all the news that isn't

Don’t get me wrong, I use and generally like the dictation abilities of iOS6, but Siri continues to be pretty useless to me. Perhaps I’m just a curmudgeon. Ok, so I am a curmudgeon. But whatever. Anyway, I’ve discovered that Siri is terrible at doing what I ask, but seems to have no problem understanding Mallory and her non-word babbling. Sometimes she gets a hold of my phone and has already learned how to cue up Siri, and that she should “talk” after the sound and that Siri will understand. A recent exchange:

It would seem Mallory likes Siri’s voice birthday and some real estate person in Orlando and knows something about Android 10 or at least wants to know something about Android 10. Which is impressive since the current release is only 4.x. I hope she’s not getting confused with Blackberry’s latest offering.

And with that, I present to you the effects of low humidity and fleece blankets.

For those of us who have to work tomorrow, boo! For those of us that get to celebrate Washington’s birthday with a day off: yeah!

With Mallory more mobile every day, I finally made a move I’ve been planning for probably a year and a half.

If you’ve been to our house, some of your first thoughts are probably:

1. This guy has speakers in the middle of his living room, he must be crazy!
2. And Adrienne puts up with it!

Tonight I pulled the Monitor Audio RS6s out of service from the living room (you see them over to the right in the dining room) and put in place the system I’ve used both as an office system and basement system. These are small NHT M-00 powered speakers plus the S-20 subwoofer. Their size allows them to be placed on the bookshelves. And this way there aren’t large floor-standing speakers in the middle of the floor. Mallory can’t damage them, and they can’t damage Mallory!

It’s certainly a different sounding system, but I don’t think we’re giving up too much in quality. And I do plan on putting the RS6s back in service elsewhere, though maybe not immediately. I’m not sure we’ll see a return to floor-standing speakers in the living room any time soon (or not-so-soon), but the plan does include custom shelves on both sides of the fireplace. And I do think the Harbeth P3ESR would look splendid on top of them…

I’ve never really used Garageband to do anything. I figured it was time to change that, so I gave myself a little project. Here’s the result, playing a tenor trombone I effectively haven’t touched in a couple months (yikes!):

Just ripped my 1000th official (yes, lots of unofficial, i.e. non-commercially released or not wholly legal) CD to my collection. It’s one of an eleven disc set of all of Chopin’s music played by master Artur Rubinstein. There’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t own this: the whole collection is $21. Yup, 11 CDs for $21. Why are you still reading this and not over at Amazon yet?

I’m doing some basement organizing – never done! – and crank up some Dave Matthews Band (Crash) to make the work more enjoyable. I think no other singular album brings back such vivid and specific memories for me. This is probably because this is the music of my formative years – high school – and thus I have a high level of association. But it gets me thinking about other albums or songs that really puts me there – that I have a high level of association with. So here’s a short list off the (mostly) top of my head:

J.J. Johnson – The Eminent Jay Jay
Carpenters
Collective Soul
Stuart Davis
Pink Martini
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Phillip Glass – 1000 Airplanes on the Roof

It occurs to me that it’s sad that most people’s (definitely mine!) musical associations take place when their musical exposure is not that wide or deep. Though only three (including DMB) of the above of my list are from high school era. One from before, the others from after.

So: what is the music that puts you there? And, as much as you’re willing to share – what’s the association? I’ll kick the comments off with my associations.

But I’m not Seth Myers…

So we recently had the baby room ceiling re-done, and we thought that’d be it. But then we looked at the walls compared to the ceiling and thought, geez, these need some work. So I convinced Adrienne it was worth it to do it now, vs. after the kid shows up. So here we are, after a layer of paint and two layers of wallpaper:

Walls will be patched and then skim coated with plaster. Paint is likely to be the same color as before, we liked it enough. Then we’ll be ready to rock and roll!

And now I’ll take the opportunity to share some music. I’ve loved this piece of music for a long time, so much so that I’m surprised I haven’t shared it yet, but search confirms that’s the case. So here’s a really cool vocal piece (with the help of a little percussion) that mimics a thunderstorm, Eric Whitacre’s “Cloudburst”:

Enjoy and happy Sunday!

But not playing:

For the past few years WBGO has traveled to Newport, RI for the Newport Jazz Festival, to broadcast live with NPR Music. Last year one of the groups I recorded and mixed was that of Dave Douglas’ Brass Ecstasy. They seemed to like their performance and the recording, because they decided to release it as a commercial album. I suppose this is technically the first commercial album I’ve been credited for. Kinda cool. Here’s a crappy blurred scan of the liner notes:

Though I didn’t mention earlier this year another album I was able to play a very small part of happened to win a Grammy award. You have to read all the way through the credits to find my name! 🙂

Recently I made my first LP purchase. Note the careful wording: ‘my first LP purchase’… I do own two crates worth of vinyl that I acquired without any money changing hands. And truthfully, I ordered it – but have yet to receive it. No problem, though, because the indie label from which I purchased it also game me an mp3  (for immediate gratification) and CD of the same album. So what drove me to make the purchase? The fact that it was 17 bucks for the 180-gram LP and CD was nice (though shipping was kinda pricey), but really it was because it was cool music. I’m not sure Adrienne agrees (about the cool part – or even the music part!) but it’s her loss! What’s the music, you ask?

Colin Stetson is a bass saxophonist (no, it’s not a trick lens in the above photo that makes the sax look huge – it really is!) that has crazy extended skills – meaning doing non-saxophonic stuff on the saxophone. Feel free to check out some you-tubage of Colin, but they don’t represent the new album – which was recorded in single takes (no overdubs), but using up to 25 microphones placed all over a huge space – everything from on his body to far away, then mixed to create the sound portrait you get on the album. It really is magical. Perfect for listening late at night in the dark when you’re alone. Which granted, probably doesn’t happen to any of us too much. But this music makes it nice when it does.

First, from the Third Coast: I heard this story on ATC yesterday and I just had to smile at how Midwestern the Mayor of Naperthrill (as we referred to it back in my college days) sounded.

And then there’s this story, that takes a look at one of the rivers close to home. The Passaic passes by Newark just a few blocks from WBGO. Not only an interesting story (both the radio version and the produced video as well) for the history of it, but as an illustration of the characters out here.