CATSYNTH

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Category: Cats

  • Upcoming Photo Show

    As casually mentioned on a recent post, I have an photo show coming up next week here in San Francisco. Here is the formal info:

    Tuesday, March 22 at 4:00pm – April 22 at 1:00pm
    Philz Coffee
    4023 18th St
    San Francisco, CA

    Solo show of photographs by Amar Chaudhary on the wall of Philz Coffee in the Castro. The theme centers on graffiti and urban scenes from the Bay Area, New York and Shanghai.

    The photos go up on Tuesday March 22. No formal opening per se, but I do expect to be there in the afternoon and evening if you’d like to drop by!

    They will remain up for about the month during regular business hours thereafter (6AM-8:30PM weekdays, 7AM-8:30PM weekends).

    It’s going to be relatively small, about 8 pieces.  At least half of them have appeared in small form on this site over the past couple of years.

  • A bit of good news: Japan’s “Cat Island”

    Last weekend we mentioned Tashirojima, Japan’s “Cat Island”. The island is populated by perhaps thousands of cats and 100 or so elderly human residents. The fear at first was that the island, right near the epicenter of the earthquake and tsunami, was lost. This week, we saw this article Discovery News reporting that the island survived!

    Tashirojima, otherwise known as Japan’s “Cat Island” due to its numerous feline inhabitants, is intact after the recent devastating 9-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami, according to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. However, like so many others devastated by the disaster, both the human and feline residents of the island need help.

    They quote the group Japan Earthquake Animal Relief, which reported the news on their Facebook page:

    Just to give everyone an update on Tashirojima, the cat island. The people and cats are safe but short of food. A volunteer looked into transporting food by boat, but there is too much debris in the water. A helicopter is the only way. The army will probably get a helicopter ready soon so we are looking into the possibility of asking them to take cat food too.

    Additional information via this blog post, along with some beautiful photos.

    It is a rare bit of good news in a disaster that seems to be getting worse every day, especially now with the nuclear disaster. It could be another round of danger for this island and extraordinary number of people in coming days.

    You can support the efforts of Japan Earthquake Animal Relief and see more information on Facebook. They are a coalition of at least two animal-relief organizations working together. World Vets also has a fund for disaster relief in Japan.

    I didn’t think it would be possible to make this a “Cat and Synthesizer” post, but I did read via matrixsynth, that is matching donations to SXSW’s Japan relief fund with subscriptions. (Puremagnetik is a subscription service for sound/instrument packs for use with Ableton Live! and other software environments.)

  • CatSynth pic: Mister Kitty and DSI Tempest

    Mister Kitty returns, this time with a Dave Smith Instruments Tempest drum machine!

    Submitted by prophei.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging 301: A Sad Day

    March 11 was a sad day.

    It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our friend Mickey.

    As mentioned earlier this week, he fell very ill and passed away on Friday. He (through his mom) first visited us in late 2007, and they have been regulars on our site ever since, as likely to comment on experimental music shows and photography as Luna’s feline antics. And in turn, we enjoyed getting to know them better through their site. Our thoughts go out to Mom Nancy and the rest of the family today.

    We have been closely following the tragic events in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami. Images such as these are heartbreaking, and our thoughts are with the people of Japan right now. While every year brings multiple huge disasters, when it happens somewhere you have visited or affects people you know, it hits harder.

    Our friends at Cats of Wildcat Woods have compiled a list of relief organizations. The Red Cross is always a good place to start, and now you can donate via text messages.

    There is no information currently on Tashirojima, or “Cat Island”, which is off the eastern coast of Japan in Miyagi Prefecture, near epicenter of the earthquake and tsunami, but the fear is that the island was lost.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #301 is hosted by Pam at Sidewalk Shoes.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Two Little Cavaliers.

    And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • CatSynth pic: Yamaha CS 10 Synthesizer

    Via matrixsynth.

  • Thoughts for Mickey

    We are posting this for our friend Mickey. He and his mom (who famously feeds him one blade of grass at a time) are regular visitors to this site and have been very supportive over the past couple of years.  Mickey’s health has taken a serious turn for the worse in recent days.   He and and is family are in our thoughts.

  • IWW General Strike Poster

    Saw this poster on BoingBoing:

    Hugh Electronic sez, “The I.W.W. hired Eric Drooker to design posters for a general strike which he is told, now appears imminent in Wisconsin. The Industrial Workers of the World asked him to design versions in Spanish and Arabic, for international solidarity.”

    I doubt that general strike is actually imminent in Wisconsin, but one has to admire that poster. Of course, we love black cats, and black and red is great color combination.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging #300: Return to Normal

    Luna looks on at the jumble of furniture, on which the dotara is sitting post performance.  I actually like the geometric formation of the tables pushed together during the construction, and the contrast of the curved musical instrument.

    The big concert is now over and done. It mostly went quite beautifully, except for one technical flaw that disrupted the final piece (more on this in a later post).  The construction is also now done.  So we are looking forward to life at home returning to normal.

    We now have the time and opportunity to put the apartment back together, and do those mundane but necessarily things that make up normal life. Oh, and to relax and enjoy a little down time.  At least until the next big creative project begins.  I think we will be starting on Tuesday.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #300 is hosted by Mog and Meowza at Mind of Mog. Like us, they seem a bit dazed.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted tomorrow by Nikita and Elivra at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

    And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • CatSynth video: Cats hip-hop jam

    From alkexinstruments on YouTube, via matrixsynth:

    “Mr Kitty and Bessie Jamming on the Alkex instruments minimoog midi controller. Get yours at www.alkex.com”

  • Some preparation for March 4 concert

    A late evening preparing for the upcoming Regents’ Lecture concert, with an assist from Luna:

    Here Luna poses with TouchOSC on the iPad, which is becoming one of the main control surfaces I will be using to control Open Sound World.  Last night I was building the synthesis infrastructure for the new piece, a combination of drum sampling and spatialized additive synthesis – at least four separate additive synthesis models that are algorithmically generated based on input from the iPad.  Against this will be electronic drum sounds and an Afro-Cuban rhythm detail.  I really won’t know the exact shape of this piece until I work with CNMAT’s speaker array.

    I also learned from the Saturday’s performance in Oakland that I will need to refine the control on TouchOSC for the new implementation of my piece Charmer:Firmament.  It was very well received, with descriptions like “beautiful” and “meditative”, but it was difficult to control compared to the Wacom graphics tablet.  I will try a different mix of controls on the iPad to see if it works better.