Reviews

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?


Garden of Memory 2008

I had to the opportunity to attend the Garden of Memory, a walk-thru performance to celebrate the summer solstice at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland.

The Chapel of the Chimes is a columbarium, a building dedicated to the placement of cremated remains. It is an exquisite building both in terms of shape and lighting, and thus a rather interesting place to experience late evening sunlight:

There were so many performances throughout the building that it was difficult to see them all, and we only provide a small sampling here.

Outside the chapel, I saw a performance by Jaroba that featured the gopichand, a single string instrument from India that we have mentioned on numerous occasions here at CatSynth.

Inside the chapel, performances ranged from more conventional to the more exotic. Sarah Cahill performed the music of James Tenney and others (yes, here at CatSynth James Tenney is considered “conventional”). Dan Plonsey’s Daniel Popsicle played several avant-guard jazz sets for most of the evening on the roof garden.

Edmund Campion, a former colleague of mine from CNMAT, performed with Daniel De Gruttola and John Campion, with digital piano, cello, live electronics, poetry, and a row of triangles. I was listening to hear how the triangles were being processed or used to trigger other sounds in the performance.

In the meditation chapel, Randy Porter performed a set of compositions that featured a 1940s portable electric organ, prepared guitar, and series of “brass instruments”, consisting of tubing and custom horns. The result was both musically and architecturally interesting, and seemed to “fit” into the space:

Custom instruments were in abundance, with these offerings from Walter Kitundu, including the “phonoharp” illustrated below:


[click to enlarge]

I am definitely curious to check out more of his instruments.

This installation by http://www.maggipayne.com/]Maggi Payne[/url] used one of the many fountains to control one of my favorite hardware synths, the E-MU Morpheus:


[click to enlarge]

I haven’t even plugged in the Morpheus since we moved into the new CatSynth HQ :(. Maybe this will provide some inspiration to do so.

More tubes, this time with both air and water. Krystina Bobrowski performs on special water glasses with electrical pickups, with Brenda Hutchinson (in the background) playing a large metal tube.

Brenda Hutchinson has also been involved in a project called dailybell2008, in which people observe every time the sun crosses the horizon and mark the event by ringing bells. The solstice sunset is a particular special crossing, and most everyone in attendance participated in bell ringing at 8:34 PM. Given the time and the location, it was also an occasion to remember those who have left us.

After sunset, darkness began to descend quickly and many of the chambers in the building, providing an appropriate end to the event.

In the shadow of the bridge

When nothing else is happening on a quiet weekend afternoon, I will often go for a walk through our neighborhood, South of Market (SOMA) and South Beach. Our neighborhood is in many ways more like New York than the rest of San Francisco, with its old industrial buildings, dilapidated piers on the waterfront, and new condo developments. But perhaps that adds to the sense of familiarity, and of “home”, amidst the concrete.

Our walk usually begins on Townsend Street, heading east towards the waterfront. This area is dominated by AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. But while crowds head towards the stadium in the summer, we often head in the opposite direction. There is a little park at the end of Townsend along the Embarcadero, where I often see older Eastern European folks. Across the park is the cul-de-sac that marks the end of Delancy Street, a name reminiscent of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Here I often stop at a small cafe – it has a large garden that can be enjoyed on its own or for the glimpses of the bay it affords.

There are some books I only seem to read when I’m out at places like this, rather than at home. One such book is The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption. I will stop and read a chapter while enjoying a coffee and the views. Though sometimes I opt for one of our free weekly papers instead. I like the idea of being contrary, reading esoteric books while a major sporting event is going on nearby. But in a large, cosmopolitan city, there are always people doing their own thing. One is never really alone.

Beyond the cafe is the southern portion of the Embarcadero, which contains glimpses of a seedy and crumbling past while being revitalized with the stadium and frenzied development.

Heading south along the Embarcadero, one approaches the Bay Bridge. Commercial buildings, as well as residential complexes, have sprung up in its shadow. I enjoy seeing these buildings fit comfortably beneath the bridge:

Some of them have appear older, more reminiscent of the 1970s or even earlier, while huge new high rises are going up all around them.

I then often turn back inward from the waterfront on Bryant Street. This is generally a wide street that crosses SOMA and the Mission District, but here it is a narrow alley between the steep approaches to the Bay Bridge and a residential block.

Again, the feeling is more of a residential section of New York, perhaps Riverdale in the Bronx, or the Upper West Side. Of course, the fact that this block interests Delancy Street adds to this impression.

Longtime residents and admirers of San Francisco often look down upon this area, but I find it a comforting place to walk and explore. Certainly, there is familiarity coming from New York, which has always defined “city” for me. And perhaps the sense that I am finally living the city life that I should have done long ago – I am finally home.

The narrow streets and tall buildings abut the hill and the approach to the bridge, with a complex array of staircases and ramps. I often find an excuse to climb at least one, such as this that connects the lower alley section of Bryant Street to the main section that begins on top of the hill.

At the top, one is amazingly close to the freeway and byzantine ramps that feed onto the bridge:

Heading back down the hill towards the west, one can take a detour through South Park, which has nothing to do with the popular cartoon. Instead, it is a small park surrounded by two-story residences that feels more like a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Although it is not far from the this section of freeway we featured a few weeks ago, such things seem invisible and far away. But step outside this oasis, and one is back in the “concrete jungle” and the streets that lead home.



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Gilbert and George, and the End of the Heatwave

Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to the Gilbert and George retrospective at the de Young Museum here in San Francisco. They started out as performance artists, including themselves in their work as “living sculptures,” usually well groomed and well dressed in business suits. In addition to their live performances, they also made films such as Gordon’s Makes Us Drunk (basically, the pair getting drunk on Gordon’s gin).

Their most well-known works are their photo-montages, and these made up most of the exhibition. These are large scale works (measured in meters), with photos and graphics. It seems they always include themselves somewhere within the piece, along with both Christian and sexual symbolism. Some more basic, with black-and-white photos or subtle colors, such as England, 1980, while others, such as Death, from Death Hope Life Fear, are quite garish in their colors and graphics. You can see some examples here.

Although in most of the photo-montages it is easy to pick out the pair, in a couple it was more subtle, and one can play a kind of “Where’s Waldo” game. Indeed, one of my favorites was a wall of London street names, I could not find them anywhere in it, but I know they must be there somewhere.

I actually heard about Gilbert and George first in 2004. I had begun a collaborative art project and my partner gave be a book to read about artistic collaborations, focusing on conceptual art and performance art in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was an era and style of art I often overlooked, and since then I’ve been more open to conceptual art, especially those based on words and text, but also in those that focus on the body. Needless to say, that collaborative art project never came to fruition.

The building in which the de Young Museum resides is itself a work of art. I have several pictures from past visits that will be subject of future “Wordless Wednesdays.” The architecture is characterized by grids of holes in the walls, some of which one can see through. There is also a tower with an observation deck, offering views of Golden Gate Park and the city. On this particular visit, one could see the fog rolling in from the west over the park and the outer districts:

The fog represented the end to the heatwave we experienced two weeks ago in San Francisco.

Weekend events in San Francisco (Music, Art and Cats)

Another busy weekend, especially with the number of things going on. We only have time for a partial review…

First, there a quick stop at downtown pub to see some friends/colleagues. Then a rush to BART to get across the bay to Berkeley and my old stomping ground, the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT).

I was a few minutes late, but still had plenty of time to hear Joker Neils and Gino Robair performing a improvised duet. Robair has an amazing talent for getting electronic-like sounds out of acoustic percussion instruments, and did so again on this evening. Neils was primarily using custom synthesizers, both professional instruments as well as circuit-bent toys. We have discussed circuit bending previously here at CatSynth. He brought several well-crafted examples, including Suziki Omnichords with contact-resistance interfaces; and he also brought a tremendous enthusiasm to his performance and to his discussion of circuit bending in between sets.

Also presenting was Rob Hordijk, who designs custom synthesizers (or “works of art” as he described them). Among the technologies he employed in the “Blippobox” that he presented were chaotic oscillator pairs, where two oscillators feed back into one another to create non-linear modulation, and a filter that he called the “twin peaks” filter (presumably because it has two resonant peaks).

Amy X Newburg lent her vocal and electronic-music talents during the presentation and in the second half of the show – readers may remember her from a a recent music festival that we reviewed.

I had some interesting conversions with both Amy X Newburg and Joker Neils following the performances, which is always a nice coda to a concert.

It was another exceptionally warm weekend in San Francisco (I wouldn’t mind it becoming less exceptional), so more opportunities for walking events. First off I finally made the trip to the San Francisco SPCA to inquire about volunteer opportunities and see their much touted adoption center. The cat area featured large rooms, “kitty condos” as well as comfy areas to hide – it actually seemed on par with the “cat resorts” where I looked into boarding Luna. The SPCA is actually a short work away from CatSynth HQ (well, it’s at least short from my perspective).

Another short walk in the opposite direction from CatSynth HQ led to the Yerba Buena Gallery Walk. Open studios and gallery events are pretty regular occurrences, even within walking distance. Plus, there’s often free food and drink. I didn’t see too many things that truly interested me, except for some abstract paintings at 111 Minna that I had already seen during the first Thursday earlier this month. But that doesn’t mean the afternoon wasn’t without its attractions. Some of the galleries, such as Varnish, were in very interesting spaces, such as converted industrial buildings from the early 20th century. A view of Varnish is in the photo to the left. Additionally, some of the sights on a gallery tour aren’t the works of art, but the people viewing them – and this is even more true on a warm sunny day. Finally, I did have a delightful conversation with Jesse Allen at Chandler Fine Art – his very psychedelic/natural works aren’t what I am usually drawn to, but some of them did include abstract representations of cats and other animals and one “wild cat” in particular caught my attention.

More art on Sunday, this time photography. This Sunday was “Pinhole Photography Day” (who knew?) and the RayKo Photo center featured an exhibit, demonstrations, and most notably a ride on the Bus Obscura a school bus converted into a large camera obscura.

The bus obscura toured our South-of-Market neighborhood, providing a unique view via the pinhole-camera images. Small dots of blurry light would suddenly come into focus as a sidewalk or car or storefront.

Because the image were so localized, it wasn’t always clear exactly where the bus was, though every so often a familiar landmark would emerge. The ride was accompanied by live acoustic and electronic music, adding to the experience and making it different from the regular “tours” of our neighborhood.

Last Saturday at 1510 8th Street

A quick review of a pair of performance at 1510 8th Street in the Oakland last Saturday. Yes, I’m a bit slow on posting these. Hence, the “quick” part. Plus, I didn’t bring a camera…

…which is unfortunate, because the first performance was quite visual. It featured improvised music and movement by saxophonist Phillip Greenlief and dancer Karen Fox. Greenlief’s performances are often full of motion, but the combination with Fox was something quite different, indeed her improvised movement was quite fun and provocative.

The second set was the “Kristian Aspelin Quartet” featuring (not surprisingly), Kristian Aspelin on Guitar, Damon Smith on bass and electronics, Scott Looney on piano and electronics, and Weasel Walter on drums. Although both Looney and Smith had laptop-based electronics, I probably would not characterize this performance as “electronic music.” But that’s not a criticism, I do like to hear more acoustic sets. The main word I would use to describe this set is loud, indeed one of the louder I have heard at 1510. Of course, these are were plenty of quieter moments, where I was able to hear Looney’s prepared-piano work (I would love to do more prepared piano myself). There were moments when all four members seemed to match the sound of the piano, or one of the other instruments, all bells, or all harmonics. And then there were more the loud moments.

First Thursday San Francisco

A number of downtown galleries in San Francisco stay open late on the first Thursday of the month, an event I have known about for a while (and even attended occasionally before moving to the city). Here are a few of notable items from the most recent “First Thursday”:

Now that I have large walls, I am actually looking for large abstract pieces, like the works of Ricardo Mazal at Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery. Several of these would have worked quite well. Unfortunately, these “monumental paintings” come with “monumental prices.” I’m not one to put down all high-priced art automatically, but I do sometimes find the pricing of art to be a bit of a mystery.

Sometimes abstract is “too abstract,” even for unapologetic modernists. Such were the large monochromatic and gradient works of Ruth Pastine. These could actually work quite well, on large bare white walls, but they would get lost in an environment with other activity and texture. Such stark paintings need space to themselves.

More down-to-earth are the offerings of the Hang Gallery, from which I have acquired some artworks in the past. This months show at the Annex, called “Give and Take”, was one of the better ones I have seen in the while. It featured more traditionally abstract paintings (Hang often seems to feature contemporary mixed-media works in the Annex), such as the work of Phillip Hua. Although not as large as some of the others featured in this article, I could definitely see one of Hua’s paintings hanging in CatSynth HQ. His work is an interesting mixture of abstraction and “industrial grit”, with moments that seem recognizable.

One “recognizable” image was Back Up by Carolyn Meyer, also at Hang. I’m pretty sure this is yet another view of the I-80 freeway through my neighborhood, as I have describes in previous articles such as the recent March “walking tour” and our highway underpass photographs. But what does it mean to see a similar scene so “painted”? It’s something entirely different from the photos, or real life.

And of course, we could not go without mentioning this delightful feline-themed work Spell by Ulrike Palmbach at the Stephen Wirtz Gallery:

It always comes back to cats here at CatSynth, doesn’t it?

This article was included in the April 9 Carnival of Cities.

Weekend music events

This article features a few highlights from a a very musical extended weekend – something we at CatSynth would like to see become “routine.”

We start out Thursday at the Luggage Store Gallery, where OutSound hosts a regular Thursday night series. This is the series and venue that I played with Polly Moller and Company in February, and where I will be doing a solo set in May. On this particular night, there were two rather contrasting sets that featured “guitar and electronics.”

The first set was a duo by San Diego-based Nathan Hubbard and Noah Phillips. This is one of several groups I have seen generating sound from purely from electrical noise in the devices. Essentially, this involves taking the low-volume noise present in most electronic lines and processing and amplifying it to generate sounds. The result is a mixture of standard electrical noise and hums, heavy distortion, chirps and whistles, and staccato textures. The best moments were when the noise was at low volume, subtle, and you had to specifically listen for it behind the guitar.

The second set was from Berlin-based Schriftfisch and billed as “experimental ambient noise with Julian Percy & Farahnaz Hatam.”

It is amazing how different the computer-based electronic sounds from Farahnaz Hatam were from the electrical sounds in previous set. Guitar techniques included bowing and other electrical and mechanical devices, as well as standard “rock electronic guitar”. There were many times were the guitar and laptop-electronics blended such that one could not tell who was generating which sound. At other times, it was easy to tell the guitar, even with processing, from the sounds of the laptop, which had the “computer-music” sound, liquidy, percussive and granular.

A very different night of music occurred Sunday at the Switchboard Music Festival. For one, it was in a small concert hall, rather than a gallery. And it was largely focused on “contemporary classical” music and various crossover styles rather than the more experimental music offered by the Luggage Store series.

I got to the festival around 5PM or so. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed Slydini, which includes fellow “Polly Moller & Company” member Bill Wolter and other musicians that I know. Sorry about that. I did arrive to hear one of the more “contemporary classical” sets featuring a small-ensemble composition by Jonathan Russel that was reminiscent of minimalism (i.e., John Adams, Philip Glass, etc.) and folk influences, but with a backbeat (including a few disco moments). Such pieces are a reminder that “contemporary” music is different from “modern.” Contemporary music tends to be less focused on pushing the boundaries (in sometimes harsh directions) and more into embracing (multiple) traditions. I am an unapologetic modernist, but I still enjoy hearing “contemporary” music sometimes.

This was followed by one of the more intriguing pieces of the evening, Parangal by Robin Estrada. It featured a collection of wooden instruments that were simultaneously “primitive” and “modern”, buzzers, tubes, whistles and plates.

Towards the end of the piece, the musicians handed out small stones to the audience, which of course we all instinctively knew meant that we were supposed to play. The musicians gradually fell silent as the audience’s stone rhythm emerged. Of course, someone dropped his/her stones, and others had to follow, and this became part of the performance.

The next set was a chamber-ensemble piece by Aaron Novik. I probably wasn’t the only who noticed that people were clapping between movements, which is generally a big “no no” in concert performances. But Aaron encouraged the audience to continue doing so, indeed he was quite a character with jokes in between movements. The piece did move between long tones (such as the opening with tuba and bass clarinet) and more percussive sections, and was one of several works during the evening to have a rather strong Klezmer influence.

Amy X Neuberg performed next, and her set included several pieces I recognized from the previous times I have heard her perform – I have even shared a program with her a couple of times (notably the 2003 Woodstockhausen festival). There was “My God” (is Hiding in a Foxhole), and “Life Stepped In”, among others. One thing I am always impressed by is how tight her performances are, very clean and punctuated and “professional”, given the technology she employs. The highlight of her set was the “special secret surprise appearance” (or something to that effect) by the Del Sol String Quartet. It was a great combination.

Perhaps this is a good moment to point out how hard it is to photograph performing musicians, especially if you don’t have a tripod and feel obliged not to use a flash.

The Del Sol String Quartet performed a full set, with clarinetist Jeff Anderle (one of the organizers of the festival), playing Osvaldo Gilijov’s “Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind.” This piece was very strongly influenced by Klezmer and Eastern European folk music that permeated late 19th and early 20th century classical music. Indeed, it contributed to a sense I had that this was turning into the “Klezmer Festival”, which so many pieces featuring clarinet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The next set brought “featuring clarinet” to another level, with a bass-clarinet quartet of Cornelius Boots, Jeff Anderle, Aaron Novik and Jonathan Russel:

I was very interested in the bass-clarinet quartet format, and would actually like to write a piece this or an equivalent ensemble. The instruments have a great range of tone, from traditional clarinet sound, to robust bass fifths and octaves, to harmonics and distortion reminiscent of electric guitar. The latter was very strongly on display in their cover of a tune by the Pixies. Indeed, the whole set had a very humorous feel, including a piece that moved from a more modern intro do a section that sounded like “50s rock” and got a laugh from the audience.

The final set was Gamelan X. Not exactly a traditional gamelan, but rather a mixture of gamelan instruments, electronics, drums and saxophone:

And their music had a strong jazz/funk feel, mixing gamelan percussion and the easy-to-recognize sounds of a Nord Lead (well, easy to recognize for someone who has a website about electronic music). Here we see the reyong players “getting down” with some serious choreography:

So in the end there was more variety in the festival that just “contemporary classical.”

I could have actually made it a clean sweep this weekend with music events – I did have more personal events going on Friday and Saturday. However, even those were musical, but that is a topic for another time…

This post was included in the April 2 edition of the Carnival of Cities at Perceptive Travel Blog.

Carnival of the Cities, March 12 Edition

Something new for us at CatSynth: we are hosting the March 12, 2008 edition of Carnival of Cities. We have been participating recently with our posts on art and photographs from our new neighborhood, so we are happy to be hosting this week.

We start off in our home city, San Francisco, where CalebL presents Use your Useless Knowledge posted at City on a Dime.

Kara Williams presents The Arts in New Orleans – Part I posted at Traveling Mamas, saying, “Beth Blair, DesertMama, wrote this post after she visited New Orleans last week!” I recall enjoying some of the artistic opportunities in New Orleans when I visited in 2006 (a little over a year after Katrina), but I did not see the Ogden museum. Sounds like the atrium is itself worth a visit.

Mary Jo Manzanares presents This Seattle Bar Will Suit You to a Tea posted at The Seattle Traveler, saying, “A hot “cuppa” and free wi-fi, what more could you want?” She makes a good point.

Amanda Milne presents a travelog from Orlando, pretty much everything except for a certain resort with a mouse. Posted at Value For Your Life.

In honor of Tavern Day,Jul presents a little post about drinking in Munich posted at Europe String. “There?s drinking in Munich??

Marsha Takeda-Morrison presents American Idol: Welcome to Hollywood, Dawg! posted at Kango Blog, saying, “You know the part where Randy shouts out, ?Welcome to Hollywood, dawg?? Well they actually do come to Hollywood, believe it or not. So if you’re thinking of coming to L.A. to scope out a live taping, read this first…”

One of the great things about hosting a carnival is finding articles like this next one. Heatheronhertravels presents Graffiti tourism in Bristol posted at Heather on her travels, saying, “Take a look at the street-art explosion that’s happening in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol, UK. Every builder’s hoarding has become an opportunity for artistic expression and the residents and shop-keepers are getting in on the act. You can see the piece by famous Bristol born street artist Banksy too.” Do check it out. The artworks, both on the street and in the galleries, are at least as good as some of what I have seen recently in New York and San Francisco. I would love to check this out, if I ever found myself in Bristol.

Karen Bryan presents Free Berlin walking tours posted at Europe A La Carte Blog. Like Karen, I generally prefer to go at my own pace around a city. And that is what I did when visiting Berlin. However, a guide at specific locations like the Holocaust Memorial (illustrated in the post) would have been good.

Thursday Thirteen meets Carnival of the Cities, as
Amy @ The Q Family presents 13 Things to do in or around Atlanta posted at The Q Family Adventure. Looks like a decent list to keep in mind, especially if you find yourself in Atlanta and get tired of family or your business conference (and admit it, we all do).

Jon Rochetti presents The New Newseum Opens April 11th posted at The DC Traveler ? Washington DC travel & tourism information, saying, “The new 250,000-square-foot, seven-level museum dedicated to news and the press, covers five centuries of news, news history and reporting with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.”

Another great find in this weeks carnival. I am a Frank Lloyd Wright fan, but I don’t think I have ever seen one of homes photographed in the snow before.
Machione presents A Good Day To Shoot Frank Lloyd Wright In Canton posted at The Lives and Times… of Anthony McCune, saying, “There aren’t many towns the size of Canton with three Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes.” Of course, Canton, like much of Ohio, has received record snowfall this March. The dark and spare linear forms of Wright’s architecture are a great contrast to the bare trees and snow.

Well, that concludes this edition. If you would like to participate in the the next edition, submit your blog article
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our

blog carnival index page.

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