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Farewell to 2015: Annus Asper

[Click to enlarge.]

2015 was a rough year. There is no other way to put it. We looked over the precipice at some of the worst possibilities becoming reality. But we came through. Luna stared down an extremely dire diagnosis and is once again thriving. For that I am truly grateful. I rebounded strongly from my own health issues as well. And there were many other beautiful moments this year, a few of which are included in our graphic.

This was a year of many endings as well, most notably in the personal and musical domains. But new doors are opening for 2016 as a result, and there are some new projects and opportunities for which I am excited. 2015 left a lot of questions unanswered, some of which are also depicted in the graphic and some of which are beyond the scope of this site.

So we are excited for 2016, but also extremely anxious and apprehensive. There are more big challenges coming up; and if I have learned anything, it is that I have no idea how things will ultimately turn out. It’s just a matter of doing things one at a time incrementally – but also continuing even more than ever to speak my truths and accept the risks and consequences that come with doing so.

Meanwhile, we at CatSynth will continue to do what we do here, bring music, art, culture and cats to the world. Thank you for all your support in 2015, and especially all your support for Luna and me. We are truly humbled and look forward to sharing this new year whatever it brings.

Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015)

We lost another of our art heroes yesterday. Ellsworth Kelly, known for his iconic works composed of color fields, passed away.

The above photo features the catalog from his large-scale solo show at SFMOMA in 2002-2003. The exhibition was a bright spot, both aesthetically and emotionally, in an otherwise depressing period of time and made quite an impression. I kept intersecting with his work during my numerous art adventures in California. His paintings featured large color fields, sometimes combined together into a single whole, while other times separated, as in Blue Green Black Red (1996) on display as part of the Fisher Collection at SFMOMA. I had the opportunity to see a large retrospective of his prints and paintings at LACMA in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. This, too, was revelatory as it showed other aspects of his work, including black-and-white pieces and connections of his abstract style to nature.

It is still, however, the color fields that I most instantly recognized as his.

Kelly himself resisted being described as “abstract” or “minimal” or any other label that intersected with his career. But I think this statement quoted in the New York Times obituary describes his art very well, and is a fitting conclusion.

“My paintings don’t represent objects,” he said in 1996. “They are objects themselves and fragmented perceptions of things.”

San Francisco SPCA Holiday Windows

One of our favorite holiday traditions in San Francisco continues to be the holiday windows at Macy’s flagship store on Union Square featuring adoptable pets from the SF SPCA. It’s hard not to melt a bit looking at the pets in the windows, located at the corner of Stockton and O’Farrell, waiting for their new homes.

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Of course, the cats were mostly doing what cats do best.

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I believe this trio are litter mates.

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All of the animals are available for adoption, and one can schedule visit time to meet them just as one would at the main SF SPCA shelter. At the time I visited, there were only kittens. I do hope to see more adult cats, who often have a tougher time getting adopted. When I turned back to photograph on adorable black kitten, her space had a sign saying she was taking a break to visit with a potential family. I certainly hope it worked out for her.

You can find out more about the SF SPCA / Macy’s Holiday Windows at this site, including information on visiting and donating. I’m sure I’ll be back at least once before it closes on January 3.

Wordless Wednesday: Support Arts & Culture in SF

WHITEOUT

CatSynth: The App! 2.0 for iOS is released!

We at CatSynth are excited to announce the release of the 2.0 version of our iOS app knows as CatSynth: The App!. It has a redesigned modernist interface for browsing and reading articles. And the biggest change is that you can now record and share performances with the built-in Mystery Synths!

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If you already have the app (thanks!), we strongly recommend that you update to the new version. If not, we encourage you to give it a try. And for our friends on Android, we hope to have a 2.x version in the not-too-distant future.

Fun with Stats: Countries that still have Monarchies

On this Independence Day here in the U.S., a country which has been a continuous republic for over 200 years, we thought it would fun to look at the countries that still have monarchies in 2015. Most are constitutional monarchies with a limited or ceremonial role, but it still begs the question of why bother with such an expensive and anachronistic institution?

Brunei	Absolute monarchy
Oman	Absolute monarchy
Qatar	Absolute monarchy
Saudi Arabia	Absolute monarchy
Swaziland	Absolute monarchy
Vatican City	Absolute monarchy
Andorra	Constitutional monarchy
Antigua and Barbuda	Constitutional monarchy
Australia	Constitutional monarchy
The Bahamas	Constitutional monarchy
Bahrain	Constitutional monarchy
Barbados	Constitutional monarchy
Belgium	Constitutional monarchy
Belize	Constitutional monarchy
Bhutan	Constitutional monarchy
Cambodia	Constitutional monarchy
Canada	Constitutional monarchy
Denmark	Constitutional monarchy
Grenada	Constitutional monarchy
Jamaica	Constitutional monarchy
Japan	Constitutional monarchy
Jordan	Constitutional monarchy
Kuwait	Constitutional monarchy
Lesotho	Constitutional monarchy
Liechtenstein	Constitutional monarchy
Luxembourg	Constitutional monarchy
Malaysia	Constitutional monarchy
Monaco	Constitutional monarchy
Morocco	Constitutional monarchy
Netherlands	Constitutional monarchy
New Zealand	Constitutional monarchy
Norway	Constitutional monarchy
Papua New Guinea	Constitutional monarchy
Saint Kitts and Nevis	Constitutional monarchy
Saint Lucia	Constitutional monarchy
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Constitutional monarchy
Solomon Islands	Constitutional monarchy
Spain	Constitutional monarchy
Sweden	Constitutional monarchy
Tonga	Constitutional monarchy
Tuvalu	Constitutional monarchy
United Arab Emirates	Constitutional monarchy
United Kingdom	Constitutional monarchy

Beyond actual countries, monarchies and hereditary rulers continue to be a fixture in the fantasy-novel genre, many of which are directly influences by Tolkein’s rather conservative Middle Earth. Most perplexing of all, however, is the obsession of some Americans with British royalty, the dynasty of the country we declared independence from 239 years ago today.

A Great Day! #LoveWins

The map is a bit misleading, because it also should include Alaska, Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories. But this is a great day no matter how one looks at it. Today’s Supreme Court decision ends this particular battle and its sometimes baffling legal opposition once and for all.

The hashtag #LoveWins does feel like a bit of a cop-out in terms of the profundity of this moment. Some of the fears of the opposition are what make it momentous – we stared down traditional mores and prejudices and powerful social and religious institutions and won! But at the same time the decision and result just affirms them. Anyone who has been to a same sex wedding (at least in the U.S.) knows that it differs not at all from the variety of customs in opposite-sex weddings.

The already famous lines from today’s ruling:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family…In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

As this coincides with Pride weekend, there are going to be crowds at this famous corner of Castro and Market Streets with The Flag flies. I choose to contemplate it quietly with a photo from last week.

This was never a self-serving fight – all my relationships with marriage potential have been opposite-sex relationships – but it has nonetheless been a deeply personal one since it entered my consciousness almost 25 years ago. Now the perhaps even tougher work of getting job and health non-discrimination begins. This includes the needs of transgender folks (something which seems to at times splinter the LGBTQ movement into separate letters), and going up against the new and nasty wall of so-called “religious freedom” in getting employment protection. And there is a whole hemisphere of the planet where sexual minorities have no protections and face mortal danger.

There will also be time to enjoy the shadenfreude of the opposition on today’s ruling. But for today, we can be a little sentimental and simply say that #LoveWins.

Ornette Coleman at 85: Sleep Talk

This evening we at CatSynth would like to pay tribute to one of our musical heroes who is still alive and well and still swinging, Ornette Coleman. Known for his avant-garde jazz and free improvisation explorations, I am particularly taken with his funk/disco inflused 1979 album Of Human Feelings. As a tribute for his 85th birthday, here is that album.

RIP Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)

Not surprisingly, we at CatSynth have been huge Star Trek fans, approaching the level of household religion. So we were very saddened to read about the passing of Leonard Nimoy today. His character Spock was a great hero, very distinctive, iconic and someone with whom I could empathize. But I also interested in Nimoy’s work as an accomplished art photographer, especially his 2002 book Shekhina; and his dramatic readings on Selected Shorts and elsewhere – he certainly had quite the voice. After the reading the announcement in the New York Times, I was also fascinated to learn more about his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and rediscovery of his heritage. I hope to read more about this.

Je Suis Charlie

Je Suis Charlie!