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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Sylvia played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on her new ocarina today! That was quick. Not quite right yet -- it sounds to me like the ocarina must be tonic, maybe in C, and Sylvia is trying to play in D (not in A, because "there isn't a E-1" -- she is referring to all the notes as string + finger). So a couple of notes are off -- I need to look more closely at it and show her what the key is. Still, quick progress!
Update: no, I'm wrong -- the instrument is diatonic. But Sylvia doesn't really get sharps and flats yet, she is probably playing all naturals, diagrams for which are grouped together at the top of the page. If she's interested I will explain that to her; but I expect she is going to want to figure it out on her own.
posted afternoon of December 26th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
Still not perfect -- there are some missed entrances, the fiddle solo lags in places, I still don't have any decent recording equipment -- but this is totally on track for what I want to sound like. Something I am really happy about is the variation in meter from verse to verse -- I was able to work out occasionally inserting an extra measure in key places and I think it came out really well. The drones are a little annoying without a fiddle on top of them but I just didn't want to try that right now. Maybe another day.
posted afternoon of December 26th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Fiddling
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
The rather silly Pied Piper of Hamelin video, with rhyming dialogue, was made worthwhile by the lovely actors and by Sylvia's observation that "If this were a play, Emma [the stage rat from Moominsummer Madness] would say 'It's all wrong.'"
I'm loving Saramago's style of writing dialogue without yet totally getting it -- it draws me in and hypnotizes me, but I sometimes find myself struggling in mid-paragraph to track who is saying what. The characters are always threatening to sound like automata, I think in part because of this clipped, almost dismissive rendering of their speech; but in small ways their humanity comes through.
Yes! I have figured out my rhythm problems in "Ballad of Hollis Brown". Turns out I've been trying to play it all this time in 4/4 time when the fiddle part I am trying to write is actually in 2/4. I've totally got it now, I am working on the transcription and will be posting it soon.
(Note: I play a very nice version on my guitar that is definitely a 4/4 song and sounds very dirgelike, which is pretty appropriate for this song. The fiddle version is going to be more rocking. But I guess there is room for that too.)
At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called.
This is a promising start to Blindness -- the descriptive language, the comic timing. Also the final line of the first chapter is very nice: "That night the blind man dreamt he was blind."
It will take a little while to really get into the rhythm of the dialogue -- I'm reminded of how it takes some time to get into the groove reading Gaddis.
Spare yourself and don't listen to this one -- very rough. It is a favorite song of mine though, I want to keep working on it. The idea is to integrate the voice with the viola, and have a dialog between the voice and the violin.
Update: see take 2 for the working version. Much better, cleaner, more successful.
So strange: a package arrived in the mail, addressed to me, from Lark in the Morning music, a shop of which I have not thought for a long time. I'm pretty sure the last thing I ever bought there was my concertina, in 1985 or so. In the package is an ocarina and a book of tunes, and no information about who sent it. My first two ideas, my father and my uncle John, are both wrong. So, I've got an ocarina. Thanks, whoever sent it! I'm no good with wind instruments. But maybe Sylvia or Ellen will pick it up.
Update: Mystery solved! It is a gift for Sylvia, from her aunt and uncle.
posted evening of December 24th, 2007: Respond ➳ More posts about Sylvia
Merry Xmas, everyone, John Quays and otherwise! Full moon tonight -- I wanted to take a picture because it was pretty gorgeous; but alas the camera's batteries were dead. By the time I got home and got new batteries the moon was behind a cloud and no longer low on the horizon and orange. But I'll take a look later on.
