Category: People

Nice Weather If You’re a Duck

Spring progresses, the dude abides. It’s been unusually cold and rainy the last few weeks. Haven’t had 24 hours without rain since sometime last month. It’s pouring down again right now. We had one nice day last weekend and I did manage to get some yardwork in and take the Mustang for a drive. I ordered a new battery for my lawnmower and a mini chainsaw on a stick to take care of some high branches from a neighbor’s tree that’s been been growing into our yard. I also marked out the territory to expand my patio. Yesterday the guy came to hook up the transfer box for a generator to our house electric. This was the last piece of the solar power project. Glad to have that done with so we can move on to other things.

Michelle’s had a birthday. Rather than doing a big sweet sixteen party like her sister, she opted for Jeannie and I taking her for an evening out with a few friends. It’s interesting to see her interacting with her school friends. I hadn’t met them before but they seem like very nice kids, smart and sharp and fun. Plotting their takeover of the robotics team next fall. Now she’s taking her AP exams and Lizzy is already done with school and home for the summer. My how the time flies.

We had a jazz gig last weekend at the Green Growler in Croton. It’s a fun and cozy venue and the people there are into this kind of music. We had a couple guests sit in for a few standards at the end of each set. Ben on trumpet and Lisa on flute, friends of the drummer and the guitarist. Musically the band keeps getting better. I have some video clips which I’ll post soon. Gina from the rock band came out to see us, which I appreciate. She and Jeannie were talking loudly the whole time right in front of the camcorder. Ah well, we have another jazz gig coming up in a few weeks. Nice that the group is gigging out.

We had a gig with the rock band a couple weeks ago too. This was our first gig with the new drummer Adrian, and the first gig with my new keyboard. Unfortunately, it was a large place and not alot of people turned out. Also we’ve been adding more dance tunes lately and I think this place was more of a rock crowd. Gonna hafta swing back in that direction for the next batch of new songs. And since the drummer was still learning the set we had problems with tempos and with dead time between songs. On the plus side the new keyboard has lots of great sounds and I’m learning my way around it. Ah well, no time for adding new material just yet. We’ve been drilling on the fundamentals so the next show should be stronger. Coming this Saturday at Victor’s in Hawthorne, which a place we know well. Should be a good time.

Shiny New Year

Ok so, the new year is off to a roaring start.

Two weeks ago we had just returned to work for new year. Coldness and darkness and all that. That weekend Jeannie was putting away the Christmas decorations in the closet under the stairs, a.k.a. the wizard room. Forgetting where she was, she stood up too fast and bumped her head pretty hard on the low ceiling. The next day Jeannie was driving to work and has a headache and started feeling dizzy. It turned out she had a concussion, which took the better part of a week to get over.

Right around that time the pain in my ankle went from kinda bad to really bad, and it was clear that I’d have to seriously and assiduously stay off my feet for a little while.

That same day we got the news Jeannie’s Aunt Mary died. She was 87 years old. A dear sweet lady. I still remember visiting her house in New Jersey way back when I first moved to NYC. I just saw her at Christmas and she seemed to being doing pretty well. The end was pretty fast.

So bang 1-2-3. At least Lizzy was home and was able to give us rides to the doctors and the funeral home. I was able to work from home until I started feeling better, and we got thru all that. I finally went into the office today. It was good to see everyone again.

We managed to get the Honda fixed somewhere in there. The dealer in White Plains where I bought the car was completely useless, lying to us about the scheduling and the work they intended to perform, recommending thousands of dollars in unnecessary repairs, and not addressing the issue we brought it in for in the first place. After multiple visits we had the give up on them. We took it another Honda dealer in Yonkers, and they were no better. We finally took it to the local garage near Jeannie’s work and they fixed it up for a reasonable price. Never got the firmware in the car’s computer updated, but it seems that was probably unnecessary anyway. Yeesh done with the dealers.

…

On a more upbeat note, the first gig of the new year was with my jazz group Haven Street at the Green Growler in Croton, and it went really well. We played two sets, 10 songs and then 6, with a total of 12 originals and 4 standards. Of the originals, 6 were on our record and 6 are new, destined for record #2. I think the newer songs are all really interesting and some of them really challenging to play, and all offer something new and different compositionally and tonally to solo on, so we’re not just repeating ourselves. The group is at a level where we pretty consistently get into a zone of really good listening/interactivity/spontaneity. A friend of the drummer sat in on trumpet on the standards, and he was quite good, tone phrasing riffs and chops.

Green Growler is a fun and cozy venue. It’s not exactly strictly a bar. They have hundreds of kinds of beer in cans and bottles that you can buy and carry out. It’s right by the Croton train station so there’s alot of walk-in traffic and the bar itself is like a counter. They also have a bunch of beers on tap and you can come in with a jug and have it filled. Then there’s a lounge area across from the bar, where the band plays, and in addition to some chairs and tables they have couches and board games, so it’s a pretty cool hang. They mostly have jazz and alternative music. It’s not very large but the room was full for the first set and still half full at the end, and the people really dug it. There was even dancing, and a guy drawing us the whole show. He showed me the drawings, pretty cool. Captured alot of the improvisational energy.

Our next gig is this Friday at the Bean Runner Cafe in Peekskill. Should be even better.

…

On the rock’n’roll front, we had to kick out our old drummer. We all felt really bad about it, but we had gone as far as we could with him. Andy was a really great guy, very dedicated and eager to help in every way. Unfortunately he was just not an experienced player. The rest of the group has several decades each of experience in working bands, and Andy had been playing about a year and was still getting the basics together.

So Gina had a friend Pete, who is a former wedding band drummer and has a great sense of time and groove. As soon as he entered it lifted the whole sound of the band. Pete sings too, so now we can do three-part harmonies.

We had a gig last weekend, which we had to cancel due to the threat of a snowstorm. Our guitarist Vinny works as a supervisor of a snowplow crew in the Bronx, so he got called in. As it turned out the storm was mostly just rain. Still it’s just as well. No one would’ve come out on a nasty stormy night. And having another week to get the set together with Pete is good thing. To top it off I wouldn’t’ve been able to hump the PA gear coming off and ankle injury.

So we have our debut gig with the new lineup this Saturday at P. J. Fogherty’s in Bronxville. Conveniently just five minutes from my house.

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.

Here Comes Summer

Been busy as always. It seems that winter dragged on forever and spring came and went in the blink of an eye. Now we’re basically into summer, frequent rainy days notwithstanding. We’ve been having more and more beautiful warm sunny days. Last weekend we were upstate to pick Lizzy up from college, and for a quick visit with parents. Fun little road trip that seemed to give the summer and early kick-start. Realizing we ought to make some vacation plans.

Work has been busy. We had a big reorg of the whole software engineering department. I went from being in the Foundation team of the UX group to the UX team of the Foundation group. Our last major release seems to be a hit and has bought us some breathing room on the features race.

After all this time of building everything as fast as we can, we’re taking a step back and rearchitecting things to make them more performant, extensible, reusable, testable and all-around better. My first project is to create a component system for our UI elements. If feels like we just got going but we’re already transitioning from the figuring-out-what-we’re-doing phase to closing in on the first round of deliverables.

But the big news the Haven Street CDs are finally here!

Wintry Mix

Been busy recently.

The days are getting longer and the weather getting milder, even some sunshine. I think the end of winter is in sight. I’ve been working out in the mornings, but now it’s daylight. Been focusing on the legs, building strength. We might go even skiing next weekend.

Last weekend was Jeannie’s birthday. We saw a great concert in the city. There’s a little nightclub inside the Apollo. The show was Matthew Whitaker, a blind, sixteen-year-old piano prodigy. Jeannie actually saw him a few years ago because he’s the son a friend from her old job, and she’s been telling me ever since to check him out.

The kid is amazing. Matthew’s main influences are Chick Corea and Stevie Wonder, but there’s flashes of Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson and lots of other stuff in there. He also plays a mean Hammond organ, including some bass solos on the pedals, and some tasty Moog. He has his rig set up kinda like Keith Emerson, with the piano and organ back to back, and the synth on top of the piano. The thing that amazes me the most is how he’s able to draw straight line thru 100 years of jazz and R&B, from Art Tatum to Gnarls Barkley, and make it all sound unified while treating each style faithfully and making it his own.

Its crunch time at my day job. We’re in the bug-fix Olympics and our CEO has offered a bonus to whoever fixes the most bugs in the next two weeks, like a pirate captain nailing a gold, silver and bronze coin to the mast. Too bad cuz last week I fixed 11 bugs, by far the most in the company, but they don’t count toward this goal.

Jay and I have been continuing on with mixing Buzzy Tonic. We have four songs in the can, five to go. I’ve decided to re-track the bass for Rocket to the Moon because the existing take is not very well recorded. This is because it’s a very hard part to play. So I’ve been practicing and trying a take every day. Getting closer but still some rough spots. Jay was over the other day and and I showed him the riffs and he could just play ‘em like that. Basterd.

We’ve also begun work on the jazz record. When we left the studio not everyone was really satisfied with their playing, but I knew we had enough coverage to put together a killer take of every song. I don’t think Jay really believed it until we started cutting together the songs. This is more my area of expertise but he added an invaluable pair of ears. One thing I’ll say is that our tempos were really consistent. At one point I dropped in a whole ‘nuther solo, something like a minute and a half of music, and at the end had to adjust the timing by only a few milliseconds. We got thru half the songs and hope to do the rest this weekend, then move on to the actual mixing.

On the downside, it looks like our rock band may finally be dead. Been trying to get everyone together but it’s just not happening. More on that in a future post.

Meanwhile right now the Olympics are on, which is cool and fun, but I never watch TV anymore so the ads are all really weird.

ZMP Music Update

A cold and stormy day today, a genuine blizzard.

I updated the music page of my website:
zingman.com/music/

I put up links to the Elixr rough mixes, and updated the links and blurbs for the other groups and projects as well. I realize the Haven Street Quintet needs and new photo cuz we still have our old drummer shown. We ought to be able to take care of that when we get into putting our album together next month.

As mentioned before, my friend Jay has been helping me mix my new Buzzy Tonic record Elixr. Jay is graduate of the Berkelee School of Music and a former professional recording engineer and producer. He came over after jazz the other day.

Unfortunately, as soon as we got underway I discovered one of my studio monitors was fried. I’ve mainly been working with headphones recently so I didn’t notice earlier. I figure it probably happened when I was messing around with my new Moog. Ah well, those speakers were getting on twenty years old. Time for an upgrade.

It was amazing working with Jay. I mean I understand how EQs and compressors work, but Jay is at a level where he can really sculpt the sound, like an artist with light and shadow. He knew what he was after and just dove right in and got to where he wanted it pretty fast. It would have taken me ages of experimentation to get anywhere close. Jay was able to put the instruments into their own space so they were louder and clearer, particularly the bass drum, snare and bass guitar. This set it up so that the rhythm instruments, horns and vocals had more space too.

It took us the whole afternoon to mix one track. The good news is I can apply the set effects to the other tracks and get pretty much in the ballpark. They all use the same drums, bass, and other instruments. Then when Jay comes by next time we can hone right in on balance and arranging.

Meanwhile, I’ve also begun updating my origami site. It’s been two years since the last major upgrade I have over a dozen new models, plus photos for everything my upcoming airplanes and spaceships book. So watch for that soon.

A Merry Little Xmas

We had a most excellent Xmas vacation that included lots of visiting, hosting, gifts, food and entertaining. Good to end the year on a healthy and prosperous note.

On the Friday before xmas my office closed early. We went out for Mexican food and then went to see the the new Star Wars movie. Both very good. Next day I had jazz, then Jeannie’s big family Xmas party out on Long Island. Lizzy had jello shots. I played some pool. On Xmas Eve we went out for sushi, our take on the Italian seven fishes tradition. On xmas day Mary’s came over along with Jeannie’s folks. On boxing day we headed up to Buffalo to see my parents. The next day Martin’s arrived, and that evening we visiting Larry and Jackie and went out to a great dinner at a place in Hamburg. Thursday morning Martin and I planned out the next round of work for the Jukebox, and we drove home later that day. Friday Denis and Sara and their kids came over for a visit. Saturday was jazz again, and then Jay came over the help me mix my record. Finally on New Year’s Eve Nick’s came over, and some of Lizzy’s friends too. Whew! All of it was very nice and a much needed break.

In between we watched most of the original Star Wars trilogy, I went up in weight on my workout, worked on mixing my record, updating my web site, and some new origami ideas, read most of Magnus Chase, and hung around and relaxed.

Well it’s back to work again. It’s been bitter cold the last couple weeks, with no end in sight.

Leave the City Behind

I just got back from a great but fast trip up to the Adirondack mountains. I love it up there and don’t get to visit as often as I’d like. It was my good friend Mark’s fiftieth birthday and his wife Kelly was having a surprise party. I’ve known Mark from high school and college and the early days of my career in multimedia in NYC in the 90’s. So our friends Seth and Cathy and Jeannie and me went up to Seth’s place Friday night and then onto Placid the next morning. A whole weekend of catching up, sitting by the fire sipping whiskey, going out to breakfast, all very nice. It turns out we’re all turning 50 this year. We also had the first snowfall of the year, which was beautiful but not so nice for driving.

The party itself was great. It was also release of the first CD by Mark’s band Crackin’ Foxy. They do banjo-oriented old-timey jazz with tight vocal harmonies, sort of Django Reinhart meets the Andrews Sisters, with an eclectic mix of covers and originals. Great stuff. The party was at the house across the street from Mark. These are old TB cure houses, and they have great flowing floor plans with lots of windows. Both Mark and his neighbor’s are very nicely restored and modernized. Mark’s friends seem largely to be Bohemian expats from NYC and elsewhere. Only problem is it can be hard to make a living up there, so many have to leave after a few years. In fact Mark’s neighbor’s house is for sale. Jeannie and I are toying with the idea of buying and airb’n’b’ing it for a few years until we’re ready to retire. Only problem with that plan is the winters up there are brutal and I don’t really like the cold.

In the Court of the Crimson King

I saw King Crimson Saturday night at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. It was by far the best KC show I’ve seen and this is my fourth one. Just blown away.

One thing that made it a special night is my friends Rich and John were in town to see the show too. Rich was my old college roommate and guitar player for Infingon, and John was the bass player, and also plays violin and several other instruments. Both are still active in music. Rich was the one who originally turned us all on to Crimson back in the day. As Infingon went on we played more an more prog. Our setlist included two Crimson numbers – Great Deceiver and 21st Century Schizoid Man, as well as material from Yes, Rush, ELP, Genesis, UK, Supertramp, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Doors, U2, The Police and a handful of others. So it was a great reunion for us.

This tour Crimso was in their so-called seven-headed-monster configuration, even though it’s been expanded now to eight musicians. The most dramatic addition to the lineup was the return of Mel Collins. Mel played every sax and flute they make, but spent most of his time sqwonking on the bari in the altisimo register. Fripp played mellotron as well as guitar, and with another synth player gave their sound alot more range and color. Tony Levin back on bass and stick. Three(!) drummers arrayed across the front of the stage did lots of exciting things with big unison, counterpoint, tonal/rhythmic zones and passing the beat around. Jacco Jascszyk on vocal and guitar had really strong interpretations of Greg Lake and John Wetton songs, and even one from Adrian Belew, literally a unifying voice across a vastly diverse set.

The group was unbelievably tight, yet loose, and had a great sound. Like with Mahavishnu I’m amazed at how good a group this large, loud, and dissonant/arrhythmic can sound. You could really hear everything and there was alot going on. I think live sound reinforcement has really evolved for one thing, and an acoustically good venue helps too. And of course the level of musicianship is out of this world.

The song selection was everything you’d hope for. The show was two sets, three hours. The first set opened with a triple drum solo. Then they did a host songs from In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard, and Islands, all updated interpretations, and some instrumental jams. Toward the end of the set they did Epitaph, then Starless off of Red, and finished with Indiscipline. Jascszyk sung a melody to replace Belew’s rap, very effective.

The second set opened with another triple drum solo, and some more instrumentals and deep cuts from the pre-Wetton era. They did Moonchild right into The Court of the Crimson King, basically the second side of that record. Wow. Followed by Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two, then Easy Money, really jamming out. Totally amazing. Each song was opened up, 10 or 15 minutes long. The encore was a roaring rendition of 21st Century Schizoid Man, again opened up for solos. Just unbelievable. Totally satisfying.

After the show we went out to a diner to continue to catch up.

OrigaMIT ‘17

Last weekend I went up to Boston for the OrigaMIT convention. It seems to get a little bigger every year and is always a lot of fun. This year I only taught one class. It was my Oliphaunt, an elephant with extra tusks and a castle on its back. I taught it last June at OUSA and it was very popular, particularly for a supercomplex model. It was popular at MIT too and the class was full. Everyone finished with a fair to really excellent done model. I ran out of 15” foil, since I passed a supply of it around at the start of the class. It’s my go-to paper for experimenting with ideas at this level of complexity, so I need to replenish my stash.

In the week leading up to the convention I began folding an Oliphant out of a sheet of 22” or paper I made by laminating a really nice textured paper I bought a while ago to sheet of gold foil. The textured paper is soft almost like cloth, and has a red and gold pattern, very Indian looking, very beautiful. The foil is for added stiffness and sculptability. I got most of the way through folding it, up to finishing stage, and ran out of time. However I did manage to finish off a mostly-done Oliphaunt out of marble Wyndstone paper that was originally intended for the June convention. That provided something new and nice for my exhibit, along with a selection of airplanes and spaceships from the photoshoot for my book.

When I was setting up my exhibit, at the table next to mine was some kid’s display that featured a whole bunch of models from my book, the Fox, Bear, Narwhal, Turtle, Turkey and a few others, all really nicely folded. It’s a really nice feeling when you’re able to reach people thru your creativity.

There were some interesting lectures. Tom Hull, Erik Demaine and Jason Ku have all been up to some cool stuff. Erik is obsessed with making weird cryptic fonts. Erik and Jason have been working on an origami file format, which is pretty intriguing. It’s something like my proposed OrgamiXML format, but in json a probably bit more in-depth. The intention is to support interoperability between existing origami software packages including Tomahiro’s Origamizer and Robert’s TreeMaker. I really want to check it out and see if I can bring it into Foldinator. It’s been a long time since I worked on Foldinator and at this point I probably ought to start over again in javascript.

There was good hanging out my origami friends, catching up. Someone has always just got back from a convention is some faraway place. Michelle came along this year, telling people about her school robotics club how she’s learning to program. There were a few people there who are also into robots. Now she’s setting her sights on the idea of trying to get into MIT.