NYC

"Trailer" for Obama NYC Rally

Watch this “movie trailer” for Barack Obama’s rally last week in New York:

The rally may have come and gone, but the video is still quite funny, as the viewer comments suggest – and in that dry sort of way I appreciate most.

But the real reason I’m posting this is to shamelessly but honestly take credit for the music. Yes, I cranked out this orchestral “film score” piece using E-MU Emulator X2 and Modern Symphonic Orchestra in just a couple of days. Most of the effort is in the back and forth that always happens when working on film or video, but I’m very pleased with the result.

With almost 7000 views as of this writing, it might be my most “heard” piece of music. And it joins a small collection of pieces I have done for (other people’s) film and video, including the East Bloc Call To Prayer, and Neptune: Prelude to Xi. You can hear some other of my film or film-ready music here or at myspace.

And if you need music for your film or video project, drop me a line. . 😉

Bruckner Interchange, again and again

In writing about my trip to New York, where better to begin than with our old friend the Bruckner Interchange:

Most of my trips to New York pass through this interchange, which connects to and from JFK Airport via I-678 (the Whitestone Bridge and Van Wyck Expressway); and north into Westchester via Hutchinson River Parkway. However, this trip involved more encounters that most, and indeed a “complete” tour of the major connections. First, north via Whitestone Bridge via the Hutch on arrival. On departure, we came east along the Bruckner Expressway (I-278) and again to the Whitestone. Our family events involved travelling from Westchester to Long Island, again via the Whitestone Bridge. For the return trip, we took the Throgs Neck Bridge (I-295) and the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-295, I-95).

I almost always use the Whitestone for travel to and from Queens and Long Island, so it had been years since I travelled on the Throgs Neck Bridge. It seems in dire need of maintenance. Big rust spots do not give one a sense of confidence when travelling on a major bridge 150 feet above water. I would expect folks to take maintenance very seriously after the Minneapolis bridge collapse this summer. Especially after I find articles like this…

Beavers in the Bronx

A beaver was recently discovered the Bronx River in New York City:

Beavers have returned to New York City for the first time since colonial days when the animals were hunted to extinction for their pelts.

Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) discovered a beaver in the Bronx River. The animal was photographed and filmed.

WCS says the appearance of the animal, which have swam downstream from Westchester County, is a symbol of New York city's improving urban environment.

The beaver has been named José in honor of Bronx Congressman José E. Serrano, who has championed the restoration efforts for the Bronx River.

Clearly, the beaver is taking advantage of the opporunities in the revitalized sections of the south and east Bronx. His habitat is only a little bit upstream from the Bruckner Interchange (just east of the Bronx River parkway).




on civilization and it's ragged edges

It's been a lovely, warm day, one of the best since our recent deep freeze. Lots of patches of grey haze (probably fog rather than smog) amidst the blue. The melancholy beauty of California “summer,” except it's February.

it's starting to feel civilized again.

Speaking of civilization, many of us took time to help out friends (who I might through my interests in electronic and experimental music, hence this post noses itself into the “music” category) who were moving, from one side of town to the other. With so many of us coming out to help, we got the whole thing done in a fraction of a day. Would that friends and community got together for one another like this more open.

Below is a map of our home little seaside town.

On the lower left is the “West Side”, our side, of town. It's known for including the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), and scenic West Cliff Drive bookended by Natural Bridges state park and the main city beach. We moved our friends from nearby in the West Side over to the area called “Live Oak” on the eastern edge of the map and beyond the city limits. The area has quite a different feel, a flat patchwork of new homes, commercial buildings, rundown blocks and vacant lots. It might be strange that I like to explore places like this, but I do, it feels like being on the rundown edge of a large city. I have a similar feel when biking through the neighborhood near the main city beach, a mixture of old houses, tourist hotels and vacant lots.

It's easy to wax romantic about a place when you don't necessarily live there. Consider the fondness many artistic and cultural figures have for 1970s New York, a time when the city was verging on bankrupcy, infrastructure was crumbling and the (violent) crime rate was far higher than it is now. Daniel Henninger had a great article in the Wall Street Journal two years ago discussing this idea. Among those quoted:

The actor John Leguizamo: New York in the '70s “was funky and gritty and showed the world how a metropolis could be dark and apocalyptic and yet fecund.” Fran Lebowitz, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair: The city “was a wreck; it was going bankrupt. And it was pretty lawless; everything was illegal, but no laws were enforced. It was a city for city-dwellers, not tourists, the way it is now.”

For me, there is probably also a nostalgia for the images of childhood, like the graffiti on subway cars and crumbling concrete playgrounds (I don't think any of those exist any longer). By contrast, Giuliani's cleaned-up Times Square elicits little more than a shrug and a few seconds looking at the big screen…
Most of my recent trips to New York have been in November and December (though I did go back in June, 2005 as well). New York in winter does have its charm, but I miss the sweltering summers, the terrific oppression of the big city…