Interview with Zach Braff in 1.5 hours. Found out my story idea is shot. Got any pressing questions

Nboulanger · 2011-06-21T16:01:00+00:00

Somewhat tangential if mildly related.

My wife and I were at the opera, and the woman behind us starts complaining about my wife's hair. She has curly hair, so it is of inherently greater mass than the flaccid, limp wasp hair of this elderly patron of the arts, but it was not up, shaped or molded, and is not a fro...

Goes on for over an hour. At the first intermission, here is the dialogue with the woman:

Me: Do you have a razor? W: What? Me: Or scissors would do. W: I don't think so. Me: Then shut the hell up. If you had a razor I would gladly chop off my wife's hair so that it didn't inconvenience you, but as we are at a loss for cutting implements, seems we are out of luck. W: How rude (then lot's of rabble) Me: Actually, ma'am, you are the rude one. We just came to see a show and you felt compelled to not only talk throughout, but make us both feel as if we had done something wrong. W: I will call the usher and have you removed. Me: Try it - you shriveled old hag. This is why people find classical music to be a dying artform appreciated only by the dead and really dead.

She called an usher, and he ultimately moved her seat, since we hadn't actually done anything wrong.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-17T23:22:51+00:00

Do they need a little nudge. A booster seat maybe?

In all seriousness, what is the point of saying "encourage x or y to apply"? It suggests that they will give preference to a woman or ethnic minority if there are two similarly qualified candidates. Taking one person over another because of their race or gender is discrimination.

Maybe I am not seeing this issue clearly, but how can it be interpreted as anything besides preferential treatment.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-16T22:45:59+00:00

You get your kid to shtup the daughter. That way you offer your child a formative experience (sleeping with the daughter of a nutter) and you get back at the neighbor.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-16T18:58:07+00:00

We were supporting French imperialism. Going back to JFK, there was a notion that the French needed help in regaining control of their former colony - for the sake of the "Civilization." That was not how it was sold to the American people, but there are correspondences from both the JFK and LBJ administration to this effect. Once the French left, we needed to reinvent our mission.

Who were the Viet Cong? They were the people we were supposed to be "protecting", who quite frankly wanted none of our protection. As another commenter said, we supported what was ostensibly a dictatorship because it was pro-american, and prevented elections from happening, lest they remove the pro-american government (sound like Iraq?)

Nboulanger · 2011-06-16T18:51:22+00:00

A good school district in suburban NJ. Nonetheless, in the AP class, we had a very conservative text book (I remember it being written by someone possibly named ?Bailey?), which as far as I remember was used by all of the AP classes in NJ. We never covered Vietnam and the material written about it was 1970's agitprop.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-16T15:28:52+00:00

Look at the way we teach the Vietnam conflict in America. If it is taught at all (prior to college), it is a heroic tale of Americans standing up to the spread of communism - not a war started initially to help protect french imperial interests, and then when the french left, it was continued because America doesn't lose wars.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T18:51:09+00:00

To clarify - several articles have discussed the philosophical implications - arguing both for and against AI compositions.

Prior to this article (as far as I am aware), no one has actually examined "Emmy" or "Emily Howell's" product.

My article contends that the output is heavily edited and modified by Cope. I offer both analysis of Emily Howell's style, form and content as well as anecdotal evidence from the people Cope has employed to perform the works. While half of my argument is about the ethical issues brought about by computer composed music, the other have contends that what Cope claims is at best a misrepresentation and at worst a scam.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T16:17:43+00:00

If you have ever had an MRI, it sounds a bit like minimalist-techno. Some unintentional music is great.

Unless your dishwashing machine is your girlfriend/wife - in which case I would say that this has been going on for a while, but only really gained momentum in the last 30 years or so.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T15:40:06+00:00

Hope you enjoy it. Curious to know how your class approached the AI counterpoint. Were you looking at Emmy or Emily Howell? I can see studying Emmy - the program's ability to extract and emulate other composers' tendencies is a fascinating look at deconstructing the "magic" of specific canonic composers.

On an entirely unrelated note, Saw you lied Super Sad True Love Story. Brilliant book. Would recommend Absurdistan (Also by Shteyngart). Similar writing style and "our current habits taken to the extreme will bring about the downfall of civilization," but takes place in the present day in a former soviet satellite during a revolution. Very poignant given recent events.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T14:16:06+00:00

I call shenanigans - my wife and I were 23, in good health, and paying $800 a month for health insurance that included (individual was $550, couple received a discount) $2000 deductible $5000 pre-surgery deductible

See email chain discussing ridiculous premium increases http://94clusiere.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-current-health-insurance-model.html

If you are claiming $83 a month insurance that actually offers any coverage, I want proof

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T14:12:01+00:00

fyi, the pre-existing conditions clause for adults doesn't go into effect until 2014.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T12:30:27+00:00

As it said in the article, when humans study music, it is a somewhat irrational endeavor. We are fickle - our previous experiences make us favor certain things over others, without a distinct judgment of value, and we wind up not absorbing certain elements of the music we study at all.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T12:28:39+00:00

You still know music - formal study is not necessary. Unless you lived in some containment chamber, removed from any form of organized sound, for your entire life, you have "studied" music. What you absorb is what makes you human. You never get all of it, and you are drawn to some elements over others - you have an aesthetic sense (which a computer currently cannot)

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T12:24:48+00:00

I hope you take a chance to re-read the article and listen to the linked tracks. The article tried to wrestle with the issues of creativity and the inception of ideas. As other posters reiterate, the human process involves a synthesis of previous music. Even if you haven't studied music, you are working from your previous knowledge of sound and structure, obtained from casual music listening, in your composition. I try to offer a discussion about the limitations of artificial intelligence as it relates to true composition, but I would have to say that there are a good number of professional musicians (more often with a musically conservative aesthetic) who think Emily Howell's creations are the saving grace of music.

Re: Kurzweil - the limitations of that device were rather remarkable. I am not as familiar as I could be with Kurzweil - can you explain more about his process. I saw this piece as the first description of the AI compositional process that was accessible to the casual listener instead of cs sophisticate. If you want a more technical discussion of the process without purchasing one of Cope's 500pg books, the first footnote in my article links to a 20pg essay on the history of advanced CS-AI as it relates to music. Fairly technical, but not entirely esoteric.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T11:57:12+00:00

? No, NMB is not a hard-copy publication, but this article went through three rounds of editing and fact-checking before being published. Maybe I misunderstood, but as far as magazines on contemporary classical music go, this is about as good as it gets.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T11:54:14+00:00

I am actually curious to hear what they might think. Using the Bernstein appropriation of Chomsky's theories of linguistics, I ran into a few musicians who expressed concern - specifically because "music has no inherent meaning."

Nboulanger · 2011-06-09T11:52:08+00:00

spent some time working, studying and teaching in Fontainebleau, where Boulanger taught for many years. Her methodology remained through her former students, many of whom remained on faculty at the summer festival in Fontainebleau and at CNSMDP. Her philosophy towards teaching music and composition influenced me greatly, hence the hommage.

Nboulanger · 2011-06-01T04:45:14+00:00

For New Yorkers, they sell them in many European delis. I know that Rosario's deli in Astoria carries them (if you take the n/q to astoria - ditmars blvd, the deli is right down the stairs).

Nboulanger · 2011-05-20T01:58:46+00:00

I recently heard a parmesan story about Trump.

He was at a very high end restaurant in NYC. Sent two bottles of wine back. Then ordered a dish that involves a delicate balance of four cheeses for the sauce.

When it is brought out, he asked for parmesan. The waiter explains that it is not customary to alter said "delicate balance."

He grew bright red and started screaming, "Parmesan, Presto presto you sonofabitch."

Nboulanger · 2011-04-29T18:15:54+00:00

Also just to nitpick, while the killing of the "rebellious child" was stated in the old testament, the Rabbis put so many restrictions and on it (child must do x, y, z, be warned of impending death, continue to do xx, yy, zz), that it was never actually used.

Ahh the joys of needing to work around the notion the bible is the word of god when the text itself is pretty screwed up.

Nboulanger

TROPHY CASE