catsynth pic: Gingerbread

MIT Media Lab assistant professor Dr. Joseph A. Paradiso includes the above photo of his old Himalayan cat Gingerbread atop a synthesizer cabinet as part of his web page documenting his modular synthesizer. His collection of modules and writings about synthesizers are quite impresesive, and I've spent a bit of time looking through them. That is one of the fun things about looking for these pictures of cats and synths: it often leads to something more interesting.

Dr. Paradiso's synthesizer has received note in Keyboard magazine, and he had a synth rig featured at the 2004 PrixArs Electronic festival. He has some great photos of synth rigs from the 1970's as well.

Miami Schools Try to Ban Cuba Book

From NPR radio:

Morning Edition, August 23, 2006 · The Miami-Dade school board seeks to ban a book on Cuba, saying its portrait of life there is overly positive. A federal judge has ordered Vamos a Cuba back on school library shelves while the district fights a lawsuit aimed at keeping the book available.

I'm guessing my previous article on Cuba would get banned in Miami schools as well. It seems like the Miami Cuban-American cabal can't accept anything remotely positive about life there, and will stifle any level of dissent from the party line. Anyone still think these are the guys who will “bring democracy to Cuba”?

¡Viva la revolucion!

Worthless Kitty Redux: April 6, 2006

Excerpted from an article originally posted elsewhere on April 6, 2006:

I was anticipating being a wreck tonight, but actually I'm somewhere between at peace and numb. Having a glass of wine, listening to one of my favorite nighttime CDs (Xenakis Electronic Music from the 50s and 60s). Luna must be somewhere nearby, but she's earned a little time to herself after cuddling and purring w/ me for well over an hour straight. She's really good that way.

I was looking out my bedroom window earlier – mostly dark, except for the nighttime glow off the sides of the houses and buildings and bright spot of neon and fluorescent lighting from the convenience store nestled in the middle of them. For a moment, it seemed like I was living somewhere on the edge of a large city (as opposed to simply “on the edge”).

In contrast, on this night I'm pretty relaxed and content, and instead of Xenakis I'm listening to the soothing sounds of the dishwasher.

Luna joins Weekend Cat Blogging…

at least if I'm not too late already. Weekend Cat Blogging, or WCB, is being hosted this week by Heather along with her adorable cats Pause and Carmel. Hopefully, I get this post in time. If not, it's a good excuse to post a recent action shot of Luna enjoying a new gift from a friend:

I have also added a separate category for Luna alongside the existing cats category for those who want to see more of her and less of the other stuff…

Little Sound Dj and "lo-fi" synthesis

I came across some interesting resources while visiting Ouroboros Complex the other day, in particular references to lo-fi synthesizers for small devices, such as Nanoloop for the GameBoy. Unfortunately, there was no free demo that I could run on my VisualBoyAdvance emulator, but I did find another synthesizer/sequencer that did: Little Sound Dj. It is set up like an old-style tracker application:

One can assign notes within a phrase (or larger structures called songs and chains) to various instruments. The instruments can be pulse tones, noise, built-in drumkits (emulating several classic lo-fi drum machines like Roland TR and even a “drumulator”), and custom waves that you can hand edit:

Although it is cute and fun to play around and see what one can do with such a limited but nonetheless interesting pallette, I think it falls short for actual musical work because of the interface and lack of interoperability with my other software and hardware instruments. Much of the lo-fi synthesis can be easily accomplished with OSW (check out the lo-fi and swiss_cheese tutorials) or several freely-available VST isntruments – and Ableton Live! remains a much more usable system for quick real-time pattern editing. I will be looking into some other lo-fi synthesizer plug-ins or algorithms to use in OSW and post more in a future article…

Fun with stats: 10 most rated articles

Here are the ten highest-rated posts based on 90 ratings as of this morning:

the inaugural post (5.00).
moring walk and sea lion (4.33).
In memoriam, Ruth Schonthal (1924-2006), composer and teacher (4.33).
DSI Evolver legal again in Kansas public schools (4.00).
getting ready for tomorrow's performance, part 1 (4.00).
Cat Welfare Society of Israel (4.00).
fun with Emulator X and filter response (3.83).
Luna and table in black and white (3.50).
Green Kitties (3.29).
shades of luna (3.17).

No one has left any comments, so I'm not entirely sure how to interpret any of this. But I'm pretty sure this post will get a very low rating…

Actual Cat Synth

jfm3 of Ouroboros Complex posts about as literal a “CatSynth” pic as you can get, featuring his cat Kona and accoutrements as part of his rig. Cat aside, the rig and website include a wealth of personal experiences with analog synthesizer hacking as well as circuit bending (note the mod'ed Speak&Spell). Please give jfm3 and Kona a “catsynth welcome” by visiting their site.

Cuba sí

I am inspried to write about Cuba and Castro amid the recent news of Fidel Castro's illness (around the time of his 80th birthday), the manufactured uncertainty about the future of Cuba, and spending part of last night on the couch w/ a few glasses of wine listening to a CD I got while visiting the island in 2001 – actually, it's not the CD I bought in Havana, but a replacement I ordered after my ex lost the original, but I digress. Last week, I posted the following message on the blog of the radio program OpenSource after host Christopher Lydon stuck up for Castro and Cuba when none of his guests would:

“I just heard Mr. Lydon?s experience in Cuba – and I have to say it reflected my own experiences visiting Cuba in 2001 – twice actually, once in June and once in September (shortly after 9/11). I?m not going to deny there?s a certain level of fear and police state in the air, but Havana had a great vibe w/ music and people and drink. Especially visiting after 9/11 there was something wonderful about the alternative Cuba and Castro provided of a romantic, rebellious, joy)ous culture in opposition to some of the most ridiculous U.S. policies (e.g., the embargo). Indeed, many of the socialist slogans plastered everywhere had a quaint quality to them, like the cars. And the health did seem impressive in several ways, for a ?third world? country everyone had really good teeth.”

Certainly, Cuba has its problems economically and politically, and one could argue that the socialist government has outlived its usefulness. But I would like to take a moment to continue to defend the record of Cuba, it's people and their longtime leader. They took the initiative to kick out a corrupt system that happened to include powerful American interests, and have maintained a strong and vibrant culture. And you can't argue with those teeth.

They do not deserve to be the victims of one our harsher long-standing policies, the Cuban embargo, especially as it seems its only real supporters are the exiles in Florida and a few Cold War fossils. Indeed, the U.S. and Cuba could be natural allies in culture and trade at this time – and instead we're pushing them ever closer to the real bad guys in the radical Islamic world and elsewhere for no other reason than a shared hostility towards U.S. policies. Especially visiting in the days after 9/11, the contrast between Cuba and the Taliban could not have been stronger. I wish we hadn't lost that opportunity – maybe with all the current attention, we have another chance to get it right and lift the embargo.

Green Kitties

Green kitties need green love!

This was an early rendering I created with Poser, combining cats and geometric elements into a surrealist image. It brings together my interests in cats and modernist art of the 20th century.

Lieberman deserved to lose

Time for another digression into the world of current events:


I was actually starting to feel sorry for Joe Lieberman, after all he does have a long record of service not to mention that adorable self-effacing Jewish-guy thing. But then he goes and reminds me why he deserved to lose the primary with his comments about how those who voted against him were somehow supporting the terrorists or giving them a victory. First, it was just tasteless to use the news and emergency in London and potential tragedy that way. Second, I'm sure Al Qaeda et al could care less about this particular detail of American politics in their plans. Third, if there's anything us liberal left-leaning types want to see more than fundamentalist Christian radicals go down to defeat, it's fundamentalist Islamic radicals get their “tuchuses” kicked. I also remember his rather nasty attacks on Howard Dean in 2004, trying at all costs to take not only him down but also his supporters and the strong online movement. So Lieberman should just admit that he made mistakes, alienated many of his friends and allies, and should just go with a shred of dignity instead of confirming everything his critics have said.

OK, now back to the cats and synths…