Category: General

Stormy Monday

We’re now at one month of social distancing. As you might expect, the days are all kinda the same and life is sorta boring. Mostly that’s alright, at least we’re all getting enough sleep these days.

But spring is here and we’re not spending that much time outside. I feel like I should be biking and skating more, maybe doing some hiking too. The winter has come and gone and my focus on my health has paid off, so that’s a good thing. But now I’m starting to feel restless.

I was gonna expand my patio this spring, but that project starts with going out to buy stones and gravel. Obviously many of my plans are on hold. To be fair, even though we’ve had a handful of sunny days, it hasn’t gotten that warm yet, and there have been quite a few windy and rain days. Today was both, and pretty heavy.

I did take the mustang out over the weekend, but didn’t go on the highway, just around the neighborhood.

Yesterday was Easter. Usually this time of year we like to take a couple days off from work, since the kids are off school, and then take a day and go to a museum or something. And on Easter Sunday it’s always a big family day with feasting and all. This year we were gonna take road trip up to Buffalo and visit some collages on the way for Michele, and then visit my parents and Lizzy.

As it was, we did a video conference call instead, with Jeannie’s parents, bother, and sister, and everyone’s family. That was fun and we’ll do another next weekend. Lizzy hasn’t been home since her winter break, and the end of her semester is coming soon. Her plans for the summer and even the fall are up in the air.

I have been working on the Jukebox a good amount. I’ve been going for a walk and working out every day, keeping up practicing sax, piano and bass, and working on my recording project. Actually making good progress there; working on sax parts now. I did another mix on Sun of the Son, to make the drums sound cleaner and less overbearing in the intro. But haven’t finished putting together the album cover and getting it for sale online. Not doing so much with origami or Foldinator either. Been folding some of John Montroll’s new models, proofreading his diagrams. But I haven’t put much time into developing new models or finishing my book.

I’ve been doing lots of reading, and even a little writing, but mainly Wikipedia and articles on the internet, not actual books. Been spending more time on social media than before. And we’ve been watching a lot of movies on the weekends. We just finished the whole series Avatar: The Last Airbender. We’ve been playing more games recently, particularly Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan.

Nothing’s Gonna Change My World

Today was the start of social distancing all over New York City and elsewhere to try and prevent the spread of the plague. I’ve been working from home since the beginning of the year, so this doesn’t affect me very much. The biggest thing is that activities outside of work, mainly gigs, rehearsals and jam sessions, have all been suspended.

So I’m getting deeper into my home studio recording project. At the moment I’m practicing alot of electric guitar, in addition to the usual sax and keys. I’m finally learning how to play thru and amp with effects and get control of my sound.

Spring is just around the corner, so it’s getting nicer and nicer spending time outside. I guess I can do things like hiking and biking working in the yard just fine, and probably whatever shopping is necessary.

Jeannie and Michelle are both working from home now too. Well, Jeannie is working and Michelle is attending high school remotely. Meanwhile Lizzy decided to stay upstate for spring break, even though her classes are all online thru the end of the semester as well. Jeannie had a crazy week last week cuz she works doing IT in a publishing company, and was up to her eyeballs in setting people up with VPNs and laptop computers. Luckily, we all have enough space here to not get on each other’s nerves, at least so far.

As I said, it’s day one. It should be interesting to see how things unfold in the weeks ahead. Things are far from normal, even if they don’t feel like it right now, and it’ll be a long road back.

Still in Motion

Lots going on these days. But somehow at the same time things seem to be moving slowly. That suits me fine these days. I’ve transitioned into a new day-to-day mode in the new year, working mainly from home as a consultant.

Right after the holidays Anna from the Global Jukebox asked me to help draw up a development roadmap for the next round of features. She has alot of things she wants to do and my plan was approved without hesitation. I had previously been doing the Jukebox as a side project, but now it’s my main thing. With luck it’ll keep on rolling and I can take on other consulting gigs here and there to round things out. I’d love to get back into doing more stuff with the arts, like a museum or cultural organization, or music software, or computational origami, or R&D, any of that kind of thing really. Just whatever looks fun. Meanwhile I have more time for music, origami and other worthwhile pursuits. Sure beats some banal VC backed blockchain bro startup

I’ve been establishing new patterns of time. I tend to alot of actual software development work at night, since it’s quiet and conducive to deep focus. That means I have a fair amount of unstructured time in the daytime. So I’m inventing a routine that works for me to keep things in balance and reduce the burden of figuring out what to do next all the time.

The first thing I did was to reboot my workout routine. I had been working out very early in the morning, usually rushing thru it to get out the door and on time to the office. In the wintertime that means before it gets light out. That’s a major drag. Now I’m working out in the mid to late morning and it feel so much better. I’ve been going up in weight, reps, and distance, and adding in more leg and core work, and taking more time. I feel much better overall. Winter is always the harshest season on my body and my health, but this year I’m doing pretty good so far, and the worst of it is probably over. The days are already getting longer. Spring is coming pretty soon.

Another thing I’ve been trying to do listen to more music, and by that I mean whole albums. For a little while I was shooting for an album a day, but that’s actually quite alot to absorb, so now I’m going for three new albums a week. Sometimes I like to listen to music when I work out, and sometimes I like it quiet. Then I’ll listen to a record first thing in the morning.

I tend to jump from genre to genre, spend a few weeks and move on. For a while it was 70’s smooth jazz (George Benson, Grover Washington Jr., that kind of thing). Before that it was 20th century modern like Holst and Aaron Copeland. Then I was listening to alot of old 70’s and 80’s heavy metal, because Michelle and I have been watching the anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, in which alot of the characters are names after classic hard rock and metal bands. I got really into Dio, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Deep Purple and Rainbow (all interconnected), and most of all Iron Maiden, the best of that ilk. I was fan of all of that stuff back in the day, and it was fun to rediscover.

Most recently I’ve been trying to get thru the entire discography of Rush. But man, they have alot of albums. I started at Power Windows, since all the records before that I know really well. Power Windows, Hold Your Fire and Presto actually have 2 or 3 awesome songs each, and then a bunch sorta in the middle. That was their peak synth era, then Roll the Bones feels like they’re coming out of the woods, it’s maybe half great songs. All their records from that era are one or two songs too long.

I skipped ahead to Feedback, which is just great fun. Covers of The Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, The Who and Cream. Mr. Soul alone makes it worth it. Then I got to Counterparts. That album is pretty much wall-to-wall amazing. It’s the return to no synthesizers, so it’s petty metal sometimes, but also with prog and 90’s alternative. There’s alot in there. I can’t believe I never got into that album when it was new. The next album after that is Test for Echo, which has a similar tone and maybe half great songs. I’m in the middle of that one now.

I’ve been practicing sax and piano more. Generally I do this in the late afternoon, in lieu of an evening commute. I’m up to three times a week now for each, and at least one of those is a good long session with time to explore new or deep ideas. I’m trying to focus in and improve my actual playing at a technical level, phrasing, dynamics, all that.

I’m particularly trying to level up on sax these days. I’m continuing with Patterns for Jazz, going about ten times the rate it took me in high school (which ended up as two years). I’m doing about ten to twelve patterns a day, shifting ahead by 3 or 4 patterns every practice. These patterns are in all twelve keys (but only written out in C) and move around by different intervals: semitone, whole step, minor third and fourth, so you really get adept a moving thru different keys quickly. I’m also woodshedding more standards.

I think when I’m done on sax I’m gonna go thru the book on piano. For now on the piano I’m working on voicing and moving thru chords without playing melodies. Also learning some standards, and dusting off some of my originals, as it looks like the prog-funk originals project might be happening after all. I put an ad on Cragislist and got a hit, a guitarist who sings and writes. We’re trying to work out a time to get together. Hopefully more on that soon.

I’ve trying to devote more time to origami as well. However, this post is getting pretty long, so more on that next time.

Neil Peart

Neil Peart, the greatest rock drummer of all time, and one of the all-time great lyricists too, the brains and the beat of the Canadian power trio Rush, recently passed away. I’ve seen Rush at least ten times, more than any other band, beginning in the mid-1980’s, and they got better and better every time. Hard to separate Neil’s contribution from the rest, but overall Rush was a huge influence on my songwriting. I remember learning La Villa Strangiato in high school, and couple years later doing several Rush songs in the prog-party band Infinigon.

Begin the day with a friendly voice
A companion unobtrusive
Plays that song that’s so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood

Mind Your Language

We’re taking a trip to Europe later this summer for vacation. Last time I went to Europe was quite a few years back, when my cousin Tommy was studying for his PhD at Oxford. Jeannie and I visited him and went to London and around southern England, and to Paris via the Chunnel, which was pretty new at the time. Tons of fun.

This time we’re doing central Europe starting in Switzerland and working our way East thru Liechtenstein, Austria, and maybe Bavaria to Budapest, Hungary. There are several reasons for this itinerary. One is that Jeannie really likes mountains and has always wanted to see the Alps. Another is that it’s an interesting part of the world with lots of history. In particular the Szingers are from Hungary, and before that are of the ethnic enclave known as Transdanbian Schwabians, which means we came over from southern Germany and settled in Hungary sometime after the Battle of Vienna and before of Austro-Hungarian Empire, sometime in the 1700’s as far as we know. Apparently whole villages just packed up and travelled on rafts down the Danube. This is on my Dad’s side. On my Mum’s side — well Hungary has a long, rich and diverse culture, so there’s alot to trace back. Anyway, while Jeannie has been doing practical research on things like flights and hotels I’ve been taking a deep dive into the history of the region, to get a sense of context.

One really interesting part of it is the prehistory of the Magyars in the time the were an semi-nomadic Asiatic tribe of horsemen, and only migrated to (or invaded) Europe sometime around 1200 years ago (or 1600 if you count the Huns and Magyars as brother tribes, as the legends hold). All this stuff is really fascinating and try I’ll get to it in a future post, or perhaps make a concept album out of it. We won’t be going to Asia on this trip, but it’s important to help understand where the language is coming from.

For now the important thing is I’m trying to learn a bit of the languages we’ll encounter on our trip. I’m learning both German and Hungarian at the same time. I found an app called Duolingo which is very well designed and effective, based on daily practice of drilling lessons, much like learning a musical instrument and a repetoire of songs.

I feel like I have a pretty good aptitude for languages. I know at least twenty computer programming languages, I know a bunch of musical instruments and genres, and I’ve studied linguistics back in the day. As for human speech, I picked up a smattering of Spanish when I lived in California, and a bit of French before went there, but nothing approaching fluency. But of course it takes time and practice and repetition and most of all exposure. I’ve always admired people who speak multiple languages, but as an American, well we live in a huge country with mostly one language, and no regional media to speak of, so there’s not much everyday opportunity. Even at work all the foreign-born people speak their own language amongst themselves and don’t share very much. I learned “lak” means 100,000 in some parts of India.

I must say German is much easier to learn than Hungarian, at least at the level of using the training app. German mostly the same rules of grammar as English, and most of the words are single substitutions. Many of them are almost the same: Mann is man, Brot is bread, Wasser is water, and so on. Der Bär trinkt ein Bier. Just say it in English with a German accent and your halfway there. Only thing you gotta watch out for is there’s four different ways to say “The”.

Hungarian is completely different. As I mentioned before the Magyars came relatively recently to Europe, so it’s one of the few European languages that’s not part of the Indo-European language group. It’s related only to Finnish, Latvian and maybe some tribal languages deep in the steppes of Asia. Hence the reading up on the history. It’ helps that I’ve been listening to Hungarian all my life. Everyone in my family spoke it growing up and I still remember some words and phrases from when I was a kid. But even though I have an ear for sound I’m far from fluent.

Like I said, everything is really completely different. The grammar, the sentence structure, the pronunciation, the spelling and writing, the roots of all the words, the sound and rhythm, a few loan words from French and English aside, just everything. I’ve gotten far enough now to appreciate the logic of it, and to begin to be able to understand it on it’s own terms. But translating from English to Hungarian or vice versa is alot more work than German. You have turn the sentence inside-out, and often a single word in Hungarian translates to a whole phrase in English, and usually there’s more than one possible way to translate a word, phrase or whole sentence. Often there’s not a one-to-one mapping of a word. Shades of meanings and different ways of splitting up a field of related concepts.

All this has got me thinking about my own language on a whole ‘nother level. It reminds me of studying English in second grade or so, when the focus as on grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I’m also thinking alot about how concepts map to words and how language is such a powerful and flexible tool. And like I said, the way words and thoughts map from one language to another.

It’s also really interesting to see yourself get better at something in a short time. Sentences that were impenetrable to me a month ago then became something I could pick thru and understand, and then on to something I just recognize and know. This is the way I practice music too. There’s usually some very specific thing to learn like a song or a new pattern, and a larger background of deeper skill, understanding and proficiency.

So I’ve been studying two languages every day for a couple months now. So I’ve gotten past the barest beginning part and starting to get into the real depth. Turning the corner to building vocabulary. I’m sure I’ll be nowhere near fluent, cuz holding a real conversation is a whole ‘nuther level. But hopefully I’ll be able read and hear and understand a bit, and communicate when necessary. Maybe someday I’ll be able to read more of their poetry.

Weather Report

This has been the hottest July I can remember. It was super hot in Niagara Falls on the 4th, and I feel like it’s pretty much been 90 every day, except a couple that had torrential rain. The last two days have hit 100. Man that’s hot. We’ve had the air conditioning running day and night for three days straight.

We went to the beach this morning, which was a good way to beat the heat. Swimming in the ocean was refreshing; the water was probably 30 degrees colder than the air. We went to the beach a few weeks ago and the air was much cooler, probably 75 or 80, and the water felt about as cold in comparison.

I skipped mowing the lawn this weekend cuz if you’re not swimming it’s not very pleasant to be outside for more than a few minutes and probably not good good for you to be out an hour or more. Tomorrow is supposed to get back to normal.

By coincidence I’ve been reading alot lately about the trends in peak oil and climate change, and I’m wondering if there’s an over/under out there for how long it will before Miami and Brooklyn go the way of New Orleans a few years back.

On the upside we’re generating enough solar power to cover our excessive air conditioning usage. Since we got solar it’s got me thinking about electricity in a whole new way. We now have virtually unlimited free power, at least within the context of running a household, and if our power demands ever increase we can just slap a few more panels up on the roof. Meanwhile gas is sure to get up to 5 or 10 bucks a gallon eventually. So I’m thinking the next car I buy is going to be a plug-in hybrid, and hopefully every car after that. I don’t know if anyone makes a good PIH SUV but with luck I have a few years left in my current car so there’s time to find out.

New Keyboard

In music news I bought a new keyboard last week, mainly to use live with the rock band. The old keyboard has great sounds, particularly electric piano, clavinet and organ. But it was not easy to switch between sounds quickly between songs, lots of button flipping. With old classic rock that was fine, but now we’re doing a fair amount of 80’s and modern pop and dance stuff, which requires layering and being able to call up different sounds in the middle of a song. The new keyboard has a thing called Stage Setups that let you combine stacks of sounds and effects and store them as presets, with the individual components of the sound under the control of a bank of sliders. Super powerful and flexible, just what I need. Only thing is now I have to learn how to program the thing! Last week the band learned the classic Funky Town by Lipps Inc., and that’s a good example with different synth and string sounds coming in and out. We have a gig this Friday night, hope I’m ready.

Wonderful Christmastime

Okay let’s see. Out with the old and in with the new year. 2019 wow. Our troubled world keeps on spinning, weaving its joys and sorrows into the fabric of our lives. We’re back into the groove with the new year, with its new demands and challenges. Things already happening fast. Work has been busy, I guess you could call it a kind of comfortable chaos, the Devil you know. Lizzy had been showing initiative, getting things done during her winter break, painting furniture, redoing her room, throwing away stuff. She told me she wished she could find some kind of work for a few weeks, and Anna said she needs some help with the Global Jukebox. So now she’s interning there.

Rewinding a bit, we had a nice break for the holidays. Christmas Eve mass at Christ Church was absolutely beautiful with the choir doing Lessons and Carols. On Christmas day we visited family on Long Island and watched the classic Christmas movie Die Hard, which doesn’t really hold up well and makes no sense. Jeannie and I watched a few of the old Rankin and Bass holiday specials too, including the one with Heat Miser and the one with Burghermeister Meisterburgher. It turns out the actual animation for a lot of those was done in Japan. One of their last productions made was the 1977 cartoon of the The Hobbit, which was the thing that got me into Tolkien and Middle Earth as a kid. (Compare cartoon Gandalf to the Winter Warlock.) Shortly thereafter the animators founded Studio Ghibli and began production on Nausica: Valley of the Winds.

We went upstate after Xmas to visit my parents. Martin and his family were there too, so it was a really full house. When were unwrapping presents my Mum mixed up my little 3- and 5-year-old nieces names and chaos ensued. Ah, fun times. I got to play chess with Martin and my nephews too. I haven’t played in a long time, wish I could play more.

We met up with Larry and Jackie one night and went out to a restaurant in Hamburg called Grange that had a Cheese Describer to enumerate and describe the cheeses in our appetizer. One was described as “the most adventurous” along with a slew of adjectives. They also had raw scallops and other weird food, all really great! Michelle got a plain pizza. We visited Denis and Sarah while we were up there too, which is nice cuz we haven’t done that in a couple years and their kids are getting bigger.

Unfortunately I’ve been sick off-and-on since the day after Christmas. One thing after another. Shoulder, stomach, back, head cold. Comes and goes. It’s the cold and dark time of year. But you know, emotionally and spiritually okay. Now my feet are hurting again after being basically okay for over a year. Hope it passes soon. I’ve been trying to relax and take it easy. Luckily I had a few days off and I can work from home when I need to.

We had to give up on getting the Honda fixed at the Honda dealer. We took it there three times and they didn’t do anything, and lied about the service they performed, wanted to charge us $600 to change the spark plugs. Bad scene.

After we got back we had Nick and Lisa over one night, good to catch up and good fun. New Year’s Eve was fun too. Jeannie and I went out to dinner with Gina and Andy from the rock band to see our friend’s band Sue and the Fun Ghouls featuring the inimitable Shredder on guitar. I knew Sue, Shredder and the drummer George from ICS. My other friend Mike is gone and they have a new keyboard player, and she’s really good too. They’re one of the best local bar bands in Westchester and they played a great set. Good to see them and it was a great time.

I got my record made and it’s now available online. More on that next post.

Also a reminder my jazz group, Haven Street, is playing this Saturday night at the Green Growler in Croton-on-Hudson. Last rehearsal, first time back in the new year, we put together a set list. Everything sounded great. Not just my playing, the whole group was really on. Jazz is funny cuz improvisation is so central the whole thing. You memorize all this stuff to have at your command just so you can forget about it and be in the moment. When you’re not playing you’re best you get the feeling you’re falling back on canned riffs, and it’s still pretty good. But when you’re really on it’s like magic, taking flight, beautiful and expressive and spontaneous. We’ve been able to hit that level more and more consistently, so I’m expect it’s going to be a good show.

Wind ‘Em Up

Well we’re winding things up for the year. The last few weeks have just flown by. The Xmas tree and decorations are all up and the shopping is mostly done. Lizzy is home for winter break, Michelle is done with school and Jeannie and I are off work until the New Year. All the deadlines were slain and we ended it up with a nice holiday party for my work, at a cool event space near our Manhattan office. Work has been going pretty well recently. We’ve hired a couple new guys into our team and feels like everyone is working together effectively and even having some fun.

You’ll be happy to know our chimney and furnace have been fixed, I got a new car key from the hardware store at a quarter the price the dealer wanted, and we even got a new deadbolt installed on our front door. I got new the tires on my car and the oil changed too, but since then the engine has been a bit, um, funny. More on that in a future post.

Things have been progressing with the Global Jukebox as well. I have been working with Martin on a suite of features to let users and build and share journey-style content, and a tool for building a musical/cultural family tree. Last week had a meeting last week to check in with Ray, our design consultant, in which Anna & co. ratified the wireframes and direction for a new landing page and multiple, configurable entry points into different areas of the app with an optional interstitial page to provide contextual content. The following day we had a meeting with an organization called City Lore, whose goals align with ours and are looking to provide the project with some funding. Happy news.

It’s nice to have a few days of time off to look forward to. Of course our time immediately fills in with things we haven’t gotten around to in a while. Yesterday was Jeannie’s family’s big Xmas party. Denis and Sarah came into town. I played Super Smash Bros. with Michelle and her cousins.

Been working on music. In our rock band we decided to learn twelve new songs over the break and be prepared to get them together as a group in the new year. Alot of 80’s stuff plus some other thins. I’m singing lead on five of them. So today I found copies of the lyrics and chords as well as audio recordings, and started practicing them on piano.

I learned Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano, which is alot of fun even if the sheet music is not totally correct to the record. I’ve even been playing a handful of Christmas Carols including Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas (which as it turns out was kept from being number 1 on the charts back in the day by Bohemian Rhapsody), Steely Dan’s Charlie Freak (not often thought of a Christmas song despite the hipster Dickensian twist on the story of the Gift of the Magi in the lyric and the sleigh bells in the arrangement), plus a couple of numbers by Vince Guaraldi.

In jazz world we’re preparing for our gigs in the new year too, so I’ve been woodshedding a good handful of standards on the sax, as well as our originals. I’m going to make some demos of a couple of my new compositions and arrangements soon, hopefully over the break.

One last piece of news. The remix of my 2010 Buzzy Tonic record Face the Heat is done. I’ve been listening back and making finer and finer tweaks until it’s become as good as I can make it. So now all that’s left is getting the CDs made and setting up the online distribution. So more on that soon.