The Ears of Delaware?

I know you won't believe it, but I envy and admire the fierce devotion and blind, Nuremberg-rally-like pride students and alumni of the University of Texas feel towards their school. Since I attended a college where the most notable accomplishment was burning down the local Bank of America ("we're really sticking it to the Man...oh crap, I just torched the money my folks sent me") in a fit of anti-Vietnam pique, at my alma mater there wasn't a lot of brand loyalty. We didn't have a catchy slogan or hand sign, save the omnipresent middle-finger salute (see "sticking it to the Man" above).

What creeps me out is the UT school song, "The Eyes of Texas." As ubiquitous as the stultifying Austin humidity, this song is heard and sung literally hundreds of times a day. And it's just strange.

For one thing, the tune is based on "I've been working on the railroad," which is itself one of the most surreal little folk ditties ever penned ("someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, strumming on the old banjo." Holy crap, it's like a scene from a David Lynch film.) one wonders why that tune. Was Nick nack paddywack or Hot Cross Buns already taken? I guess there is some advantage to basing your college song on a melody accessible to infants.

Look at the lyrics: "The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the livelong day." Where do I start? The Orwellian-nightmare scenario that transforms an entire state into one big nursery-rhyme singing security camera, or the bizarre anthropomorphizing that gives sensory organs to a geopolitical construct? Every time I hear this lyric--which is really frequently--I'm afraid to step outside, for fear of accidentally stepping onto a gazing eyeball. And "livelong day..." Who uses language like that other than your grandpappy?

Next line: "The eyes of Texas are upon you, you cannot get away." It sound like we're singing an anti-shoplifting warning. At this point in the song, I'm already starting to whimper, so disturbing is the thought that I cannot escape from the omnipresent visual scrutiny that the state has conspired to evolve.

The ode to ocular fascism continues: "do not think you can escape them, at night or early in the morn," which leads me to think that perhaps the eyes are crepuscular and active mostly early in the morning or late at night, which makes sense, as the daytime temperatures in Austin demand a siesta from late morning through early evening. So: there's hope--plan one's escape for midday, when the infernal eyes are closed.

Of course, let's not forget that the lyricist at this point actually just fell back to his or her source material, the kid-friendly "Railroad," which also, by the way, includes the inscrutable line "I've been working on the railroad, just to pass the time away." Hey, I'm bored...I think I'll kill some time with some back-breaking, dangerous, ultimately futile, and poorly compensated labor.

Fine, UT, you got me. I'm wearing the shock collar, I'm pacing against the invisible electric fence, but for how long? "'Till Gabriel blows his horn." Ok, this is just hubris, pure and simple. The University is just over a century and a quarter old and suddenly we're in Biblical, epochal time. By then the state will have, no doubt, evolved additional sensory organs and possibly limbs as well, and will be able to migrate at will.

Hook 'em, horns indeed.

Good stuff

It's great when something you look forward to for a long time actually meets or exceeds expectations. So it was with Tim Burton's version of Sweeney Todd, which I--and countless other fans of the musical--have been anticipating for years.

The film stays essentially faithful to the stage show but it is a leaner, darker, more focused piece of art than Sondheim's masterpiece and it is surely heretical to say it, but I might even prefer this version. A lot of people are complaining about what is missing--some of the songs, the choruses, some of the "charm," but I think a lot of what was cut was that which was necessary to telling the story on stage--songs that covered scene changes, or songs that established character and mood...all of which are redundant when you have rich, naturalistic settings and the ability to read emotion through close-ups.

Almost none of the leads are trained vocalists but while we might lose much of the power of great singers, we gain nuance and the ability of fine actors to shade and shape the lines with an intimacy that is lost in a big theatre. None of the actors are bad singers and all handle Sondheim's music credibly. I'm pretty picky but I was never distracted (well, almost never) by poor intonation or awkward phrasing. The one disappointing song for me was "Epiphany," because I thought it seemed a little less volcanic than it should have been. You often hear critics talk about Sondheim's tricky melodies but that's not really true. Sondheim's vocal lines are very melodic and logical but his rhythms can be tough to master, and hearing the tune against the accompaniment (which is often subtly laced with dissonance) takes some time to understand. But listen to the bass line--it is always strong and logical.

Visually, the film is beautiful, rich, dark, and totally appropriate. Some of the settings are so sensory and tactile I could almost smell the musty air.

I am seeing a touring production of the Sweeney revival this April. I am anxious to compare it, not just to the other productions of the show I've seen, but to the new film version.

Sweeney Fever!

We're excited! The trailer for the Tim Burton film version of Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD has just been released and it looks awesome. But what's even more exciting is that, this being America, and the movie being directed by a big-time Hollywood name and starring packaging-friendly Johnny Depp, the tie-in parade is no-brainer. Of course, I can't wait to play the Sweeney Todd game for the XBox 360. Ooooh! Maybe it'll come to the Wii! Just imagine using the Wii-mote to swing Sweeney's razor! Of course, there will be in inevitable McDonald's Happy Meal product. Can you say "Spicy Cajun Meat Pie?" I can't wait to see which characters they include with the meal...I sure hope cute, rolly-polly Beadle Banford is one of them!

Ikea: Shopping at the Apocalypse

It is the law that every Oregonian must, at some point, pay a visit to the new Portland Ikea store, so today we did our duty. It was one of the most monumentally unpleasant shopping experiences I've ever had. It was, in fact the Singularity of Unpleasant Shopping Experiences, the pinnacle and/or the nadir, the most painful hours I've ever spend inside a retail establishment, bar none.

First, the crowds. Oh. My. God. The above photo was taken in the parking lot. The first indication that we had penetrated the veil between the Earthly realm and Hell was the presence of orange-vested parking attendants guiding the desultory bumper-to-bumper traffic through the acres of parking lot like it was Jack Sparrow personal appearance day at Disneyland. Any store that requires parking attendants at 10:15 on a Sunday morning: not worth it.

As part of the four-abreast crowd snaking its way through the vestibule and into the store like cholesterol-laden blood through an artery after a Denny's Grand Slam, you're confronted with an immediate choice: go to the child abandonment area, where parents blithely leave their offspring to be trained as future Swedish furniture assemblers, while being entertained by Ikea blood sports (photo, right); take the Escalator to Showroom Hell; or proceed immediately to the warehouse, where, like the threatening boulders on the Mine Train Ride, desk sets weighing hundreds of pounds balance precariously on stacks of boxes, threatening to tumble the next time little Timmy rams into them with his greased-lightening Ikea cart, which his parents told him to go amuse himself with while they tried to decide between the blanched almond and off white futon cover for the spare bedroom.

We chose: Escalator to Hell.

"Showroom" is really a misnomer. First of all, if there was anything to show, it couldn't be seen due to the tens of thousands of slow-moving, hollow-eyed gawkers who either stood in the middle of the too-narrow aisle and gaped with the slack-jawed amazement of someone who had never seen actual furniture, or swarmed over the room displays like particularly voracious piranha. We moved through the maze of rooms with a slowness that made the parking lot seem like a NASCAR qualifying event. There may have been some nice things there. I'll never know.

Tumbling out of the showroom floor into the relatively unpopulated warehouse was liberating until you realized that the cloud-piercing stacks of boxes were meaningless containers unless you knew the item number you wanted, which you could only get by passing through the showroom, which was of course so crowded that actually seeing any particular item was impossible. But by God, we weren't going to leave empty handed, so we went to the aisle that the map suggested might contain office furniture, picked a box low to the floor, hoisted it into the cart, and got the hell out of there.

I'm pretty happy with my new computer desk.

Sibelius 5 vs. Finale 08, part 2

A few posts ago, I began to compare the two most recent iterations of the popular music notation packages, Sibelius and Finale. I got sidetracked by nostalgia and memories of the good old days of handwritten music and the copyist's art. As much as I enjoyed the act of hand copying music, it was also slow, frequently frustrating and inhibiting, and I would not want to return to those pre-digital days.

I don't wish to bore anyone with the easily researched history of notation software. Suffice it to say that at one time, Finale was the only game in town, the choice of composers and publishers everywhere, no matter how arcane or counterintuitive some of the aspects of it were. With a manual the size of a phone book (and equally engaging) and a learning curve as tall as K-2, to master Finale was a technological badge of honor. Then came Sibelius from the UK, with the premise that notation software should be intuitive, elegant, and simple. The war was on.

The end user has been both the winner and victim in this ongoing skirmish. Of course, the head-to-head competition has forced both companies to add features, tweak the interface, and refine their products. As a result, both Sibelius 5 and Finale 08 contain virtually the identical feature set, use the same sounds (Garritan Personal Orchestra) for playback, and while the chassis might be different, under the hood the engines both deliver roughly the same amount of power. Both applications do an admirable job of creating professional-looking notation, and both apps have nearly the identical ability to record and playback notated music. Both Sibelius and Finale offer supplemental programs aimed at educators and students.

So, what's the downside for consumers?

In an attempt to keep up in the notation arms race, both companies feel it necessary to release annual (in the case of Finale) or bi-annual (Sibelius) versions of their product. At an educator discount price of $100 or so, these upgrades are far too expensive and offer far too few new features to justify such a price. For example, the addition of a scroll view in Sibelius (which Finale always had) or dynamic parts (which came to Sibelius first) are really just interface tweaks. In the world of computer games, for example, these features would be added in the form of a free patch, or, if there was really a lot of new content, through an add-on pack (which often doubles the size and features of a game). Why not sell the core application and then offer yearly updates at $20, or allow the user to select which add-ons he or she needs? How many users really need the suite of classroom applications?

This neck-and-neck battle hurts the consumer in a couple of other ways. There is little cross-software compatibility. Finale has always had a playground bully-like attitude towards Sibelius and won't read Sibelius files; Sibelius will read (inconsistently, especially when there are version incompatibilities) Finale files. Finally, this feature-for-feature-matching contest prevents either company from truly innovating. Garritan sounds, while certainly better than general MIDI synth patches, are light-years away from the samples used by professional composers and producers.

In the end, both Sibelius 5 and Finale 08 are good products--not perfect ones--and choice will come down to aesthetic preference, brand loyalty, and perhaps the one or two features that make the software unique.

welcome, friend

I guess you could say I'm an "animal guy," and always have been. When I was a kid I had reptiles as pets and one of the coolest places in Southern California was the Hermosa Beach Reptile Farm. In those days, trade in exotic animals was unfortunately not well regulated and so in addition to a huge variety of snakes and lizards, you could run into a sloth or a slow loris for sale. Impractical and probably not at all pet material but interesting anyway. A little later--in college--I acquired a blue-front Amazon parrot and now, 30 years later, and the house is filled with dogs, cats, lizards, rats, and parrots large and small.

A couple of days ago this little guy--a black-billed magpie--landed outside our bedroom window and looked inside with a great deal of interest and curiosity. So, naturally, I went outside and offered him a tasty treat--a few superworms that I keep as bearded dragon food. This magpie--whom my wife named Oreo--has become friendlier and friendlier over the past few days, now following me around the yard and alighting on my hand and shoulder to eat. I can't help but wonder if he was partly hand-raised by people, he's so naturally tame and fearless. He's amazingly smart, too, taking extra worms and burying them in the yard for later consumption. He even uses twigs to tamp down the pile of camouflage.

We love our pets, but in all cases, we chose them. This magpie chose us--we were easy marks for food, no doubt--and that makes him sort of special. So, welcome, Oreo and hope you stick around for a while.

I don't know why it took me so long to think of this. Sometime during the last few days of school, it occurred to me that we had some wasted space in the music room and there was a way to move the drums forward and create a space for a permanent Spectrum keyboard setup. Voila! Thanks to John Bryan for doing this work for me. The frame will be painted but left open to be used for storage of guitar cases and miscreant percussionists (joke). There will also be a safety rail on the left side to prevent overenthusiastic students or uncoordinated music teachers from taking an accidental fall off the edge.