As you may or may not know, I've had my problems with AT&T's internet service back in Indiana. Renewing my service for the first time, I had to talk to three people, each of whom required some holding time to get to, took the last 4 digits of my SSN, and tried to sell me the same upgrades. Later on, I found they offered faster service for cheaper than they were charging me, which was weird, and though they agreed to switch me to that, they ended up not doing so for several billing cycles and until I called them twice about it.

So this is why I'm surprised that Verizon has made AT&T look good.

First, nobody offers service at AT&T's price here, even at half the speed we had in Indiana. So we signed up for slow service from Verizon. But then the strike hit, and they had to cancel our installation. That's understandable, but we needed internet, so we signed up for Comcast. I tried calling to cancel several times: several times an automated system hung up on me because they could only deal with certain kinds of issues; then finally when I got a person, she had to transfer me to someone else, so I was disconnected again and gave up.

Then, about a week ago, I started getting about 4 calls a day saying that our installation appointment was coming up. This is more than a month after our ideal installation date, so I tried calling again. I had the exact same conversation with the machine ("Her") three times before giving up:

Her: What is the person's last name?

Me: Chenette.

Her: Okay, let's try this. You can say the person's last name, and then spell the first 3 letters.

Me: Chenette. C-H-E.

Her: What's the person's first name? You can say, "I don't know."

Me: Timothy.

Her: I only have one record of that name in Amherst, Massachusetts: [undecipherable, clearly not my name]. Is that the person you're calling about?

Me: No.

Her: You're calling about service in Amherst, Massachusetts, right?

Me: Yes.

Her: What is the person's last name?

Finally, I replied to an email that was supposed to let me "reschedule," requesting that they cancel the service. A few days ago I got a very apologetic call from a representative, saying she'd put a note on my record.

Then, today, I got an email with the subject "Verizon High Speed Internet Service Not Available":

I realize this isn't really a terrible story--we've had internet access most of the time we've been here, and there are many other things to worry about. But there was something comically, perfectly incompetent about the timing of that email that made me have to share!

Wow, it's been a while! Things have been going well in Amherst. I'm happy with my teaching overall, though I still need to work on how I want to handle/conduct my Aural Skills course. In a way it's the easiest course to teach in terms of workload, but at the same time it requires a lot of thinking on one's feet and knowing what will help students. My last couple of semesters teaching aural skills were a few years ago, and they didn't go very well (a combination of early morning, disinterested students, and some curriculum experimentation), so I think I lack the necessary confidence to feel good about it right now. I'll be observing a few other aural skills classes in the next week and seeing what I can do to feel better about it.

At the same time, we've been taking advantage of any extra time to get outside and do fun things. There are literally trails leading away from our back yard into a conservation area, which is one of my favorite places in the area so far: there are a surprising number of trails, all of which are quite pretty and very well maintained (and almost always deserted, except for the main trail, which has runners and dog walkers in the mornings and evenings).

We've also checked out a few of the bike trails. It's pretty easy to get from our place to the Norwottuck bike trail, which has become known as the "pizza ride" because it's easy to get off the trail and to Hillside Pizza, our new favorite restaurant. But the trail itself is lovely--it parallels busy route 9, but feels miles away, and on hot days it also feels noticeably cooler than the surroundings. (That's not so helpful anymore.) And it leads over a gorgeous railroad bridge over the Connecticut River, and into Northampton, where one can take several further trails all the way through Northampton or South to Easthampton.

(Brief side note: I haven't figured out the deal with town names around here. I know Northampton and Easthampton, as well as far-off Southampton and Westhampton, are quite separate towns, as are Hadley and South Hadley (though Hadley is mostly a bunch of farms and strip malls), but I don't know about North Amherst, Amherst Center, South Amherst, and Amherst. Nor do I know if "East Amherst," which I've seen written, really exists or is just a description, or why Mt. Holyoke College is in South Hadley rather than the (further South) Holyoke, or why all of these towns are seemingly in a great big jumble. And I am truly baffled why a community with such a transient (college/university) population refuses, as a matter of policy, to install a single street sign on any major road to confirm that, yes, you are on (say) Russell St., or why all roads longer than 3 blocks change names several times, requiring street signs to say things like "Cherry Ln to Jennifer St. to Grantwood Blvd." and requiring drivers to realize that a street called "Sunderland Rd" in Amherst is probably called "Amherst Rd" in Sunderland.)

Yesterday we took our new bike rack (above--thanks Mom and Dad!) on the car to Northampton and tried one of those trails, heading South, and then back East, before turning back around. It was a very pleasant ride. We took a little "nature trail" at the end of the bike trail in hopes of reaching a promised "overlook," which I assumed would be soaring cliff over the beautiful oxbow in the Connecticut River. It turned out to be a slight (20 foot?) rise over a small, swampy tributary of the oxbow, obscured by lots of trees. I had to strike a heroic pose to make up for the lameness of the overlook itself:

Seriously, it's probably a nice overlook for birdwatchers, but they could have warned us.

There's much more to tell, but this is enough for now. Amherst has been a great place to live so far, and we hear the most beautiful time of year is only weeks away!

Time to take a few moments off from hurricane preparation and introduce you to 29 Summer St.!



The view down the street:



We currently have a few wicker chairs out on the front porch:



But we don't use either porch very much, because our kitchen is so nice for eating in:



In part it's so nice because it looks out on our massive back yard. Here is the closest 1/3 of the back yard; after the tree is more grass and a pretty flower garden:



While we're in the kitchen, you should take a moment and peer into the pantry to see some Indiana-grown squash. Miraculously, they seem to be doing extremely well, despite having been picked several months earlier than squash are typically harvested!



Go through the pantry and you pass into the music room (presumably a former dining room). Look back towards the pantry to see the piano:



Turn back around and you look right into the living room:



The two glowing eyes on the couch give you some idea of the amount of space in the room, which is indicative of the amount of space in the house.

And we're back at the front door, just to your left.

I can't stress enough how nice the kitchen is. How's this for storage?



The upstairs rooms are still not looking all that exciting (well, my office, anyway--Sara's looks pretty good), so those will wait till a future post. For now I'll just finish with a few pictures of the area from a nice bike ride and a beautiful hike we took while Dad was visiting last weekend.

Here's a view from beautiful Amherst College towards the Holyoke Range:



And a few shots from the hike in the Holyoke Range (the barely-visible high-rise buildings in the distance are UMass's campus):

What do you do when a hurricane is bearing down on your area? You buy renter's insurance, of course! We got ours effective midnight tonight, inspired in part by the NY Times' prediction of the path of the hurricane pictured above (we're about 20 miles north of Springfield).

I promise there will be more updates soon, with pictures and all, but we were without internet for so long, and now there's a lot to do. Soon!

Several experiences recently have gotten me thinking about the "state" of modern "classical" music. The first was a conversation with a student where we discussed how little influence modern "classical" composers have on society. He said, "But that should change, right? Because it's become so much more accessible?"

Then today my assistant instructor was teaching minimalism, and he kept comparing it to integral serialism.

Then just now I saw a thread on Facebook: a middle-aged composer had (lightheartedly) complained that so many young composers point out on their websites that they write music that "people want to hear," and most of the replies were from people saying that we should be happy they're writing things people want to hear, because modernism ruined music and now they're trying to save it.

I have mixed feelings about this. I believe high modernism alienated a lot of people, but the absolute disdain with which it's seen today by anyone who's not a music theorist (and even a lot of music theorists) is almost offensive. Someone found almost every hated piece beautiful--this is almost never discussed--and there is beauty in complexity.

At the same time, I am pretty convinced that people are wrong when they suggest that things are better today. The modernists may have driven away their audience. But the reason modern "classical" composers don't have a comparable voice today isn't due to the modernists: it's due to radical changes in society that have occurred in the meantime and had both good and bad effects. One of those effects is that people can now easily have enough music in their lives. We can hear it anytime, for very cheap, from digital media and the internet. But we can also experience it live in invigorating (and socially valued) venues at bars and restaurants, again for pretty cheap. Why would the average person go out of their way to go to a symphony concert? (Of course, "elite" society has embraced The Classics as "our music," and that's one reason.) That's not a socially exciting venue any more for most people, and they have alternate routes to music that are very satisfying.

If we want to "draw people back to classical music," the large-scale changes that need to happen aren't "writing prettier music." They are education on the one hand, or changing everything about "classical" music: the way it's written, the venues in which it's performed, and the discourse about it in society. There are ensembles enthusiastically pursuing the latter changes, but to me they can have a sense of faddishness to them ("let's throw some Radiohead on the concert!").

Of course, to an educator like myself, the important time is now. I get to experience lots of great music myself, so in many ways I'm happy with where we are right now. But I teach everything I possibly can, and that includes Babbitt and Boulez and Stockhausen along with Rochberg and Riley and Adams. Okay, to be honest, I'm not including John Williams, or Eric Whitacre, or Frank Ticheli, but I'd love to make the effort to do so. (Hm.... maybe not Ticheli.) I will finish my course by pointing out to my students that in teaching a course on 20th century music, I'm telling a story, and hopefully empowering them to retell the story in their own words. They're not passive observers of changes in society or music--they're the ones who will shape them.

Sometimes that's scary to me, and sometimes it makes me really excited about the fact that I have the opportunity to teach them.

As of today, all four varieties of tomato in our garden are changing color! We may only have two weeks left here, but they should be two very delicious weeks!

I probably won't be posting much till after we move (Aug. 14-15), but expect some pictures and updates afterwards...

I had no idea squash plants were evil creatures bent on taking over the world!



But I guess that shows how little I know. These squash plants are probably around 10 feet long, and when I tried to rearrange them this morning, I found that they were encroaching upon the road, most of the way through the next community garden plot (which fortunately is also one we're taking care of), and even climbing almost all the way down into the 6 or so foot creekbed behind.

There are even a few beautiful little squashies that might be big enough to harvest by the time we have to move:



And tons of tomatoes, growing in bunches like grapes on the vine (and starting to turn red):



And a few little peppers:



Plus tons of green beans every couple of days. Just a few things to be excited about before we leave!

I got a job offer last week, and took it.

Looking ahead to leaving Bloomington, I suddenly see very clearly the many wonderful things here, and how deeply I have become involved in certain aspects of this community over the past 6 years. There are of course the university and our colleagues, but there's much more as well: going to church this morning, I realized that I was going to have to say farewell to the church where we got married (and the pastor who married us) and where I was able to help with the winter homeless shelter. Then there are our immediate surroundings--our house, imperfect but comfortable; the garden(s), where we'll miss what look to be bumper crops of squash and fall raspberries; and the neighborhood that we've gone on so many walks through. There are also the broader benefits of living here: proximity to my grandparents, wonderful state parks and forests, an unbeatable (I'm pretty convinced that term should be used literally) concert schedule, and even cheap flights out of Indianapolis.

Several things will make moving easier. First, the knowledge that we'd have to in a year anyway. Also the little unfortunate things here: perhaps I won't find such a thoughtful pastor where we're moving, but at least the services are probably less ridiculously long, and perhaps we'll have to downgrade to a smaller apartment or longer commute, but at least the kitchen floor probably won't give me splinters or be almost impossible to sweep.

So we'll move to Amherst, MA sometime in August, and I start my one-year contract at UMass September 6. The salary dwarfs our combined income here, Sara will be able to work on her dissertation full time, and I'll get to teach some really fun-looking classes and get some great experience. We're also told that the 5 colleges area is beautiful, and it sounds like there are more interesting shops and things to do than perhaps one can find in Indiana. And hey, it's a kind of homecoming for me: I was born in Boston a little over 28 years ago. I didn't get to live there long then--but now I get my chance!

Here are those panoramic pictures, presented with minimal text interference. I reduced the file size to get them uploaded more easily, so you can't zoom in very much, but they'll give you the idea!

First, a view on our backpacking trip in Zion National Park:



Some views of Bryce "Canyon":





And a view of the nearby Red Canyon:

We're back!

The garden had rabbit damage when we returned, which initially I was very upset about. The rabbit ate all of our backyard garden's beets, spinach, and peppers, and a few of our peas, leeks, lettuce, and tomatoes, and a kind of flea beetle has been munching on our eggplants. Since then I've been coming to terms with this. It helps that our community garden plot has some incredible-looking beets and a few surviving peppers. In addition, the beans and squash in the plot are incredibly happy. But the high point is this:



This is the image of perfection.

I imagine Nate's blog is going to take care of the trip report, as his pictures always do the best at capturing scenery and scope. But f I can figure out how, I'll share a few of the panoramic photos I stitched together. Hopefully soon...

In a few days, we leave for a Chenette vacation camping in Utah. Upon our return, we'll almost immediately leave for Canada to celebrate Oma and Opa Bakker's 60th anniversary. This will be a period of changes!

Even by the time we get back from Utah, I imagine our garden will be pretty different. The lettuce may have gone to seed and gotten bitter from this incredible heat; the arugula, spinach, and herbs will certainly run to seed. There probably won't be too many strawberries left. But the the peas should still be going, the raspberries should be in full swing, and we might even be able to harvest a few early beets when we get back from Canada. And if they keep growing as they have been the past week, the squash plants will be huge!

My summer schedule will also have changed. The day after we get back from Canada, I start teaching 90 minutes 5 days a week. I absolutely cannot wait to teach this class again, because I love the music so much, but I have been relishing the past two weeks. I've been teaching myself more web design and coding skills (CSS and HTML5, currently working on Javascript), doing a lot of weeding, and making (I think) some real progress on dissertation-related research. I'm not sure how much of that will be able to continue. But a few raspberries would make up for a lot....

It's hard to believe that it was ever this cold in Bloomington:



It's getting up to 93 today, and above 90 most of the week. At least our plants like the sun! (Especially after last week's tornadoes...) We've been eating giant salads every day. This one has some beet "greens" added:



And by the time we return from our upcoming camping trip to Utah, we should have a surfeit of raspberries (on the right):

Summer can finally start now! We just got back (last night) from a rather long trip: we visited Grinnell briefly (actually, twice), each delivered a paper at a conference, and visited some really good friends in Colorado. Parts of this trip were certainly vacation, but for the most part, they didn't quite qualify as "summer" because the days were rainy and cool. We did a lot of fun things in Denver, though, some of which are pictured below:

We went to Red Rocks, where there is an incredible amphitheater and a nice hike:



We saw dinosaur tracks at Dinosaur Ridge:



We saw some awesome rocks at the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum:




And we toured an old-fashioned candy factory:



Upon arriving home, we found that some garden plants have exceeded our expectations, while others are a bit disappointing. In the positive category:

spinach
beets
arugula
lettuce (tons!)
strawberries
raspberries (getting there, anyway)
leeks
peas

In the disappointing category:

tomatoes
peppers
eggplants

Next year, we'll have to try out some different methods of starting those last three...

Yesterday Sara and I sang in a fundraising concert for our local choir, Voces Novae at the Stone Age Institute. What a cool place! It's a beautiful building--most of the stone, we were told, is about 330 million years old (though there was a piece of flint over every doorway that was a paltry 80 million years old), and some of the stones had fossils in them.

The directors (seen in this video about the Institute) talked about two kinds of "experimental archaeology" that they have been doing lately. One is teaching a group of bonobos (in Des Moines!) to make and use stone tools--apparently, they have also taught the bonobos to play instruments, and Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel jammed with them for a few hours. The other experiments they've been doing were butchering elephants and wildebeest with stone hand axes. We got to see one of the directors make just such a hand axe: he's really good.

In addition, the directors have a rock band that records (apparently at the rate of about one song a year) educational rock songs, one of which we performed in arrangement. They said that soon they will upload these songs to their website (fromthebigbang.org), so I urge you to check that site in about a week or so and listen to "From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web," which gives you the highlights of known history, and their other song, which apparently goes through human origins (imagine singing "Australopithecus" in a laid-back reggae-flavored sort of way).

I don't know what happened today. There was some sort of yellow thing up in the sky, with some blue stuff around it, and it was all very shiny. What happened to the grey we've become used to, and the water continuously falling? Surely 9 inches of rain for this month (plus more coming) is not enough?

I completed several important tasks today. One was selling the logic board of my old computer. It's hard to believe, but I've only sold about 2/3 of the parts and already the total income (for a broken, 6-year-old computer!) has been well over $150 (of course, before shipping and ebay fees, the former of which in particular has been expensive).

Second was spending money--on a new bike! The axle on the old one broke, and the people at the bike shop said they just kept finding rusted-out parts and problems, and suggested I get a new one. Here's the sweet new ride (and the other sweet, well, still somewhat new, gas-powered ride):




The third was to complete a draft of my paper for the Music Theory Midwest conference. For once, I'm actually quite happy with the paper in its early stages, but as usual, it's far too long. There's a lot of example-making to do still, which is bad because it's time-consuming but good because I think some of the text will end up in examples, freeing up space. This was actually the second big project for the semester, the first (and more important) being becoming ABD, and the third and yet to come being preparing for teaching this summer. Obviously, I've still got some time on that last one. It'll feel good to get this paper into almost-done shape, which I plan to do by the end of the week--it'll be a big load off.

Okay, the cat who bullies his sister (just look at the difference between their tails!)...



...conks out on the couch...



...always jumps up on the island to help us when we make yogurt...



...and is just so cute and fuzzy...



...needs his food. Time to go!

Happy Easter!

Here's what our garden looked like almost exactly a year ago, April 16, 2010:



And here's what our garden looks like today, April 19, 2011:



(the tarp is holding some mulch that will go around the tiny plants in the back when they're bigger.)

The biggest difference is the strawberries, which are much healthier this year! But even the rhubarb seems larger. I don't know if it's because we had an earlier spring or because they are more established--probably a combination.

Even more exciting is a raspberry comparison. Last year, we had six plants, most of which looked about like this on May 1, 2010:



Today, we have over 20 plants. Here's most of the patch:



Let's get a few more of this year's highlights so far. Here's a close-up of the rhubarb, just because it's so big, beautiful, and green (and potentially tasty):



Some of our lettuce that survived the winter:



Some peas, which are planted all around the garden and in pots such as this one along the fence:



A close-up of a small portion of our large patch of lily-of-the-valleys at the back corner of the house, which are just starting to open with their intoxicating smell:



And the tail end of the tulips in the front:



We hope to plant most of the rest of our seedlings--basil, cilantro, three kinds of tomatoes, and eggplant (only leaving three kinds of peppers, which don't like the cold)--this weekend. That is, of course, if it ever stops raining.

Fortunately, there's always something to do inside when it's raining, like read a good book.



Or, if you prefer, collapse behind one.