Personal

Weekend Cat Blogging and Photo Hunt with Luna: Upper

For today’s Photo Hunt theme of Upper, we dug back into the archives for this photo of Luna on the upper ledge at CatSynth HQ:

Fortunately, she doesn’t walk up there too often (at least not when I’m around to witness it.)

We have embarked on a major clean-up of the upper level of CatSynth HQ. Compared to previous cleaning projects, this may be most extensive and ruthless in several years. Here, Luna sits in her favorite upper-level perch as various bits of detritus pile up before meeting the final destiny.

I was able to get a lot done last weekend (and Luna was of course on hand to supervise), but there is still a long way to go. This is as much a project of renewal as it is cleaning. Making way for the new…

The Saturday Photo Hunt is up. This week’s theme is UPPER.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted tomorrow by the Florida Furrkids.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Fevered dreams

After a relaxed and healthy Saturday (including a 4-mile walk through SF), I found myself all-of-a-sudden quite sick for the second time this month early on Sunday morning, including a fever. It dissipated by midday, but not before some interesting fever-induced dreams. Here is one of them:

It took place in Western New York, but the landscape had been replaced with a relatively flat desert environment. At the south end was a transplanted version of Yale – there was still the New Haven town green, but the university had different architecture, more columns and arches. A large numbered highway (I don’t remember the number) snaked its way north from the university into the desert along the southern edge of a large shallow lake. The road then split into two that were labeled “Masculine Dr.” and “Feminine Dr.” on Google Maps (yes, Google Maps appeared in the dream). Zooming out, the lake was shaped exactly like the entirety of all five Great Lakes in miniature – probably about the size of one of the Finger Lakes.

Dreams aside, I recommend to readers in the U.S. that they get a flu shot this year.

Happy Birthday Luna!

November 30 is Luna’s birthday as listed in her adoption records. My ketzela is officially eight years old today. She looks all grown up and beautiful in the portrait above, but she also can still seem like a kitten, as in this photo where she receives some birthday scritches.

Please join me in wishing her a Happy Birthday!

Weekend Cat Blogging: Bronx Cat

After the Issue Project Room show in Brooklyn last Saturday, I headed north to the Bronx. Out on the street in Riverdale in the Bronx, I came across this cat:

The cat was a bit shy, keeping a bit of distance, but not running away either. It eventually went up one driveway.

It seemed to be a pet cat, not a stray, and after several entreaties came up to me, even head-butting my hand. It is always a treat to encounter cats when out and about.

Weekend Cat Blogging Thanksgiving Edition is hosted by Jules and Vincent over at Judi’s Mind Over Matter.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Nikita and Elvira at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

And the Friday Ark is hosted by the modulator.

CatSynth in New York

Once again, I will be in New York this month. It has become a yearly pilgrimage of sorts, as well as time to visit with family and friends. There will be lots of art, music and urban landscape writ large. And for this in the NYC area, I will be playing a show this Thursday.

November 15, 2012. Ambient-Chaos featuring Groupthink, Amar Chaudhary, LathanFlinAli, Charity Chan.
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow, Second Floor, New York.

LathanFlinAli, Groupthink, Amar Chaudhary, Charity Chan, and Lukas Ligeti live at the Spectrum Loft Space in Manhattan. Spectrum is a new loft space dedicated to experimental and music.

The event starts early. So please be there by 7:30 to settle in and enjoy the frequencies.

I will try and post sporadically, but in the meantime I do expect to continue with live updates of NY adventures via Twitter @catsynth.

Wordless Wednesday: California 41

This is one of the new pieces I have this fall for San Francisco Open Studios!



If you link up, please leave a comment as well.

Reconnaissance Fly at the Starry Plough in August

Here is a video from our Reconnaissance Fly show at the Starry Plough in Berkeley this past August. (It was the same show the generated this Weekend Cat Blogging post.) It features one of our more challenging but also fun pieces, the medley of “Electric Rock Like a Cat” and “sanse is crede nza”, with music by Polly Moller and Amar Chaudhary, respectively.

It was our best performance of this set to date, and a lot of energy from both the band and the audience. So much so that we nearly had a disaster on our hands when our drummer Larry-the-O knocked over his hi-hat dangerously close to bassist Tim Walters’ foot. Fortunately, no one was hurt and a good time was had by all.

DJ CatSynth on The World of Wonder (KUSF in Exile)

I am now an official host for The World of Wonder on San Francisco Community Radio (KUSF in Exile), alternating weeks with Matt Davignon, and my first show is tonight at midnight PDT. You can listen live online here and find an archive via podcast after the fact.

Each week we will be presenting a variety of music that most people don’t hear everyday, a mixture of esoteric, avant-garde, idiosyncratic and many other kinds of music. I do encourage readers of this site to tune in.

Space Shuttle Endeavor over San Francisco

This morning, the decommissioned Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over the northern California today, including San Francisco. It is part of a farewell tribute as en route to its final resting place at California Science Center in Los Angeles. We were able to get a good view of the flyover from the roof of CatSynth HQ.

It was impressive to see so clearly over the city. But it was also a bit melancholy. I was in my early school years when the first shuttle flight took place – I of course had my own model of it (probably more than one), and was enamored with space and space travel in general. With the shuttles now decommissioned, it is unclear what we do next to keep moving forward space-wise. The moon and Mars proposals still seem squishy, and in someways feel like a step backward from the space shuttles when I see the proposed vehicles. Nothing to really bridge the gap between our past in space and the promise of routine travel from science fiction. I hope we can somehow rekindle the shared desire to explore and move into space.