Author: catsynth

The Eighth Annual Transbay Skronkathon BBQ

The announcement for my upcoming show with Polly Moller and Company this Sunday. Folks in the Bay Area are encouraged to come by for free music, food and interesting people.

THE EIGHTH ANNUAL TRANSBAY SKRONKATHON BBQ

21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakland, CA 94612
Sunday, July 13th – 12:00 Noon to 11:00pm
FREE

The annual Transbay Skronkathon BBQ is an all-day marathon music and BBQ
extravaganza. Admission is free, but we’ll pass the hat for the benefit
of the Transbay Creative Music Calendar. We’ll have a couple of charcoal
grills out in the alleyway for your food-searing pleasure (BRING STUFF
TO GRILL!) and a huge roster of the Bay Area’s best creative musicians
inside for your listening pleasure.

The Transbay Creative Music Calendar is a newsletter devoted to
experimental music in the Bay Area. Published monthly, it’s four to
six pages of lively coverage, including features, artistic rants,
reviews and announcements of music so far out that you won’t hear
about it anywhere else. It’s available free at many local music venues
and independent record stores, and is mailed free of charge to anyone
interested enough to subscribe. The entire contents are also available
over the world-wide web at www.transbaycalendar.org.

Performance schedule:

12:00 Morgan Sully
12:25 Jay Korber
12:50 Mana: Michael Mantra and DJ Cypod
01:15 Michael Guarino, solo percussion & electronics
01:40 ANIMAL VEGETABLE TELEVISION
Ron Chornow (percussion, Found Objects, Clarinet.)
Gary Schwantes (Winds, Electronics)
02:05 Baker/Djll duo [tentative]
Jen Baker & Ron Heglin (trombones),
possibly with Tom Djll (trumpet)
02:30 Respectable Citizen
Bruce Bennett (keyboards and electronics),
Michael Zbyszynski (Winds and electronics)
02:55 Sophisticuffs
Jeremy Kearney (bass), Micaela Petersen (drums),
Errol Stewart (guitar)
03:20 Dan Plonsey
03:45 Dirty Patina
Thomas Scandura (drums),
Morgan Guberman (bass),
Gene Baker (trumpet)
04:10 League of Art Game composers
Luke Selden, Cole Ingraham, Peter Musselman,
Chad McKinney, Curtis McKinney
04:35 Yoyo Mama
Sandra Yolles (electronic percussion),
Bob Marsh (electric strings, voice and tap shoes)
05:00 Headloss
05:25 Polly Moller & Co.
Polly Moller, Amar Chaudhary, Bill Wolter, Jim Carr
05:50 Chris Brown & James Fei
06:15 Hydrogen Pellets [tentative]
Cactus Daniel Hintz & Elvis Johnson (both electronics)
06:40 John Shiurba (guitar) & Scott Rosenberg (reeds)
07:05 Jon Raskin (sax) & Kanoko Nishi (koto)
07:30 lx rudis (electronics)
07:55 RTD3
Ron Heglin (brass),
Tom Nunn (percussion),
Doug Carroll (cello)
08:20 KINDA GREEN: Tom Djll (trumpet), Tim Perkis (electronics)
accompanying archival recordings of John Cage readings.
08:45 REEL CHANGE with Dada films
09:30 Jorrit Dijkstra & Phillip Greenlief (alto saxes)
09:55 Ba-NewMus Discussion List Duo
Ava Mendoza (guitar), Moe Staiano (percussion)


Bon Voyage

It’s always hard to go away on a trip and leave the ketzela behind. But Luna will be in good hands while I am gone, with our new cat sitter.

And this trip is very necessary. There has been a lot of fun, excitement, love, playfulness and beauty in our new life, but there are a lot of things that have been difficult. Getting away for a few days seems like the right thing to do. Even that simple decision has been challenging, with plans gone awry and sore feelings among friends dominating the start of this journey. But as things move forward, there might actually be a little peace, inspiration, and even a little fun.

In the meantime, please visit other Cats on Tuesday. And we’ll be back soon.


Pride 2008

Today was big Pride Parade here in San Francisco. And with the recent marriage ruling here in California, it was an even bigger celebration than previous years.

Of course, Zip was there for the festivities:

The parade is on Market Street, our main thoroughfare, which has been adorned with flags and other symbols for weeks in anticipation:


[Click to enlarge]

The parade is of course full of colorful characters:

Marriage was of course a major theme this year, with many couples displaying “Just Married” banners to thunderous applause.

This BART vehicle was decked out for trips to the chapel:

But with good fun there is also seriousness. We all need to be vigilant and make sure that our friends’ new-found rights are not taken away this November:

It is a not an issue of LGBT rights versus religion. Indeed, faith and religious groups were an important part of this year’s parade:

However, when this group from the “San Francisco Voice for Israel” marched by, it seemed like the crowds were strangely quiet.

I was actually invited last year to march with this group, after talking to a gay supporter of Israel while attending a birthday for a “nice Jewish girl” I was romantically interested in…but that is a story for another time.

Many city agencies were represented in the parade, including Animal Services, who had some amusing banners:

In all, a proud day for San Francisco and for California. And with the continued wildfires and other problems, we need something to celebrate.


Weekend Cat Blogging: Playfulness

A moment of play at CatSynth HQ:

This orange mouse is currently one of Luna’s favorite toys:

Often, it ends up knocked off the balcony to the floor below.

Indeed, we have a favorite game now where I throw toys, such as balls or mice, up onto the balcony and Luna knocks them off.

Weekend Cat Blogging #160 is being hosted at Stellaluna. Watch hamsters and cats playing together.

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos is being hosted this weekend at Pet’s Garden Blog

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at [url=http://2tabbys.blogspot.com/]Victor Tabbycat’s.

And of course the Friday Ark #197 is at the modulator.


Math Cats

In search of my next mathematics topics, I stumbled upon the Math Cats, a site that uses cats to explore a variety of mathematical topics, from the very basic to the more esoteric. The emphasis is really on “exploration” rather than a series of lessons or tutorials, though there is a collection of resources for teachers and parents. Beyond the basics, the attic is full of facts and definitions, some of which are quite sophisticated (for example, do you remember exactly what a geodesic is, and who doesn’t want to forget avoirdupois weights). Sadly, I could not make the “Animal Math” link work. I was particularly fond of the virtual mobile, which also introduces viewers to the work of Alexander Calder. There is also a visit to a more recent geometric artist George Hart. Indeed his art studio looks a bit like the music studio here at CatSynth HQ, festooned with stuffed cats.

Among the shapes the Hart uses in his work are the regular polyhedra, but also Archimedean solids, such as the truncated icosohedron, or “buckyball.” You can see an example here, as well as some of the more esoteric shapes.

This of course ties into our discussion of the 13 Archimedean solids at the last Carnival of Mathematics, and we at CatSynth of course like to see our mathematical discussions interconnect.

And who can go wrong with the intersection of cats, mathematics and art?