Author: Don

Birthday present

Johann Sebastian Bach was born 327 years ago today (or on March 31, depending on which calendar you use). To celebrate the occasion, Amazon.com is selling nine hours of his music for 99¢ for a few days. I recognized a few of the performers, such as Joseph Szigeti and Andras Schiff, but most I’m not familiar with. I expect that the Amazon offering is mainly good older recordings and recent recordings by lesser-known artists. It’s probably worth gambling a dollar on.

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I know what I want for Christmas:

Exceedingly miscellaneous

In the 1970s, Jack Thompson bought a tract of land in the Royal Gardens subdivision on the island of Hawaii and began building a cedar home there. He finished it in 1983. As he installed the second-story windows, he noticed a orange glow on the panes. The light came from the lava fountains that heralded the eruption of Kilauea, which continues to this day. Over the years, lava flows took out all his neighbors’ homes, one by one, until only Thompson’s was left. This month, a vigorous flow found his house, leaving little beyond a satellite dish embedded in six feet of basalt.

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The many flavors of cheesecake

To save you the trouble of clicking repeatedly on the lower left corner of Steven’s header, I’ve collected 915 of the images and assembled them into a convenient slide show.

The singer is Mayumi Kojima. She’s probably best-known in the anime world for “Poltergeist,” the memorable opening theme of the otherwise disappointing Ghost Hound.

Ducks and religion

I recently came across this graphic. It’s a nice thought, but there seems to be something missing.

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Daniel Pinkwater has made a number of his books available for free download, including this odd little story, “Ducks!”

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/ducks.mp3]

Other books include Lizard Music, about lizards, pod people and a chicken; Borgel, a journey through space and time in search of the Great Popsicle; Slaves of Spiegel, about very fat space pirates; and, Young Adult Novel, about the avant-garde and fascism.

Yoctometers, yottameters and ponies

Two weeks’ worth of random stuff.

Of all the mysteries in Mouretsu Pirates, the most puzzling, and the least likely to be satisfactorily explained, are the Sailor Moon shout-outs. This Princess Serenity is anything but a ditzy airhead.

By the way, it is impossible to watch just one episode of Shingu.

Continue reading “Yoctometers, yottameters and ponies”

A screenful of Madoka

Crunchyroll began streaming Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica today, so I watched the first episode during lunch. I was curious to see how it looked at 1080. I took several screencaps; click on them to see them full-size. They look nice, but they’re not razor-sharp. I would guess that the video was upscaled from 720. (The monitor screen is 1920 x 1200, hence the letterboxing. (The images from Madoka’s dream were letterboxed to begin with.))

More screencaps below the fold.

Continue reading “A screenful of Madoka”

Galactic Corridor West-37

Shingu had the Cat’s Eye Nebula; Mouretsu Pirates has V838 Monocerotis.

Real life keeps getting in the way, but I make time every Saturday to watch Mouretsu Pirates. So what if the premise is unlikely and that there numerous minor details to nitpick? As long as the characters are interesting and the story is good, I don’t care that miniskirts aren’t suited to zero gravity. I think the pacing is fine. Tatsuo Sato knows exactly what he is doing. Constant action is boring. I’d rather get to know the characters and situation before the battles start. I enjoy spending time with Marika, and I look forward to 20 more weekends with her and her crew.

I enjoy the soundtrack, too, and I hope it’s licensed. I apparently am in the minority on this point, but I even like the opening theme, despite the singers. It would be much better with a less cluttered arrangement — ideally, just drums, bass and Marty Friedman — and a singer who can properly belt out the tune. Can Bruce Dickinson sing Japanese?

Sato makes anime that is more complex than it at first seems and which ultimately mostly makes sense, e.g., Shingu. There’s already much speculation on the history of piracy and related matters in Marika’s universe at Steven’s place.

Just wondering: One of the spaceships is called the “Odette II.” Will there be an “Odile”?

Update: Here’s the “sailing” theme.

[audio:http://tancos.net/audio/PirateTheme.mp3]

Update II: Steven calls the tune “Odette II.” You can download a clean version from his site.

Hot stuff in Sicily

Etna is doing her thing again. You can watch the show though numerous webcams, such as this or those here. You can listen to the explosions here as well as see them when the camera is working and the server isn’t overburdened.

Update: the show is over. You can see pictures here and some videos of the eruption here. If you’re lucky, you’ll also see a cheesy Italian commercial.

The bare minimum

There are three pages to the score for Terry Riley‘s In C. Two of the pages are performance directions; the actual music all fits on a single page. It consists of 53 numbered phrases ranging in length from two sixteenth notes to 32 quarter notes. The performer plays each phrase in sequence, repeating it as many times as he wishes, before moving on to the next phrase. Riley suggests a group of about 35 musicians. Performances normally run between 45 and 90 minutes, according to Riley.

Although I’ve occasionally read about In C — it’s perhaps the first example of musical “minimalism” — and I’ve looked at the score, I’ve never actually heard it. A few days ago, I heard Riley’s A Rainbow in Curved Air for the first time in decades (not counting its use in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio program).1 It was more engaging than I remembered, and it occurred to be that I didn’t need to round up 35 musical friends to get an idea of what In C sounded like. I could just launch Logic and sequence as many voices as I wanted. Which I did.

This is a stripped-down, streamlined version. It’s a little over eleven minutes long, and there are only five voices — six, if you count the “pulse.” I didn’t plan it out beyond shifting loops nicely out of phase. It probably doesn’t truly represent what In C should be, but it might suggest how the music works. I likely will revise and expand this arrangement sometime soon. You can download the score here if you want to follow along or organize your own performances. There’s also a 50-minute orchestral “realization” of In C at the site — unfortunately, using what sounds like an undistinguished general midi soundset.

You can imagine Mikuru Asahina playing the repeated high C eighth notes if you wish. Or Zooey Deschanel.

Update: Uploaded a new version with additional voices and a few tweaks.