2/3 c adzuki beans
2. process beans in a blender or food processor until smooth
3. stir in 1/2 c sugar, then fry on med-low heat while stirring in 1/4 c oil until it thickens into a paste
4. put mixture into fridge

For mochi:
1. combine 2 c glutinous rice flour (mochiko) with 1 c sugar and 1.75 c water in a microwave-safe bowl
2. mix thoroughly until there are no lumps
3. cover with plastic wrap and microwave for 4 minutes or more, till set (it's okay to stir if it's setting unevenly)
4. the minute it's cool enough to touch, cover with a damp towel, get out the bean paste, and start the process below

To put the things together:
1. cover hands and serving surface with corn or potato starch
2. grab a golf-ball sized piece of mochi, roll into a ball, and flatten into a 3 inch circle, trying not to use too much starch (but also trying to keep it from sticking to your hands!)
3. put about a teaspoon of bean paste in the middle
4. pinch the edges of the mochi together around the bean paste to make a ball
5. set on starched surface, seam side down
6. repeat till it's all gone

The last set of instructions, just so you're warned, is ridiculously messy. Craig was kind enough to take pictures:



And lest you come away without some idea of exactly how sticky this strange substance is:



Here's the end product:



And the same plate with one or two less-than-perfect ones replaced for greater impressiveness:

Since IU takes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, Sara and I decided to take a nice weekend trip to Indianapolis to hear the symphony and to spend some time with my grandparents. Sara hadn't met the Kerns yet, so we headed over there after the symphony and were talked into staying two nights instead of our intended one and a meal at Uncle Chris and Aunt Lisa's. It was really nice to spend a lot of time with my relatives and Sara, even if Grandpa and Chris and Adam were mostly into the football games.

The most interesting part of the trip for me was the symphony. They started with Beethoven's 6th. We were surprised when an award winning actor came out and read a monologue as Beethoven. It was maybe a bit long, but certainly different. However, the intro to the second half, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, was really great. It's a piece famous for its initial reception. To quote Wikipedia:

"The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd. At the start with the opening bassoon solo, the audience began to boo loudly due to the slight dischord in the background notes behind the bassoon's opening melody. There were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky himself was so upset on account of its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, reportedly crying... Stravinsky ran backstage, where Diaghilev was turning the lights on and off in an attempt to try to calm the audience. Nijinsky stood on a chair, leaned out (far enough that Stravinsky had to grab his coat-tail), and shouted counts to the dancers, who were unable to hear the orchestra (this was challenging because Russian numbers are polysyllabic above ten, such as eighteen: vosemnadsat)."

Before their performance, the ISO simulated this initial performance. It was really cool. First the actor, as Stravinsky, talked about the piece's conception and his collaboration with Nijinsky, and then, while the orchestra played about 10 minutes' worth of highlights from the piece, a dance troupe came out and danced what Sara told me was a recreation of some of the original choreography. Meanwhile, people stationed throughout the audience started yelling and booing. Soon a fistfight erupted backstage and a police whistle started blowing. They even had a character playing Nijinsky leaning out on the stage and yelling numbers.

The whole thing was really fun, but it was also really interesting. Sara and I discussed it afterwards; we'd both been able to imagine the scene somewhat on our own, but to actually be in the midst of it, with people shouting, being unable to hear much besides wild, exciting rhythms over the crowd, to feel the annoyance at hecklers, was really a new experience and made the riot much more real to us.

Two links:

First, here's a really nice write-up on the IU theory department. The PDF version is even nicer. And as impressive as the list of books/articles/presentations/awards is, it honestly misses a lot of impressive awards and lectures by current students.

Second, I found this post really interesting and funny. Gerschwin's welcome message to Schoenberg upon his arrival in the US would certainly raise many eyebrows today, as would the newspaper's take:

"Himself an exponent of the use of the modern, native idiom in composition, Gershwin was delighted to come to the aid of the man who has been one of the most daring musical experimenters of our time."

Fascinating!

I'm jealous of Nate for his amazing trip, Claire since she gets to go to Turkey, and Sara for her amazing schedule that actually gives her time to clean her apartment (ah! what a luxury!). However, I have something that those people don't have: this video of Maple.

The class I teach, MUS-T132 Musical Skills 1, requires textbooks from three sources. Virtually every semester one of them has been a problem, but this semester, unbelievably, all three have failed. I really, really wish I were in charge of getting my own textbooks for this reason, but I only have any control at all over the last one. Anyway, the gory details:

1. The students need to buy sight-singing and rhythm books from the bookstore. However, when I went to the bookstore the other day, neither of these books were on the shelf, and neither was even listed on the little tag for T132! I sent an email to the head of the aural skills curriculum and the head of the department. It turns out that the former was supposed to order these books, but since this was the first time he would have had to do so, he wasn't aware. Okay, I can excuse him, but anyway, my students won't get these textbooks until probably late this week (maybe even later).

2. My assistant instructors (AIs) need the same two textbooks; the company has sent the department desk copies, which they loan out to the AIs. This semester, however, when I checked, the department had none of one of the books and two of the other, and I have seven AIs. Part of the problem is that people don't always remember or get around to returning loaned out texts from previous semesters, but also last semester there was only one big course using these texts and we ran short then; this semester, there are two big courses using these texts. So if we ran short then, it's no wonder we're short now. I don't think the department has gotten around to ordering more--I think they're hoping a few more will come out of the cracks, as it were, if they send more emails.

3. Finally, I create a course packet that is published by a local company. I submitted the materials about one day before they say you have to have them in, which admittedly is not giving them a lot of leeway. (But I've turned things in later in past semesters and had no problems.) I'd heard nothing about getting desk copies by Thursday, and didn't see any for the students in the bookstore, so Friday morning I called the guy at the publisher's that I correspond with and left a message. He called back a few hours later to say he was out of his office but he'd call back later. When he didn't, I called him and left the message that I had a staff meeting scheduled the next day (today) at 2 and I'd like to be able to hand out course packets (something!) to my AIs. He called about 1:45 today and left a message, since I was already in my meeting. I checked it after the meeting: apparently the course packets haven't even been made yet, and he said he'd get them to me by Monday morning. Yes, the first day of class. My AIs all teach on Monday, and I won't see them all until Tuesday. So I guess they have to wait to see the syllabus, the exercises, the requirements, etc.

This mass failure has me really baffled.

One more post today. It was amazing to be in Iowa in the run up to the presidential caucuses. Virtually all of the candidates were crisscrossing the state; apparently many of them had already visited Grinnell. It's so different from the rest of the nation, where you only get a chance to see candidates on TV ads or the news. It's really great, because you realize it's not, for example, just a choice between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama on the Democratic side (the media's portrayal notwithstanding). Iowans also take their role really seriously, and my family and I spent hours educating ourselves about candidates: going to campaign stops, watching videos on Youtube, reading the Des Moines Register, talking to friends, and looking up position sheets. I managed to see Hilary Clinton up very close in Pella (40 minutes away):



Claire and Dad saw Barack Obama (in Tama, I think). We all also managed to get to Joe Biden's second stop in Newton (20 minutes away), and were completely converted. He seems, to me, the only candidate that sees the world as it is, rather than as a list of issues to have campaign promises about (1. Iran, 2. China, etc. etc.). He impressed me with a strong stand on Sudan, a clear knowledge of world events and realities, and a spontaneous, inspiring speaking style. Too bad I can't vote for him--I'm already in Bloomington, and the caucuses are tonight.

Speaking of caucuses, I don't know how many of the people who read this know how they work, but they are insane. They are wonderful in that they allow for interaction and don't allow people to just walk in and brainlessly push a button for someone they decided on months ago. However, they're really bad in that you absolutely have to be there to vote (ie, many policepeople can't make it, and neither can deployed members of the armed services, people who are on vacation, or people who work evening shifts), they take hours sometimes, and the "arcane rules" lead to a lot of political maneuvering. Non-viable groups caucusing for a candidate might promise their delegate to members of another group in exchange for more people (and thus viability)--in so doing they don't actually gain any more votes, but the results of the caucus as they will be reported on TV (all that actually matters from the Iowa caucuses) look a little better.

It'll be crazy, and exciting, tonight. I kind of wish I were still in Iowa--in Indiana you hardly even see any signs up for candidates. It's a different world.

I can SEE!

How awesome is that? I had laser eye surgery exactly one week ago. I was kind of nervous as Mom and I drove to Des Moines, but not too bad. They gave me a Valium pill, and because I'm paranoid about drugs I immediately started questioning whether I was still in full control of myself, though honestly, I didn't really feel out of it that much even by the end of the surgery. The minute they called me in, my conscious mind realized I was about to have an operation that would decide how well I see for the rest of my life and could result in infection that would completely destroy my eye. I started to get nervous then.

It was terrifying to be under the laser. The Wolfe Clinic was very good about keeping me informed at all times about what was going on and asking if I had any questions, but even when you know it's going to happen, it's really scary to have a suction cup attached to your eye, have your vision go completely blank, and smell the sickening burning smell of zapped eye parts.

I took the doctors' suggestion seriously to keep my eyes closed the rest of the day. However, my eyes were (obviously) irritated, especially as the anesthetic wore off, and tears kept flowing. At one point near the end of the drive home I opened my eyes and more tear-water poured out of my eyes than I realized could even be stored there.

Nevertheless, already the day after surgery I was seeing 20/20 in my left eye. They had to take more off of the right, so it was still a bit swollen and not seeing as well. By now it's settled down most of the way, I think, and though it's definitely not 20/20, it's absolutely workable without glasses and (I hope) still improving. I stopped wearing eye shields (to keep me from rubbing them, loosening the flaps that had to be opened for surgery) last night, only to find myself rubbing my eyes this morning when I got up at 6:30 (5:30 Iowa time, after getting back to town last night at midnight. Ugh). That's bad, but I'm still seeing fine, and I hope this will stop as I (hopefully) wake up less tired tomorrow morning and in the future.

Here I am before surgery:



And here I am afterward, shorn of 2 inches or so of hair, miniscule parts of my eye, and my dignity:

I've had a really nice break so far. It started with a great trip to Canada with Sara. We didn't do a whole lot of sight-seeing or anything, but that wasn't the point. Instead, we did smaller fun things together, like walk on Lake Erie:


And chop down a Christmas tree on the Bakkers' farm:



Then I headed home. Even missing Nate, being here for an extended period has been really nice, and I feel a lot better rested. The Christmas Eve service at church was, as always, wonderful, and Mom, Dad, and Claire played their instruments beautifully. (I sang in the choir.)

Today I'm getting laser eye surgery. That's both exciting and scary! I told Mom, who's also had it done, that I wasn't looking forward to being dopey all day afterwards, and she said, "Oh, you won't even remember it." (They apparently give you some drugs.) Well, I wasn't so hot on that either, but I have a playlist of audiobooks set up on my computer so I can just close my eyes and listen and not get too bored. I'm hoping that afterwards it will have been worth it!

Sorry to be posting to so many other sites, but I thought this was very funny. Some other ideas:

ARS NVA

5 LIN

542TO16

PNTNL

GNA RAIN

TTL SRLST (too many letters, but too good to pass up)

I know you all can think of others. Feel free to comment...

I went to the store this morning to get cookie-making ingredients, but forgot to get parchment paper to bake on. My apartmentmate Craig was kind enough to buy some when he went to the store an hour or so later. He said I didn't need to pay him back, but I insisted and looked over his receipt anyway. I didn't see the parchment paper on there right away, but I saw something that looked funny and figured I'd challenge him on it. At the bottom of the list, right under Kroger Walnut Pieces (KRO WALNT P (1.99)) was:

DICK PRESER (3.23)

"What are you buying, Craig???" I asked, pointing to the offending item.

"That's not my receipt--I didn't buy walnuts. Yeah, that's not my receipt. Did you buy walnuts?"

"Oh."

Well, that was embarrassing. That's the last time I buy Dickinson's seedless blackberry Preserves at Kroger.

The semester's basically over. I have to print out a copy of a paper that never reached a professor via email, and I've got a meeting for the program committee for our upcoming theory symposium, but there's no more really stressful work. Tomorrow I'm off to Canada (!), then on Thursday I fly to beautiful Ioway. I can't wait! (Even though Nate's got me beat, itinerary-wise, at least *I'm* not skipping Christmas with the family.)

I think my paper for History of Music Theory I is really something that's good enough that I'd feel comfortable sending a version in as a conference paper proposal. It's on syncopation in the 14th century, and while there are a number of people who would be familiar with how it works, they are mostly musicologists who aren't as interested in the concept's analytical applications. Anyway, I'm planning on submitting it to Music Theory Midwest over the break. We'll see what comes of that.

One thing that I, like Christy, feel *needs* to be posted: The Twelve Composers of Christmas--the link takes you to the video embedded in her blog.

Finally, I just got word today that my class (MUS-T132) is "almost certain" to exceed its current capacity (i.e., two lectures with 90 students each). You may recall that I posted two and a half weeks ago that the 10:10 lecture is already at capacity; I just checked the 8:00 lecture, and it's up from 64 then to 79 today.

I'm less stressed than the last couple of times I posted. I've been working really hard the past couple of days (though I took a break last night and, to some extent, this morning). My projects are coming along really well. I've taken to keeping a Textedit window open, where I type in rough percentages for how much I have done on each project. A lot of my friends seem to think this would be more depressing than helpful, but I get a nice sense of gratification as I see my (very rough) percentages (almost) uniformly creeping up towards 100 (HoT=History of Theory):

Last spring, my course was so popular (okay, so it's required, but still) that the department had to raise the enrollment limit for each lecture section to 90; I think my final enrollments were around 84 and 87. I just checked my enrollment for next semester for the first time because I got an email from a student asking if I could let her into the class. The 8 AM lecture is already at 64, which is pretty decent, but then I checked the 10:10 lecture, and indeed--it's already hit 90! Holy cow.

It's the most stressful time of the year, as the song goes. I've got six pages of Latin descriptions of 4th-century syncopation that I want to translate, papers to write, a course to plan, etc. I've been feeling really stressed the past two days or so, and my chest is even feeling a bit constricted, though that might be due to the sickness I brought home with me after break. It's a little worrying, but in two weeks or so it will all be done! That's actually probably too much time, because I feel like I need to be done soon: I don't actually think I'll have any trouble getting things done on time.

Anyway, break was really nice. Thanksgiving itself was spent up in West Lafayette, at my Aunt Nancy's new house. She has a beautiful backyard, especially for a scientist of her bent:


And here's the wonderful family:


Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to take any pictures of the Kern family that we spent Saturday with, but it was all a lot of fun, and I did a nice job of not thinking about work almost the whole time.

The Society for Music Theory conference was also really nice. Baltimore turned out to be a very interesting place to be, and if it didn't feel inherently safe even in the nice area of town, there were certainly tons of police out.

The conference hotel in the background:


The view across the harbor:


The first monument ever erected to George Washington:

This makes me think also of the music theorist's plight. When someone on a plane asks you what you do, if you feel like talking, you say, "musician," and if you feel like shutting down the conversation right away, you say "music theorist."

Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow, and I'm thrilled for some time off and with the family!

Holy cow. This school's opera program is ridiculous. But heck, I'm definitely checking out the production, if only for the set!

In the meantime, I just got back from St. Meinrad Archabbey, one of only two archabbeys in the US and eleven in the world (via Wikipedia). It's a very beautiful building (the picture on the website doesn't even do it justice, especially on the most beautiful weekend in fall in southern Indiana). The Trinity Episcopal Church (Bloomington)'s student group took a less-than-24-hour retreat there, and it was pretty nice. For better or for worse, we live in a very secular society, especially historically speaking (the fact that the "far right" has some clout in politics doesn't really change this a lot), and it's been on my list of things to do for a long time to see what it would be like to live in an almost purely religious society. I imagined going to prayers upwards of eight times a day, silence, and contemplation, all of which sounds pretty cool. Well, it turns out they only pray four times a day, and we weren't there for two of the services. But I got up to go to the 5:30 service as well as mass (it helped that they're one of the crazy Indiana counties on Central Time--for the whole completely insane story, check this out). It was less awesome than I imagined, but it was definitely interesting. There was a lot of chanting, and we even got a mode 4 (that's Hypophrygian for those of you who like to use ethnic names...) chant, which was pretty far out. It was an incredibly echoey acoustic, and the monks (who by several times outnumbered the congregation even at the 7:30 mass, much less at 5:30's Vigils/Lauds) spoke in very deep, very soft voices. I have a hard time reading anything--much less biblical texts--without at least some degree of meaning and feeling, and I have a higher voice, and I was participating where appropriate (there were very few indications, but fortunately a fellow student seemed to know when we could recite along). The monk who kept the congregation in line by holding up chant numbers and appropriate books walked over to my side of the congregation and sat in the row behind me. Between prayers, he reached over and tapped me on the back, and said, "You're a bit louder than everyone else. You're also a little bit ahead. So be a little quieter." Then between prayers he walked back to his seat on the other side of the room. Well, that's the last time I get rowdy at Vigils/Lauds. For the rest of the service I went into full mumbling-conformity-Catholic mode.

All in all it was nice, though. I did a fair amount of walking around the beautiful grounds and surrounding forest, played ping-pong with some friends, and visited the book store (on the back of the casket shop...) with its rows of cloying "Inspirational" volumes and book on John Ashcroft (I bought some tasty-looking jam). It was a nice sort-of-break, but it's also nice to be back in Bloomington. And back to the grindstone. Thanksgiving is looking mighty nice from here...

Unless you like misspellings, misreadings, and downright wrong-ness, please, don't ever read this book. Some highlights from that advertisement/summary:

...the best way to end up a melody is the chaining dominant seventh chord and tonic perfect chord....

...the book explains the building of the musical scale by means of the Circle of Fifths (sketch on cover). This concept has been the platform of all musics throughout the world for 5 millenna. Designed in Mesopotamia, it spread into the antique Persia, then towards the indian sub-continent. Phytagoras brought it in the 6th century B.C. in Greece whose tetrachord scale had only 4 degrees (the 4 strings of their lyra often seen on ancient paintings)....

...The first turning point in Western Europe occured around 1000 A.D. It was the beginning of Polyphony; De Arezzo achieved the definitive form of music writing, and by the same occasion ruled out the quarter-tone of the greec heritage....

...The big Turning Point occured at the Renaissance, due to some theorists who tried to impose scales containing only consonant intervals, very difficult to put into practice. This confusion caused the death of the ancient 7 medieval modes and set the major-minor dichotomy in Western Europe. Only one has been remained in the 16th century : the major (ionian)....

...The Russian and the Orthodox Church have kept on using the ancient medieval modes. The Coptic Church of Egypt, in addition to major and minor, has a great variety of modes (non-western, ancient, often with quarter-tones, etc). So, the western music is all but universal, and has strong cultural features....

...in order to comply with Just Intonation, some scientists (C. Huygens and J. Sauveur) tried to provide the scale with consonant intervals (such as the harmonic seventh, slightly lower than the minor seventh)...