Win Some, Lose Some?

I thought I was doing pretty well today: I met with most of my Czech Modernism students about their papers and the results were encouraging, and during lunch I made all the arrangements for going to AAH (the major British art history conference), where I'm giving a paper in April.
Then at the end of the day's gamelan rehearsal, I found out that our concerts will be earlier than usual this year. Precisely when I'll be in England giving my conference paper, in fact. I had been going on the assumption that the concerts would be at least a week later, as they normally are.
I am pretty unhappy about this. It is hard to say whether this or the beyond-bad job market is more annoying. Probably this, since despite the bad job market, I think it is likely I will have some sort of job next year. After all, if there are no teaching jobs, I can always go back to feeding photocopiers or being a factory worker or guarding a parking lot or doing some other thing out of my checkered past. Or even something I've never done before, like becoming a sewer inspector or performing artificial insemination on cattle. Yep, maybe I'm discounting the opportunities that lie before me. Settling into a comfy teaching position could be very bad for my fiction writing.

Mischief Over at Think Denk

Before I stop laughing, I must direct Obama-supporting, musically inclined readers to "An Interview with Sarah Palin." I hadn't previously realized how effectively musicology and political satire could be combined.
You may never think of Beethoven (or Schenkerian analysis) in the same way again.
My regards to Dirk for bringing this to my attention.
Dipping into other posts on the same blog suggests I could get lost there for awhile, assuming I don't fall on the floor with evil mirth. For example:

Well, I had just finished practicing the twelve Liszt Transcendental Etudes, twelve times, and my parents and I had an emotional conference about the comet while my father prepared a snack of tortillas and Cheez Whiz.

(This last sentence is an example of “local color” which I learned about at Las Cruces High School, from my charmingly insane English teacher. From this teacher I learned to write one-page essays about Kafka, asserting in their first paragraph that Gregor Samsa is an “unholy trinity of Christ, bug, and man,” and concluding “in conclusion, I have shown that Gregor Samsa is an unholy trinity of Christ, bug, and man.” My eloquence leaves me without words.)

Had to get in that Czech reference there, after all. (Yes, I know Kafka wrote in German, but he was from Prague and bilingual.)
Exam grading is now officially over. Some exams were better than expected, some were worse. Some of my students had better ask me about study skills and how to prevent going blank during exams when they clearly know most of the answers. (Do I know the answer to the latter problem? No, but I provide free unlicensed psychotherapy to the chosen few.)

The General Unfairness of Things

Overheard on the WYEP's "Discumentary" show: "The album... went on to sell a modest 60,000 copies."
Now if that had been a book, it would be a bestseller, or at least well on the way. Print runs of 2500-3000 copies were common for literary fiction last I checked and usually not all of those copies sell.

Shocking Negligence

I admit it, I have not attended properly to the blog of late. My head has been full of writing projects, preparations for teaching, New Faculty Orientation and New Faculty Reception, swing dancing, gamelan, and even German translation practice. The Spotted Pair have been somewhat disappointed at the limited petting, and are doing various things (mostly quite agreeable) to remind me of my duty to my lapine roommates.
New Faculty Orientation was all very well in its way, but necessarily somewhat repetitive for those of us who are only new in our titles. I wasn't sure what to suggest when we had to fill out evaluation forms, but it has since occurred to me that there could have been some attention to things like the mysteries of the Peoplesoft system (something that was implemented while I was in Prague and still have no concept of other than that people keep asking for my "Peoplesoft number" but will accept the number on my ID card instead). There could also have been some brief reference to our health insurance options. Still, I was glad to run into an old friend who's also Visiting this year and even has a book contract (although I would not like to have to turn in a book manuscript pretty much at the same time as the dissertation it was based on), and we brilliantly managed to sit next to a new member of the History dept whose work on Hungarian pop culture relates to both of our interests.
As for the New Faculty Reception, well, that's the kind of thing that either proves to be thoroughly worthwhile or thoroughly dull, depending on who you end up talking to. The setup was excellent--the Chancellor has a house with a very suitable garden, the weather cooperated, and there was very good food and enjoyable baroque guitar music. Fortunately I hit it lucky on the conversation and enjoyed talking further with my acquaintance from History and his wife, and met another Visiting person, this time from English, who had done his undergraduate work at the same place I had, so we immediately began to compare recollections. I am sure it would have been a fine thing to have met a few more people, but at least the four of us had plenty to say and barely managed to eat anything as a result.
I have taught one session of each of my classes, and am optimistic about both of them. The Intro to Modern class is mostly people who claim to know nothing about art, but they did a good job of starting to discuss the formal analyses I had them write. The American Art class has mostly people with more experience taking art history classes, and they are (or some of them) are now in the throes of trying to discuss their reading online. We are having some technical issues, but not impossible ones, as some people have got it all figured out and perhaps they can pass on their expertise to the rest of the class while I try to improve how it works from my end (on Blackboard, known in Pittsburgh as Courseweb).
The gamelan class is distressingly small this semester, but is enthusiastic and includes two of my friends from last year. I suppose it will burgeon in the spring; I gather it always does.
And that is enough for the moment.

Berkeley Strikes, Cafes, and Music

Over the years, when I've gone over to UC Berkeley to use the library, I've periodically found the grad students on strike. They teach many of the undergraduate courses, they (like grad students everywhere) are not paid all that much, and it's extremely expensive to live in the Bay Area. And of course other issues are often involved as well. University of Pittsburgh's grad students aren't unionized, so we always have to hope that the university administration remains benevolent, and that our departments treat us well.
This week a different group of UC workers is on strike: the AFSCME service workers. It's a 5-day strike, called after 11 months of negotiation. These employees include custodians, cooks and food service workers, groundskeepers, bus drivers, building maintenance people, security guards, and so on. These are not types of jobs that historically get very high wages without union support. Life is expensive in the Bay Area, and while I thought gas was expensive in Pittsburgh when it got over $4 per gallon, it's well over that here, so I don't find it surprising that the AFSCME wants a "UC Statewide minimum wage," improvements on overtime pay, and other things.
Having said that, I'm off to The Musical Offering to have another cup of coffee while figuring out just what I need to look up at the library. I'm trying to avoid looking up too much more and just make revisions. Of course, the danger in hanging out at The Musical Offering is that I will buy CDs, since this is the place to go for anything in the early music (or other subsequent classical) line.

Moving Right Along, Or So We Like to Think

It's that season of the year, I suppose, when various things fall into place, or come to an end, or are cemented, or whatnot. It's apparently the season when some people tell me they're on the verge of completing their dissertations and others announce that they are abandoning theirs, and I can only wish both sets the best of luck about it.
It's now official (although the paperwork has yet to be done) that next year I will be a Visiting Professor in my department. There are two of us, neatly separated into modern and medieval (last year we had modern and American). In the fall I'll teach Intro to Modern Art on Mondays and American Art Tuesday-Thursday. The spring courses are still somewhat negotiable but we have a pretty good idea what they'll be.
In other news, yesterday, while on my way to Radio Shack to replace A CORD SOMEONE HAD YET AGAIN PURPOSEFULLY SAVAGED (Orion, specifically), I happened to run across Sachem, one of the other gamelan students. We chatted while he waited for his bus and he regretted that he won't be able to take gamelan next year due to the rigors of finishing up a double major in music and philosophy. You can listen to his non-gamelan music on MySpace and probably even buy his album there should it strike your fancy.

Syllabi and Other Amusements

After a couple of weeks of intensive work on syllabi and class presentations, I think the main thing that can be said is that this sort of project does not incline one to spend much time on a computer for other things. This results in a lack of inclination to blog, although on the plus side I've read more novels lately.
One of my goals for the summer is to accomplish pretty much all the prep for next year's teaching before the fall semester starts, and as I'm not teaching summer school, this should be quite doable. It also provides a nice break from certain other academic projects, which we can only hope will be beneficial to the end product.
I don't, actually, mind working on syllabi and presentations just now. Mentally, it is rather enjoyable. It gives me a chance to root through articles I haven't read in years, in order to decide what might make suitable reading for undergrads. Sometimes this is fun, sometimes it's a little frustrating.
For example, it looks as though in the fall I'll be teaching one section of Intro to Modern Art and one of American Art. I've taught Intro to Modern before and it went well, so there the question is what ought to be improved (Kristen and I are trying to think what would be a particularly good supplementary reading on Russian modernism, and I am unsure which readings on surrealism would be best, as I am too close to the subject).
I've never taught American, but I've had good preparation for it and am basing my syllabus on the one used by our department chair, which is set up in a way I like but requires some shifting around as his areas of expertise are rather different than mine. (Yes, I will be including city planning and public monuments, but I will have more to say on genre painting and early 20th century art.)
On these introductory courses, I like to combine readings from a survey text with readings that are more challenging and specific, so I was delighted to rediscover just how interesting and accessible that essays in two of my American art anthologies were. I managed to find six essays in each one that fit themes we will cover. There are very few more readings to come up with for this class (anyone want to suggest one on the rise of American history painting? a favorite on colonial/early 19th-century women's art and design?), so I am mainly working on my images for this class now.
Um, yes. Images and presentations. We have pretty much switched from slides to digital images, but this isn't to say our slide collection has really been digitized. Some of our slides were, but for the most part it seems as though each instructor is on his/her own hunting down images. We subscribe to ArtStor, so this is somewhat helpful, but for various reasons I am finding it very slow and tedious to assemble my American presentations, and have only gotten as far as (in a rudimentary fashion) early 19th-century landscape. This reminds me how, when I first taught Intro to Modern, I spent a good part of each week hunting for the images for that, which I felt left me little time to think about what I was going to say in lecture. (Fortunately, the sight of the pictures generally cues me on what I want to say about them.) The advantage of the digital presentations is, of course, that once they are made, you have them and can revise them in a leisurely way from year to year, so I am making small changes in my Modern presentations but not having to make them again from scratch. It will be nice once the American presentations reach that stage.
Meanwhile, it is probable that sooner or later I will teach a course on Czech modernism--maybe even as soon as Spring 2009--so that's more gradually underway. The presentations for that are much more fun to craft. As I have gradually been scanning more and more Czech modern art over the past 4-5 years, I have a very usable personal collection of images. While it is strongest on Czech surrealism, there is enough of everything else to get a good start on things. Rather than having to be logged into ArtStor and doing painful searches for Copley and trying to decide which Copleys to use and which photo of each painting is clearest, then downloading them and gradually incorporating them, I tend to think "Ah, Emil Filla needs to be included. These two will work for his Munch-like period, these are early cubist works, and these are examples of his (in my opinion) slavish imitation of Picasso." Or "These five views of one of Chochol's cubist houses will give a very nice idea of the building as seen from the street, so which one will be shown large and which ones will be supplementary?" And I realize that yes, I have enough Špála to show for a class, but that I should scan more because four Špála paintings are not really enough. It would be nice to have some of his controversial illustrations for Babička. And well, much more symbolist and decadent art needs to be scanned, and somewhere I need to come up with some examples of Mánes and Aleš.
This sort of thing easily takes up the whole day and wears out my computer-tolerance.
But, for amusement, I have visited Bingo and the other Animal Rescue League rabbits (there are currently several, not just Bingo, that I would really like to take home--Ms. Spots is deeply interested in the scent left on my pants). And last night our medieval Scandinavian specialist held a party celebrating the Norwegian national holiday syttende mai (Constitution Day) and I am very sorry I didn't take my camera along to photograph the elegantly iced cookies she made in the shape of the Norwegian flag, conifers, and moose. The soundtrack for the evening was a somewhat bizarre mix of Norwegian rap music (it exists and it's really strange to listen to), Norwegian-themed songs, and the occasional bit of ordinary party music. We were transfixed by a peculiar song about going out to plunder... I said I would have to give her my mp3s of Scandinavian traditional music--hardanger fiddle and so on--to round out the collection.

Pittsburgh Dangdut Concert Videos

A little searching around on Youtube reveals that videos from our gamelan/dangdut concert have hit the Web. Thus, you too can experience the Dangdut Cowboys almost as if in Bellefield Hall.

This first video emphasizes the dance group in front of the stage (sorry, the videographer was stage left and I was stage right). It doesn't get the entire song, but some of the saxophone does get highlighted. For the rest of the song (sung by our fearless leader), proceed to the second video:

The third video is from further back and center, and is more memorable for the music (guest artists Ening Rumbini and Rita Tila on vocals) than the visuals unless you really want to watch carefully for occasional glimpses of me dancing off to the left. And I really mean only occasional and identifiable to the initiated, because everyone is very small in this video.

But... it turns out there's a higher quality version of Video #3 for true fans or those absolutely determined to see me dancing off to the left. I think you have to go to Youtube itself to watch that, but underneath the video window you can click on "watch in high quality." The visuals were significantly sharper and if you have good speakers I suppose the sound is as well. On the other hand, the high-quality version was a little too much for my high-speed bandwidth and kept stopping and starting. I'm not sure how high a speed is required to watch it uninterrupted.
There do exist a couple of full-length videos of the concerts, but I don't think they'll be showing up on YouTube.

More Gamelan, More Rabbits

For those who just can't get enough Pittsburgh gamelan photos, Ben Pachter has posted three good sets. First, the rehearsal photos; second, the concert preparations (some pictures are similar to mine but not all); and actual concert photos taken by one of Ben's friends. Alert viewers will be able to find me in a fair number of these. Well--viewers who already know what I look like.
This morning most of us got together to devour Indonesian food and watch the video of Friday night's concert. It was pretty good as such videos go, considering that it was a one-camera video and the operator wasn't there the whole time checking to see whether to zoom in. After helping Jesse document various Moravian cimbalom bands, I appreciate the care that goes into setting up a concert video shoot.
My other weekend entertainment involved going over to the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, where I adopted Ms. Spots back in 2002 and where the Pittsburgh House Rabbit Club held an education session and a bunny romp. It was the first Pittsburgh House Rabbit Club meeting I had gone to, and I got some useful tips on how to entertain Orion so that he doesn't chew everything he meets. The speaker emphasized that as rabbits quickly get used to specific toys, it's usually best to rotate them to keep the toys new and interesting. I also hadn't really thought in terms of playing with the toys myself, but this is a good idea if the toy is something like a Slinky, or if there's a wicker ball that you can roll to the rabbit. I especially liked the idea of anchoring strips of cardboard under chair legs because that does give resistance when the rabbit pulls on the strip, and rabbits like toys that resist (Ms. Spots always likes to stand on whatever she's shredding).
Much to my delight, the shelter rabbit who starred in the demonstrations proved to be Bingo, the young male I met a few weeks ago when I dropped in at the shelter near home to pet some lonely rabbits. Bingo was chosen for this special role because on the one hand he's very friendly and loves to be petted, but he gets bored easily and needs a lot of stimulation when not being petted. Bingo thought it was just great being up there on the table having toy after toy presented to him. Wicker toys, shredded paper, sticks, pieces of flannel, cardboard tubes, he thought this was a splendid way to spend an afternoon.
If I hadn't already had two rabbits at home, I would probably have adopted Bingo when we first met, but Pittsburgh shelters do have a wide assortment of other charming characters available. Back when I got Ms. Spots, the Humane Society had only four rabbits, but I'd guess it now has about 15 on-site. A white lop named Oscar was adopted during the meeting, so we all cheered, but there are many other gorgeous and interesting rabbits looking for good homes. Pittsburgh has three shelters, all with too many rabbits, so I hate to think what will happen when people really begin to tire of thoughtlessly acquired Easter bunnies who want lots of attention and haven't been spayed or neutered.
I guess now it's time to return to my taxes...

Pre-Concert Life

For obvious reasons, I have no concert photos, but several of us got good documentation of the backstage life of the Pittsburgh gamelan, which ranged from the studious to the exuberant. Yuko, our TA, was on the more studious end of the scale.

Ben, another musicology grad student, believes firmly in photographic documentation. I believe that at this moment he was documenting Rob.



Rob was so impressed by our guest artists' makeup skills that he got himself done in David Bowie style.

Lydia was not so pleased with Rob's new look.

Jordan, however, thought the new Rob was an improvement.

Our guest artists soon went back to their own preparations.

Margot doesn't usually wear makeup, but as a featured vocalist she agreed to deck herself out.

Of course, many of the performers take a calm and low-key approach to the whole thing, as does Ben from CMU and also Sachem and Margarita.



Kim has done gamelan for years, so he had no fears of forgetting his part.

The performance itself was a wild success and we persuaded many audience members to join us in dancing in front of the stage toward the end of the show.
Don't forget, we perform again tonight!

Gamelan Concert Tonight

We're onstage at Bellefield Hall in Pittsburgh (across from the Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Chapel) at 8:00 tonight and tomorrow. These are the university gamelan's major performances, which normally include Indonesian guest artists. Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 students/seniors, free with Pitt student ID, and you can read all the official details on the Music Dept's blog.
Our dress rehearsal went until about 1:00am last night but despite its length it was pretty good as such things go. Most of the students only perform in the first half of the program, so it was our first chance to hear what the guest artists were planning without us. The first half focuses on traditional Sundanese gamelan while the second half is more of an introduction to different kinds of recent Sundanese popular music. By the end of the dress rehearsal, those of us not onstage were having a wild dangdut dance party, so I feel confident that the audience will have a fine time too.

Tax Time and How We Distract Ourselves

I did, actually, pretty much do my federal taxes today, and they would be done if I didn't have to check a couple of things before I send them off. As in, it would be nice to know whether I should have a W2 form (my pay information stated that I would get one).
But it was a pretty nice spring day, so the apartment was filled with light, so I also busied myself with various spring tasks such as packing winter sweaters into ziplock bags in the hope of foiling any carpet beetles that might be looking for a meal. I didn't think to try this before putting them in storage when I went to Prague (I simply soaked them in very soapy water to drown any of the beasts), but it is surprising how much sweater will fit into a 1-gallon plastic bag. It's not hard: fold the sweater around some sort of rectangular object, such as a piece of cardboard, shove the result into the bag, withdraw the rectangular object, and repeat multiple times. Well, and seal each bag.
I also assembled a second metal shelving unit for the basement storage. Apparently these are only sold at specific times of year, as I couldn't find any during the winter and now Target has lots, or it did a few weeks ago when I bought the thing.
In a less springlike fashion, I tried to catch up on some OCR projects (it is one thing to scan a document, quite another to check the character recognition). While I am glad that ABBYY can handle multiple languages in the same document, I am always stunned to find how many more languages I should have specified. A book one expects to be all in French proves to have huge chunks of Greek (not that I expect to search on anything in Greek, but still). Almost anything on surrealism proves to have words in every imaginable Indo-European language, so that if recognition is set to French, Czech, and English, the German and Spanish characters cause problems. It's a big pain constantly correcting umlauts and Spanish characters as all this requires switching the Windows keyboard. We were in French? No use, there's a umlaut. Can't keep it in German, though; there's a Czech name. Ugh, there goes Miró again (although he can be done with the Czech keyboard if one recalls just how to get that ó; it's Bun~uel I don't know how to type). And I have a Kupka text in French that has endless French names for Greek, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian deities. I knew that Kupka was a medium, but not that he was obsessed with ancient gods. Oh well.
In the meantime, I am intrigued that various friends who seldom write to me have chosen this weekend to email. They all claim to have writing deadlines, so I daresay this explains their interest in finding out what I'm up to. After all, my forthcoming gamelan concerts must be far more interesting than whatever copy they are expected to turn in to their editors. No matter, I'm always pleased to hear from them...
... Just as Ms. Spots is always excited to smell enticing foods like walnuts on my hands. I think my responses to the emails were somewhat more restrained than were her ecstatic reactions to my hand during the dinner hour (walnuts had been added to my supper). But I suppose I could always inquire whether my correspondants are hoping to get me to rub my face passionately all over their hands. (Then again, that might not be a good plan. They might not write back for another year or few.)

Moving Right Along, or So We Pretend

I've safely, if wearily, returned to Pittsburgh. Ms. Spots and Orion were well rabbit-sat and looked very sleek, although Ms. Spots was miffed about my absence and had to be placated with extra-solicitous petting and rubbing of the ears. Orion merely indicated he was glad to see me, and showed me how gigantic he can look in the right poses. (Rabbit who ought to weigh about 6 pounds wishes to emulate those giant rabbits the Germans are sending to Korea...)
In the wake of last week's intriguing horoscope, I feel I should be paying close attention to this one's, which is:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The feats you're pulling off may not appear spectacular to a casual observer. But in my view, they are some of the most interesting accomplishments you've enjoyed in a while. Here's a brief description of some of your subtly glorious breakthroughs: 1. You've made yourself less susceptible to being manipulated by guilt or pushed around by bullies or fooled by phonies. 2. You're getting smarter about how you treat the people and things you love. 3. You're at the peak of your ability to discern the difference between rash risks motivated by fear and smart gambles driven by authentic intuition.

I don't know yet whether I've truly accomplished any of these things, but they sound awfully good.
Now all I need to do is learn to play kecapi, which judging by today's lesson (the first) will be considerably harder than learning to play the average gamelan instrument. It is a plucked instrument, so I thought I might already have some usable skills, but no. Our visitors from Indonesia wanted to know whether I preferred to learn something in slendro or pelog, but it is really immaterial which scale we tune to until I start getting a sense of which string is which and get that multi-finger, two-handed coordination going. I suppose I must have gone through something similar at my first piano lesson, except that I had at least touched a few pianos by then whereas I've only admired the kecapi from a distance. It's somewhat unsettling to feel like I'm five years old again as regards motor coordination.

Eastern European Music from Ann Arbor

Jesse reminds me that every Thursday night from 9-10 Eastern Time he DJs Eastern European music on WCBN. You can tune in and listen on the internet at http://www.wcbn.org/listen.html. I'm bad at remembering to do anything at a particular time in the evening, but when I do remember to listen, there's always something interesting and unexpected, like Slovak jazz.
WCBN offers several kinds of download, so there should be something for every connection speed. I tested out the 128 kbps hi-res and it sounded pretty good.

Concert Update

For those who might have been on the edge of their seats wondering how Saturday's gamelan concert went, it was very satisfactory.
We had been invited out to the university's Greensburg campus, which is about an hour from the main campus, to perform for what proved to be the season's initial concert in a series. After a brief afternoon practice, we spent an hour or so loading up the instruments (not all of them fit into the elevator), figuring out how to get to Greensburg, and all that. I've been to Greensburg a few times, as one of my cousins used to live there, but I really don't know my way around and was glad not to be one of the drivers.
The concert was done in a very educational manner, with explanations of what we were about to play and so forth. The audience was invited to come onstage afterwards and ask questions and look at the instruments. This went over very well, and we probably spent at least half an hour, perhaps more, showing people the instruments and telling them about gamelan.
It has been my experience that if a class is going to bond, either as a class or with the instructor, this normally happens around the middle of the semester (sometimes earlier, rarely later). Our class was no exception. While some of the students knew one another from last semester, and while there has always been a fairly good rapport in the group, the concert and the experience of traveling, eating, and moving instruments together put everyone in a friendly mood.
We're now moving on to a whole new project: each spring, Indonesian specialists come and work with the group, and now our dancer has arrived. We'll prepare music for her to perform to, and she'll also teach dance to whoever is inclined. From what she showed us yesterday, it looks like she does something akin to the classic dance drama that I studied in a past life, but that probably doesn't have a narrative.

Computers Are Weird

I should give up on trying to understand computers. After spending Friday morning happily (if somewhat frantically) slaving away at perfecting Chapter 1 (since the first and last chapters of a dissertation generally get whipped into shape last), my advisor indicated that the weekend would be a fine time for me to stuff chapters under her office door, as she'll be in there freezing anyway--I suppose scanning more images for next week's classes. I went off to look things over over lunch and prepared many more revisions.
Settling in at my carrel to continue work, I was confronted with the laptop refusing to finish booting. The hard drive was very active, but I had no clue what it was up to. Ctrl-Alt-Del had no effect. Neither, it seemed, did hitting the off switch. I had never heard of such a thing--manually shutting off a computer is always supposed to work, isn't it? After ten or fifteen minutes of this, I opted to unplug the laptop and let it run down the battery. After about an hour, during which I leafed through several library books and decided they could be returned, the laptop shut down in a very slow version of the normal shutdown.
I let it sit for another ten minutes or so, then plugged it in and started it up. Since all of this just seemed strange beyond words, I decided to do a full antivirus scan.
This kept the laptop busy until 6:00. I was astonished to see that the screen looked perfectly normal the whole time, and wanted to know why it had to be all dim and blurry when I was working but vibrantly clear while the antivirus program was running and I was reading library books and editing on paper.
No viruses were detected.
The screen has been beautiful ever since (although it might, of course, die as soon as I write this). I thought we had a hardware problem here, not a software issue. Are we simply dealing with some sort of divine joke?
Ah well, I will continue to work until 3:00, when we have a gamelan rehearsal in preparation for tonight's concert in the neighboring metropolis of Greensburg. With luck, I will not be the embarrassment of the ensemble.

Counting Down

I took the laptop in to the tech people Monday morning, and it was duly diagnosed with a hardware failure. Our tech people don't work on hardware. The technician assured me that my data was in no danger and given that I was hoping to turn in my dissertation on Friday, suggested that I simply hook the laptop up to an external monitor for the next few days.
Of course, a person doesn't exactly lug an external monitor around. Not even the new flat-screen kind. The desk upon which my external monitor sits has no room for sheets of paper, let alone a laptop. In other words, the desk I set up so optimistically in the fall hasn't proved very useful for much beyond a little web surfing and greeting of fellow bloggers.
I went into a period of mild meltdown. Where was I going to work? How was I going to get anything done? (It was, however, only a mild meltdown. Even though Kristen claims it is about the worst she's seen me get, I can melt down much, much further. There just isn't much about grad school that prompts me that way, so it has been a good many years since I really lost it for any length of time.)
Laptop or no laptop, I figured that no matter what my mental state, I could make a little headway on my illustrations, which I had printed out the night before. I imbibed some soup and settled down to my task and got quite a bit done, despite an (otherwise pleasant) encounter with our gamelan leader in which he assured me that it's cheaper to get a new laptop than to fix an ailing screen.
Later in the afternoon, it occurred to me that just because the screen was preparing to die on me, it was not actually dead yet. I might actually get a few more hours' use out of it. And indeed I got several hours of work out of it that very evening. Consequently, I'm now regarding it as something that is a tiresome problem but not likely to explode or something in the next couple of days.
My advisor, meanwhile, was very sympathetic about this kink in the dissertation process. We have agreed that I will get done what I can, when I can, and depending on when that is, I'll either graduate this spring or next year. She reiterated that my CAA paper had been a success, and that I had even kept to my time limit, unlike some people. I will not recount the horrible tale she told about a certain panel that I did not attend, which involved someone who had no concept of the importance of adhering to one's time limit. My readers can imagine for themselves the possible dire consequences, although I will say it didn't sound as though any fruit was thrown; I'm not sure anyone had any fruit handy. I am glad to say that, in contrast, everyone on my panel behaved very professionally. (I am slightly sorry I missed the debacle of which she spoke, as many horrible things went wrong throughout, but I was enjoying a perfectly good panel in another room.)
In any case, it is still conceivable that I might manage to turn in the first half of the dissertation on Friday and the second half on Monday or Tuesday. Thus, in the throes of optimism, I settled down to work quite early this morning and went at it for four or five hours experiencing that peculiar elation that assures me that I am still madly in love with the dissertation. I realize it is abnormal, but there is nothing quite like settling in at an engrossing project and feeling (no matter how erroneously) that time is of no account and that nothing else could possible drag one away from the whole thing.
Of course, at a certain point I realized that I needed to print out my chapter, that I was hungry, and that the women's restroom at Kiva Han was out of order. I prepared to depart, only to discover my friend Chip reading a strangely untoward-looking tome at a nearby table. In other words, it had nothing to do with Russian avant-garde theater. It looked suspiciously like a social science text of the most impenetrable sort.
Chip confessed it was for a pedagogy course, and made clear that he would rather talk to me (even about my recent haircut) than read any more of it just then.
An hour or so later, we had established that he should learn Uzbek before improving his German, that my roommates are much easier to pet than his, that it would be a stretch for him to claim to be "diverse" on the grounds of being politically left of center (although if he had multiple personalities, I think he could claim to be, euphemistically, "diverse" provided some of the personalities weren't straight white males), and, finally, that neither of us actually believes any of our students dream about us in the form of dreams about rats and that neither do we care if they do, even if it is psychologically damaging to them to dream that we are rats. We enjoyed contemplating the paradox of pedagogical theories that we may in one respect quite agree with and in some other respect regard as utterly mistaken.
In contemplating whether he could avoid going to class, where his roommates would be sure to mention that he had seemed perfectly healthy at breakfast, I proffered the advice that rather than weakly disagree with some minor aspect of the day's topic, and raise suspicions of moral laxity, it would be far better to foment revolution and propose a diametrically opposed approach to teaching, which at the end of class could be revealed as a mere devil's advocate position.
In other words, rather than meekly agree that it is important to maintain firm boundaries between teacher and student, which must never be crossed, it would be much more stimulating to argue that there should be no boundaries whatsoever between the two. Learning is continuous! Everything the teacher does or says is potentially a model for the student! Students should be encouraged to be with their instructors 24 hours a day, following them in and out of the shower, imprinting like Konrad Lorenz's geese. To adapt a phrase current in my father's day, we must teach The Whole Student (it used to be The Whole Child, but college students are usually past childhood)! Attractions between student and teacher should be encouraged; think of Heloise and Abelard! (Well, minus the castration episode.) While Jane Gallop did run into a bit of trouble kissing grad students, this hasn't impaired her career and we suppose that if nothing else her grad students have improved their kissing skills. Chip's students could learn to dress with the same elegant abandon that he does, strewing buttons effortlessly in the street and appearing at meetings in the striking equivalent of his talismanic holey sweater.
Ah, the value of taking a break from one's dissertation! I was much refreshed despite having eaten no lunch. I marched off to print the chapter, devour a burrito or other substantial feast, and get another couple of hours' work in before gamelan.
The gods do, however, smite those who enjoy life too freely. It took an hour and a half to get my printout, gobble down a couple of bagels, and race to gamelan. And while my voice was in good shape to tackle "Mandi madu," the brain began short-circuiting on every piece in our slendro repertoire. There is probably some special torment in hell awaiting incompetent saron players.
My roommates do, however, believe that my needs are best served by spending the evening petting them rather than trying to eke out a few more lines of the introduction. They are probably right. Rabbit massage is healthful for everyone concerned.

Dangdut Hits Pittsburgh

In the gamelan class, we are not sticking to the standard Sundanese slendro repertoire, but have branched out into a more recent, non-gamelan, form of Indonesian popular music, namely dangdut. (This is basically because dangdut is Andrew's current research project and he is not going to let us miss out.) I am afraid that this means that at our upcoming concerts, the audience will have the unprecedented opportunity to see me in the role of a sort of dancing (or at least gyrating) pop singer. Whether we will have enough microphones to accommodate the whole lineup of singers remains a question, as in rehearsal there are about four of us per mike. On the other hand, most of us don't really know the words yet either. Nor do the songs we're working on seem to be quite suited to my vocal range.
But... Our most entertaining number seems likely to be that sexy 80s hit Mandi Madu, which can be viewed on YouTube in renditions by several performers:

This one is most notable for its jiggling females; personally I like our instrumentation and arrangement much better--or at least the way we were doing it last week. This week the instrumentalists seemed to be dealing with a new arrangement that did not exactly take my fancy.

This one, while more low-key, is sort of cute. (The performance overall, I mean. I don't really have an opinion on the cuteness of the singer.)

This outdoor performance has a lot of audience participation.

And this one is notable especially for the visuals, although whoever sings it is pretty good.

We have a strong suspicion that Andrew has provided us with a heavily bowdlerized translation of this song, although he has given a convincing demonstration of how we should utter all the "ah ah ah" segments. Perhaps it should be used as the soundtrack for my dissertation, even though I've never heard of Toyen having visited Indonesia.

For those who just can't get enough, last semester's dangdut songs are actually online for all to see and hear:
Kegagalan Cinta-Your Cheatin' Heart combo

Dangdut

Radio, Radio

Partly for my own good, partly for that of the lapine contingent, I tend to leave the radio on all day. This, of course, can only be done if there is a suitable station in the area, one which does not blast too much (or any) advertising at us.
While at times we listen to WQED (or as they now like to call it, QED), which is the classical station, I find that despite my fondness for classical music, I cannot take a steady diet of classical radio. This is partly because classical stations tend to program a lot of old favorites, and partly because I can't quite take the overwhelming earnestness of most classical announcers, some of whom really seem to be afflicted with a need to get positively swoony about the value of classical music. I never again want to hear the Moonlight Sonata several times daily, nor to hear about wonderful adagios or how classical music helps grapes ripen in the vineyards. Besides, all my favorite shows seem to play at hours when I'm not really anxious to listen, like late at night and very early in the morning. But we do like quite a few things about WQED, in moderation.
I have concluded, and the rabbits have not been observed to disagree, that WYEP is the best all-day listening. It is true that I am not wild about all the music they play, and while I am glad they provide a forum for literature and various other spoken programs of a public service nature, I find these distracting (although I am sure the rabbits find these very educational). But WYEP plays a wide enough variety of music that I only find one or two music programs a week better to avoid. It is true that ever since the premiere of the Bob Dylan movie (which I saw and liked quite a bit), WYEP has gone a bit toward "nearly all Dylan nearly all the time." But I usually like Dylan, especially as sung by Joan Baez. And, in addition to playing a range of non-top-40 popular music (mostly recent), they sprinkle unexpected sorts of things throughout the week. This means that I might wake up to the sound of Pete Seeger singing "We Shall Overcome" (it happened to be over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, but it could just as easily have been some other weekend). This afternoon I was surprised to hear Luboš Malina performing Czech bluegrass (I was less surprised to hear Czech bluegrass on the radio when Druhá trava played the Johnstown festival back in September). And this evening, although I was aware that it was time for Thistle and Shamrock, I didn't really expect to hear both Martin Carthy and Pierre Bensusan in one evening.
Hearing Martin Carthy and Pierre Bensusan brought back fond memories. My friend Patty and I used to go hear Martin Carthy whenever he played in Santa Cruz, and we have his autograph to prove it, although I have lost the Platignum fountain pen he signed with. I only heard Pierre Bensusan live once, in Cotati. At the time he was exploring throwing some South American touches into French folk songs. It was exciting, but I never ran across a recording of anything he performed in that manner. He seemed to go a bit New-Age after that and I don't know what he does now.
It occurs to me, for that matter, that my original reason for attending a Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade dinner was that I wanted to hear Pete Seeger live. At later dinners I got to hear Odetta and (not so musically) Molly Ivins.
The Spotted Pair doesn't have any idea what a fine education they get on that radio, whether it's the Friday-night organ music on WQED or the bluegrass program that's on WYEP right now.

Back to Gamelan

The rabbits and I arrived safely back in Pittsburgh, although they were unhappy about spending an entire day in their carrier, and have been expressing this by going on a sort of hunger strike. I was beginning to wonder if I would have to take them to the vet, but Orion has been eating a certain amount of paper (one of his favorites), while Ms. Spots has periodically been sneaking over and nibbling just enough greens and hay to keep her going. For some reason she seems to have decided that it is more reasonable to show her disapproval by fasting rather than refusing to be petted, and I suppose that this is all right, in moderation.
To our surprise, Pittsburgh was considerably warmer than the Bay Area--around 70 rather than the normal 20-30. Do we need such rapid global warming? Even today the temperatures were more what I would have expected for a warmish winter day in Berkeley or San Francisco.
All these practicalities aside, however, I am now enrolled in gamelan for the first time in many years. When I went today, I was rather nervous that I would have forgotten everything I had once known. After all, I last played not too long before my current teacher began study. For that matter, I learned Indonesian-style, by trying to follow what I was shown, and without the benefit of any information about theory or style. I was always getting lost midway through, although presumably I became somewhat more adept in my second and third years.
American gamelan teachers try, from what I've heard, to combine the experiential with some information of a more theoretical and musicological variety. I like the idea of this, but since few of us were new this semester, the first fifteen minutes or so of class were relatively alarming because those who had studied previously were expected to answer questions about the music. I only know Western music theory, and not a great deal of that.
Things improved once we began to play. The first instrument I was put on was not one I recalled having played before, but it was easy once I grasped how quickly I was supposed to repeat my pattern, which took awhile. Next I went to the saron, which I had often played. Remembering how to strike and mute the keys was no problem, but I wasn't sure how easily I would remember the patterns, as I don't do well with either numbers or memorization.
To my surprise, it was all much easier than in the past. We spent awhile playing a piece written by my former teacher, and although I had heard it before, I assume he wrote it well after my departure from his group. I caught on to the patterns with astounding speed, and although I made occasional mistakes, I didn't get lost. I was able to hear the relationship of the different parts in a way I hadn't before, and could use the other instruments as cues.
All in all, it reminded me somewhat of skiing, because when I took up skiing, I didn't regard myself as very adept at sports, yet the skiing came fairly easily to me. In this case, I always enjoyed being in the gamelan but wasn't a very fast learner, whereas now I was able to settle in and play without much trouble, in a meditative yet conscious manner.
I'm not sure exactly why it is that almost everything I've done in the past eight years, whether skiing, graduate school, gamelan, or even (to a lesser degree) speaking Czech, is much easier than I would have expected. Some portion of my brain must be functioning abnormally well (compensating, I suppose, for worsening ability to hold onto objects, remember what I was just about to do, and speak without jumbling my words).
It's nice to know that some parts of life get easier and easier and become much more fun.