The Standing Room

Silver Apples of the Meem

...And, in fact, [Herb Blau] made the first season so uncompromisingly difficult from a social standpoint that he was fired after the first year.

BERNSTEIN: Oh, I didn't know that.

SUBOTNICK: We started with Danton's Death, which is almost impossible to do anyway.

A couple months ago, I was tagged by both Devin Hurd at HurdAudio and Peter Matthews at Feast of Music for the book meme that's been floating around for some time. In essence, pick up a book close at hand, open to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and post the subsequent three sentences. Appropriately enough, given the proclivities of the two gentlemen who tagged me, the book sitting at the top of the pile right now is The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, edited by David W. Bernstein. (If you're unfamiliar with the history of the SF Tape Music Center, click here for a PDF of the Cliffs Notes version.)

The book release event two weeks ago couldn't have been more fitting. It was held in the basement of a public library a block off of Haight. I showed up about a half hour early, and nearly all the seats were already filled. I chose to stand (naturally) off to the side, and for the next 30 minutes watched the room fill beyond capacity. Every seat was taken, and all the space around the seats was occupied. There were even people standing outside the room in the entryway, standing on their tiptoes and craning their necks. They were of all ages, and it felt like we were all there to pay homage to these legends who had such a profound impact on the cultural legacy of San Francisco in the second half of the 20th century.

Stuart Dempster—whose Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel completely blew my mind when I first heard it about 10 years ago—opened the event by didjeriduing the room. (I myself have never before used "to didjeridu" as a transitive verb, but it was in the promo language for the event, so I'm not neologizing here.)

After we had been didjeridone (didjeridid?), the panel was about get underway when a very commanding, uniformed woman strode into the room and spoke to the event organizer. The fire marshal demanded that the room be cleared of most of the people who were standing, or else the entire event would be shut down. Honestly, all I could do was laugh, because how wonderful that the Tape Music Center folks, who are now in their 70s, can still bring out the fire marshals more than four decades after the premiere of In C.

Many of the folks did leave the hall, but those who stayed opened all the windows so that people could sit outside and listen to the talk. From left to right were Don Buchla (not pictured), Ramon Sender, David Bernstein, Morton Subotnick, Bill Maginnis, and Stuart Dempster. Terry Riley was scheduled to be there too, but had to decline at the last minute and sent his regards in a written statement. And Pauline Oliveros was saluted at length, and they played an excerpt from Bye Bye Butterfly (which manipulates an excerpt from Madama B., if you're looking for an opera angle here).

It was an extraordinary evening, listening to these artists tell their amazing stories of ingenuity, resourcefulness and creativity. By all rational standards there's no way they could have created the work they did with the resources that they had—or, more accurately, didn't have. And yet in the process they laid the groundwork for so many things that are integral to music as we know it today, including synthesizers and tape loops.

Unfortunately I only had my phone that evening, so for better images take a look at this Flickr set. There are also accounts of the event at Matrixsynth and Overlap (which includes a photo of people kneeling outside at a window, listening in).

Occupied

Back soon

Three

On the occasion of TSR's third birthday, I want to thank everyone who's taken the time to follow this blague. As ACB said to me recently, I cannot believe there are people I've met through blogging whom I consider my friends! No. Kidding. I assure you, no one is as shocked as I. And yet, through your emails, comments, linking, lurking and repeated visits, friends you've become, and I appreciate the company.

What an unexpected experience this has been! I suspect many other bloggers in our little corner of Teh Interwebs feel similarly. It's been indescribably gratifying to witness and participate in the growth of this community of performers, composers, writers, presenters, and listeners. Who could have imagined that blogging would gather us all together in the same room? And significantly, somehow we all have agreed—well, more or less—to converse without the rancor, brutish insults or random flaming so common on the Web (Opera-L, anyone?). I honestly believe we all benefit from these candid looks into how music is created, shared, experienced, appreciated and digested, from myriad perspectives.

Of course I didn't foresee any of this when I started typing away in 2004, when newspapers were still saying "'blog,' short for Web log." TSR was just a place to post some personal reactions to things I was hearing, seeing and singing, and of course to vent about the total absurdity of the parking situation in San Francisco (which, can I just say, remains completely. fucking. INSANE!!!). I guess it still is that. So thanks for sticking with me, and maybe we'll cross paths at Amoeba one day.

Oh, btw, I updated the About M. C— page.

(I always thought this was a good likeness)

With appreciation,
Sid

Photo from the SF Symph performance of A Flowering Tree, courtesy of sfmike

Tumbling, Twittering, Feeding

I'd like to draw your attention to two blague upgrades, which can be appreciated both by site visitors and by feed readers.

The del.icio.us feed, long titled Tasty Miscellany, has become such an integral part of TSR that "Miscellany" didn't seem appropriate anymore. In addition to renaming it The Reading Room, I've set up a tumbleblog for it so that each entry (link+comment) has its own permalink. (I know that some have been stymied in the past by not being able to link directly to specific comments under Tasty Miscellany.) So now, if you want to link or send a link for not just the source article but also the attached commentary, click through to The Reading Room via tumblr. The Reading Room also has its own feed.

Also, for months I've been utterly baffled by the appeal of Twitter. Today it suddenly made sense. TSR's status is now being broadcast in the sidebar. That has its own feed too, of course. (Guess who recently dove into Teh Facebook...)

Rearranging the Furniture

Cedichou's comment reminded me that those readers who keep up with TSR via the RSS feed may not know that the site has undergone some layout changes, with a few added sidebar features. The Last.fm charts have been tweaked so you can see what's playing on iTunes at any given time (provided I remember to turn it on), and you can also click through for more information. In many cases audio samples are available. I've finally got a proper blogroll that doesn't take up too much real estate: click the drop-down menu under "Other Rooms" for dozens of other parallel universes. Likewise, archives are accessible via drop-down menus from the homepage. If anything doesn't work, please let me know!

Bonus track: If anyone's feeling nostalgic, click through to the second half of the post for a screencap of how TSR used to look in 2004...

Migration, or, Downtime Continued

It needs to be said, loudly, that Apple's claim that switching from Windows to Mac is not only painless but actually quite fun! is A CROCK OF SHIT. Even as an experienced, long-term Mac user (let's just say I programmed turtles in Logo on Apple IIcs) I'm finding this process to be excruciatingly time-consuming and fraught with debilitating problems. To anyone considering making this switch, don't assume that Apple ProCare knows what they are doing, and ask them in advance kindly not to put your entire My Documents folder in the trash bin. And, tangentially, note that any backup program that doesn't have an option to restore the data manually is not a good backup program.

:-(

Downtime

Here's a message I never wanted to see:

WARNING: Dell's Disk Monitoring System has detected that drive 0 on the primary EIDE controller is operating outside of normal specifications.  It is advisable to immediately back up your data and replace your hard-disk drive by calling your support desk or Dell Computer Corporation.

We're now in Hour 4 of preparations to migrate to OS X. At the moment iTunes is consolidating about 90GB of music; one hour still to go.

Cewebrity

Very occasionally I spot a blogger out in the wild, foraging for food or dodging ushers or whatever: Albert in the opera standing room, Marc at sfSounds, Robert at Alarm Will Sound, Steve at a Tomness recital, Cedichou at a Merola performance. Then there was that strange syzygy when, for just a moment, the heavens put me, sfmike and JKos on the same square meter of the Davies lobby at Flowering Tree.

Most of the time I give them wide berth—you never know when a blogger on the loose is going to charge!—but when I happened upon Jon Rahoi with his two beautiful children piled on top of him (literally, one on each shoulder it seemed) wandering into Genki Crepes on Clement this afternoon, I decided to say those words that no blogger ever expects to hear out of the blue:

"Uhhhhh.... Do you have a blog?"

Poor guy seemed utterly stunned about being recognized. Plus the cashier was trying to get money from him, his kids were calling out for Dad and egg waffles, and here's this total random standing next to him telling him how entertaining his photoblog with extraordinary specimens of Manglish (mangled English on Chinese products, menus and signage) is. So, in honor of today's cewebrity encounter, I dug up a couple of Manglish samples from my modest collection.

It's a curious state of affairs if a turtle can come before you—even when you're frist. (I'm still kicking myself for not getting a picture of that guy wearing through a Taipei mall wearing a t-shirt that said "SPREAD YOUR LEGS—to all you virgins, thanks for nothing".)

One of my favorite. pieces of apparel. EVER. (Tx, SFist Rita!)

What a sweet sentiment on the front of a greeting card, no?

I wonder why I never found this card in Hallmark racks in the US? But then inside...

Um, what are you implying here? Why, just this morning I was just thinking of getting some more O'Mr. Skin Chapeaux.

A New Year

photo courtesy of OMC

For Whom the Memes Toll

Add the chicken livers and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until browned.  Sprinkle with the brandy and cook until it has evaporated. Chop the anchovy fillets, add to the skillet and season with salt, if necessary, and pepper.

—from the recipe for Chicken Liver Canapés (Canapé ai fegatini), The Silver Spoon (Il cucchiaio d'argento)

Late last year, Helen TwTwTw tagged me for a meme* (find the nearest book, turn to page 123, post the fifth, sixth and seventh sentences), which seems as good a place as any to begin.

It's been a welcome couple months of respite from the blaguing, allowing me to spend some quality time with my kitchen, restock the wine fridge, and empty the Basil Hayden's. Given the circumstances, the first book at hand was, unsurprisingly, the recent English translation of Il cucchaio d'argento, a reference tome originally published in 1950 and the bestselling cookbook in Italy for the past half-century.

It's been a busy couple months too, with numerous concerts and operas attended, a dozen or so performances given, and countless records acquired. Some of the more notable albums and events (SANKAI JUKU??? omg, speechless) may find their way into subsequent posts. I'll start off with some In Rotations and see where those lead.

Welcome to 2007, and welcome back to TSR.

~~~~~~

* This meme combined nicely with an old meme from Joe.My.God, "What I Look at When I Blog." Naturally anyone is welcome to jump on either meme, but the book meme calls for me to tag three folks. Taking inspiration from TwTwTw, I'm picking three bloggy friends from back on the block: vf, ACB, and Sieglinde. (Good blogs & bum blogs, we've seen them all and my dears, we're still here...)