From widtara on YouTube:
“Adjusted to lower pitch than the first one.”
There are three cats in the video, but readers are forewarned that the sound can be a little challenging to take for the full length of time.
The “first one” actually appeared here back in 2009.
Here is another classic cat-playing-theremin video. Indeed, a reader on twitter reminded me about this video and thus led to the theme of today’s post.
In addition to fireworks, barbecues and the occasional embarrassing musical tribute, Independence Day is an opportunity to reflect on living in one of the world’s most unusual countries, even as it sometimes tries to pretend that it is a normal country. The latter comes out the imagery one sees today, with celebrations and streets lined with flags, and people and places that we try to think of as representative of the term “American”. Here I look some images and ideas from my personal and family history that are part of “American” that most readers, both in the U.S. and beyond, would not usually associate with the typical 4th of July.
You likely will not see the tenement buildings of New York’s Lower East Side, where half of my ancestors, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe (primarily Austria as well as Russia) settled at the beginning of the 20th century.
My mother’s family later settled in the central part of the Bronx – richly vital neighborhoods at the time that would later be synonymous with controversial building and demolition projects (think of the Cross Bronx Expressway) and still later with urban blight and decay.
It’s even less likely that you will see the countryside of Uttar Pradesh in India, with the other half of my ancestors came from.
My father from this part of India came to study in Minnesota, and numerous other relatives have settled in various towns and suburbs arounds the U.S over the years. Indeed, the equivalent image to the New York City tenement builds for the Indian side of my family might as well be the New Jersey Turnpike, another image you are unlikely to see in today’s celebrations, but is quintessentially American.
These are the states that I can think of immediately where relatives either currently reside or did so in the recent past:
New York
New Jersey
California
Maryland
Virginia
Georgia
Florida
Minnesota
Illinois
Wisconsin
Michigan
District of Columbia (Washington, DC)
Arizona
Texas
Indiana
Pennsylvania
Connecticut
Hawai’i
The Hawaii story is fun, actually. As it was related to me by a friend and former colleague who is from Hawai’i, he was playing with his band and a middle-aged man from New York approached them – ultimately, this led to his reciting his somewhat edgy poetry with their music in the background. It turns out that the poet is my cousin – our names are quite different, so there is no way my friend would have made the connection if I had not told him (the surprised reaction was priceless).
The family story is really a complex interplay not only of ancestral origins which get much of the attention, but of class, religious practice, geographical preferences, and the changes people experience even within a single lifetime. This complexity is another feature of American culture and history that is often hidden from our usual imagery – even the positive imagery that celebrates diversity, immigration and multiculturalism leaves out the complexity. And it is hard to think of life here without it – the idea of a homogeneous heritage in a single hometown with people who look and sound like each other seems…well, foreign.
So where does that leave things for me, now, in this story? Well, it’s complex as well. I find myself coming full circle to my Jewish ancestors in the Lower East Side – perhaps I may even live there sometime in the future. Some of my most experimental music pieces include instruments and idioms from Indian music. Some things have little to do with my ancestry, jazz which I have been returning to in the last year as a musical practice, the bits of East Asian culture I picked in both Asia and California, are all part of the mix. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that I might find myself in Hawai’i sometime doing improvised music and poetry. And like others, I am figuring out how to take all of these things make something of it in what seem to be rather challenging times. In the end, there is no conclusion, on the personal, family or national narratives – and it seems appropriate that way.
There is rarely a moment that we at CatSynth aren’t busy, thus it is an appropriate theme for this week’s combined Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt. Even going into the extended holiday weekend.
Luna poses once again with the iPad, but the app on display isn’t as exciting as the synthesizers and music controllers we usually show. It’s Toodledo, the cloud-based todo-list service that I use on iPhone/iPad and the web in a valiant attempt to keep ahead of the extreme busy-ness of the past two years. Not very exciting, but we do our best to make it at least look pretty in photos.
For those who obsessively try to do such things, the task being shown on these photos (strategically distorted via the Hipstamatic) is a daily reminder to brush Luna. There is also a weekly task for Weekend Cat Blogging. Many of the tasks on the list are about getting in touch with friends and professional contacts. I do need to catch up on those! On that note, we have been a bit remiss in visiting our WCB friends. We will try to do so this time.
Weekend Cat Blogging #317 is hosted by our friends Kashim, Othello and Salome. Even though they live in Vienna they honor us with a Fourth of July theme.
Carnival of the Cats will be up this Monday (rather than the usual Sunday) in honor of the Fourth of July as well, hosted by Nikita and Elvira at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.
Photo Hunt #272 is hosted by tnchick. This week’s theme is BUSY.
And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.
Every so often we like to have fun with the cities and towns that appear in our Facebook Insights and Google Analytics. One town that has been appearing prominently in our Facebook page stats recently is Livingston. However, we have no idea which place called “Livingston” this actually is, so we will explore a few possibilities.
Based on the demographics of our readers and Facebook fans, it’s probably in the U.S., and it is most likely Livingston, NJ, a town east of Newark along I-280, not far from New York City.
Livingston is a medium-sized suburban town. Though its history dates back a long time (about 300 years), it was relatively sparse until automobiles and highways arrived in the 1920s. Notably, it is named for William Livingston, the first Governor of New Jersey. It is also near the Riker Hill fossil site, also known as Walter Kidde Dinosaur Park, a major paleontological site – I remember hearing about the “major dinosaur fossil site in New Jersey” a few times while growing up across the river in New York.
It could be Livingston, California, a town along the Highway 99 corridor in the Central Valley, between Modesto and Merced.
Like much of this part of the Central Valley, it is primarily an agricultural town.
It could also be Livingston, Montana, a picturesque town along I-90 and US 191 north of Yellowstone National Park.
[Image by Jonathan Haeber (http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/) via Wikimedia Commons. Click image to enlarge.]
It has that classic “old US downtown” look with mountain ranges in the background. It also seems like a relatively prosperous town (much of its economy is related to tourism). As of this writing, however, it sounds like they are at the edge of this year’s intense flooding along rivers in the U.S. and the Yellowstone River is again above flood stage as of the writing of this article. We hope they stay safe and dry! In late May, flooding on the Yellowstone River closed parts of I-90 near Livingston.
Livingston, NY is in the Hudson Valley and quite a ways north of New York City. It is considerably smaller than its counterparts in New Jersey, California and Montana.
In the strange way that I remember such things, I am pretty sure I have been through the junction of US 9, NY 9H and NY 82 (and NY 23).
Smaller yet is Livingston, Louisiana.
It is along I-12 east of Baton Rouge. I mention it because it has a gravitational wave observatory. That is cool. Gravitational waves are theoretical ripples in the curvature of spacetime that propagate as a wave – a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity but never directly detected.
From Appliancide (via matrixsynth).
More info via this link.
“Like most modular synthesizer users and builders, I suffer from Serge envy. Thankfully for all of us, Ken Stone licensed some of Serge’s designs to sell as CGS PCBs.
Here is my first module using these Serge designs”
The cat in the first photo is the “project supervisor.”
As another feline reference, “CGS” is “Cat Girl Synth”.
From softestthing on flickr:
Perhaps a little bit of a stretch – a Fender Rhodes technically isn’t a synth nor is the drawing technically a cat – but I quite like this image. (And I am a big Rhodes fan.)
June began with a particularly strong electroacoustic and noise performance at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco with Myrmyr and Tiny Owl.
Myrmyr is the electroacoustic duo of Agnes Szelag and Marielle Jakobsons, and their performance was in anticipation of the release of their new album Fire Star. Their work incorporates strings (in this case, electric violin and cello along with other instruments) and advanced electronics. I have heard and reviewed Myrmyr before, but this set was perhaps the most beautiful I have heard from them. Set amongst a dizzying array of electronics and wires, it opened with a series of struck string sounds that invoked the sounds of strings in South Asian or East Asian music. Szelag’s voice emerged over a series of rich arpeggios and became part of the texture via live looping. The complex harmony resolved to a long major-seventh chord, after which the strings became harsher and more percussive. Amidst pitch and delay effects, a plucked cello entered in counterpoint to the voice and other instruments. The overall effect was quite tonal and dream-like, and gave me the impression of glass objects.
[Myrmyr. Photo by Michael Zelner.]
The next piece started with strings, both plucked and tapped and used as a live-looping source. A rhythmic pattern formed from the loops, which built up in complexity and volume with lots of distortion. Over time, the distorted sounds became clearer and more ethereal as the strings cut out and left only the bells and electronic effects. These were in turn displaced by more liquidy sounds and the return of cello and violin, this time bowed. The piece featured interesting harmonies and vocals.
The final piece was from the soon-to-be released album. It became with a drone, with harmonium sounds and voice building up into a rich texture. As they fade out, a plucked string instrument (possibly guzheng after reviewing Myrmyr’s website) enters on a minor pattern. The sound was accompanied by bells and distortion effects. The music built up to a big recognizable chord that was unresolved. Another build-up followed, this time with voice that turned into a rich harmony with a particularly plaintive violin line.
[Tiny Owl. Photo by Michael Zelner.]
Myrmyr was followed by Tiny Owl, a band consisting of Matt Davignon (drum machines and synthesizers), Lance Grabmiller (computer and synthesizers), Suki O’Kane (percussion), and Sebastian Krawczuk (double bass and objects). Their performance consisted of one long constantly evolving piece. It opened with an impromptu round of “Happy Birthday” for Matt Davignon (it was indeed his birthday) that appropriately elided to a series of glitchy noise sounds. Soon the bass drum and cymbals and string bass entered. The overall undulating timbre seemed very insect-like, but there also bits of melody that came and went in opposition to the overall swells and dips in the sound. One gesture that I particularly liked involved drum machine “gurgling” set against bass. The gurgling sounds, which formed a complex timbre, were gradually slowed down to the point where it became a series of rhythmic elements – moments like this always make me think of Stockhausen’s Kontakte II. Eventually, they merged back into the overall ambient sound. Over time, the overall texture became busier, but also more drone like, with high pitches and even some screeches eventually emerging. Pitched noises moving up and down like factory machinery were set against a drum rhythm reminiscent of “Wipe Out” (that very insistent sixteenth-note rhythm that every young percussionist attempts to play). As the percussion (drums and objects) grew more rich, so the electronics became more intense with bursts of machine noise and longer notes with strange harmonics. The section of louder sound and more complex rhythm grew to a climactic point and suddenly faded out with just a low rumble and a sparse texture of percussive sounds. This part of the performance was drier, with more punctuated elements and scratching sounds. During a gentle rise in pitch and volume near the end of the performance, the sound seemed to merge with a passing siren on Market Street. (It wouldn’t be a Luggage Store Gallery performance without at least one siren incorporated into the music.)
The show concluded with both groups uniting for short jam. It was fun to hear the combined sounds: noise drones punctuated by strings, and at least one more siren from the street.
This weekend we are once again combining Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt. The theme is cards, and we start with an unexpected take on the theme:
I recently came across these older “Smart Media” data cards while cleaning. They’re bigger (and a bit more interesting to photograph) than the current SD cards my current cameras and other devices use, but they are essentially useless. I do have a reader that can read/write them, but no particular reason to do so. Anyone have any ideas?
Here is Luna with some of her past birthday cards:
I believe they are from 2010 and 2007. It’s not Luna’s birthday, but the cards are out because of the recent cleaning (similar to the memory cards).
Weekend Cat Blogging #316 is hosted by pam at Pam’s Sidewalk Shoes.
Photo Hunt #271 is hosted by tnchick. The theme this week is cards.
The Carnival of the Cats will be up tomorrow at When Cats Attack!
And the Friday Ark is at the modulator
