Thoughts about nanowrimo

I've got exactly 23 hours and 50 minutes until NaNoWriMo starts. Now I know I was under the influence of muscle relaxants (they hit me like a ton of bricks--so do antihistamines and dramamine¹, which I guess is an antihistamine. And we won't get into the really messed up dreams I get off Claritin), and I have no obligation to actually do it. But I've still got absolutely no idea what I'm going to write about.

I'm not overly concerned about the time of it--I've been in college for awhile, and I can write five-page papers (essentially what this is) quickly, not that they'd be any good, though². So I guess I'll give it the old college try (pardon the pun), and see how it goes. If it gets to be too much, I can always ditch it in favor of other things.
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¹ Hey, it works! I'm not being profusely seasick, if I'm dead to the world, asleep.
² The goodness of the final work, I gather, isn't the point.

Scattered before-bed thoughts

So a few years ago, I messed up my back lifting a printer. Every once and awhile (fortunately less and less often) it tweaks out on me. The other night it was being a nuisance, so I took my muscle relaxant and settled down to my evening blog surf. In what seemed like a good idea at the time, I signed up for NaNoWriMo. Now, I know I'm under no obligation to actually do it, and with a dissertation (albeit musical), I probably shouldn't, unless I can make the two relate. But...

...I could do crossover Doctor Who/Battlestar Galactica fanfic. (OK, no I couldn't...think of the children...to illustrate how those muscle relaxants interact with me, I did seriously entertain this idea when I signed up.)

...Or it might be a good way to get my book on video game soundtracks done. One of my goals is to write a book on the aesthetics of music in video games. It's a side research interest--video games fascinate me, especially the way all levels work together--but I've no interest in ever composing music for games. I don't play nicely with others. Corporate culture makes me homicidal. But I've been doing research for the stupid thing over the past so many years. I may as well write it up finally.

...Or I could do something creative. Blogging aside, I so rarely have time to write for the sake of writing anymore. Everything I write is to be evaluated in some form, and it might be kind of fun to write something I intend for nobody to read. (Some thoughts involve a commentary on my dissertation--which would take longer than a month to do--or something involving the liturgy of the hours.)

So I don't know what I'm going to do, if I do anything at all. Suggestions are welcome, and I've got 5 days to figure it out.

New Music and complexity

I'm far from a "complex" composer. I know what I like, I know the sound I'm trying to get, and if I'm lucky, what I wanted actually comes out. I have my bag of tricks--from Balinese music, serial music, jazz, medieval and renaissance polyphony, chant melodic development, and even a few things I picked up from Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. If you buy me a beer or a bubble tea, odds are I'll tell you about a few of them in any given piece.

This article over at New Music Box has got me thinking, and not in a good way. It seems like every bit of my life lately has been taken over by dichotomies--religion, politics, gaming, now music--and the polarization resulting from them feels like it's tearing life apart some days. In the article and in the comments, there's a disparaging attitude--nothing new, I know--towards "academic" composers and critical theorists. I'd like to know where he's listening to such people who write bad music and theorize about it, because those I know who do both write really beautiful music. Odds are you wouldn't hear them on a high-profile concert, but if you know where to look, you're in for a real treat.

I'm sure a lot of bad music gets written in academe. I'm sure a lot of bad music also gets written outside of it. There's also a lot of good music written in both places, which gets ignored by snark such as that post.

Huzzah! Financial aid fixed! No explanation given, no apologies, but I'm not complaining. Thanks for all the well-wishes and prayers. They meant a lot, even though I was spaz girl. Needless to say I'm still looking into grants, and I'm no longer checking my school email over the weekends. (Y'all who know me know how to get ahold of me, anyway.)

Stress for Art

From Kelly, over at Academia as an Extreme Sport: "Give me your STRESS for my ART." Maybe there's hope for humanity, after all...

Still here

Thanks for all the prayers and well-wishes...I'm still here. I spoke with someone in the financial aid office this morning, and he had no information beyond the fact that it's "under review" and I'll be contacted "at the end of the week" about it.

Needless to say I'm also checking into dissertation grants and the like. Even if this works out, I don't want to have to rely on them and the federal government. (honestly I can't go through this every quarter, like it's shaping up to be. Then again every time in the past I've said "I can't do X," somehow the strength is there.) Ironically on the "Daily Breakfast" podcast, there was a quote from someone discussing creativity, and how it either needs an extremely relaxed state, or an extremely agitated one. Maybe this is what I need to get the code finished...(OK, I'm trying to put a positive spin on things.)

So if anyone hears of a particularly interesting grant for Catholic gamer-geek composers, let me know.

If you're the praying type, I could use them about now. I got dumped by financial aid yet again, and they let me know at 11:30 tonight. So of course I can't do anything about it now until they open up on Monday. Apologies for not confining my whines to my livejournal, like i normally do.

Procrastination from Code-Slinging

But first, an update of the dissertation meter:

300 / 4,500 (6.7%)

I'm getting tired of the current set of functions I use to make music, so I switched to a set of functions (originally coded by my chair) that interface with csound, a powerful but horrible-to-code (an exercise in self-mortification) program for music composition on the computer. Using his code is an oddly intimate thing--there are some functions which fit how I think and program intuitively, making me confront the fact that perhaps we aren't too different, after all.

When I was last on a retreat, one of the other guests made the comment that things made with computers don't have a soul. At the time, it was one of those comments that hurt, and you don't quite know what to say in response out of politeness and not wanting to make trouble. (I think I wandered off to the chapel, instead.) But it's a common complaint I hear about computer music.

While there are people who are into it for the technology, and seem to only consider the shiny thing in front of them, for me computer music is more intimate and exposed than instrumental music ever was. In instrumental music, you've got musicians between you and the audience. It's not a bad thing, and I love the communion that happens when an ensemble just "gets" your piece. But with computer music, there's nobody to hide behind, not even the technology people try to use as a shield.

Lately I've been listening off and on--I find it hard to listen to music when I'm trying to write it--to some of the computer music from the 1960's. We're talking early stuff written on computers that could only dream of the processing speed of my video card. People on my committee speak of "borrowing" CPU time from big mainframes, only to get a few seconds back the next morning. Yet what they managed to do with so little was highly musical. Listening to those pieces is like watching a concert soloist play--you start to think it's something so easy anyone could do it. That's the sign of a great musician--you don't hear the technicalities, but the stuff inside of it. It's also the epitome of taoist thought, that something is so full of effort it becomes effortless.

Eh, I'm nowhere near there yet. I gripe and moan about how slow my computer--a 1.2 ghz athlon thunderbird--is, yet I can compile a stereo piece in less than an hour. It's humbling to think that my teachers needed days.

And as a bit of a sleepy non sequitur, I put a sitemeter up. It's been interesting seeing where everyone is from.

Everybody Dies

I don't like war games. Most of the time they're constructed upon a "let's shoot dem commie/turrist/asian bastards!" platform that doesn't hide their politics. Political themes in games can be interesting, so long as they're presented in a non-propagandistic manner. A little intelligence goes a long way.

Command and Conquer is Starcraft (or Warcraft) with better graphics and modern political alliances (and biases.) America's Army is nothing more than Unreal Tournament with an Army mod. (The politics and propaganda of that game bother me far, far more than any other game I've played--Postal 2, Grand Theft Auto III, and Manhunt included.)

It's almost a shame I don't have my generals now, after the release of Introversion's Defcon. The second question (that of ethics and morals in video games) would've gotten a lot more interesting. It and Call to Duty may very well be the only games on the market, which show the horrors of war. I think if Introversion weren't an independent game company, Defcon would never have been made.

For those of us who remember the Cold War, Defcon's premise is simple: lose the least. It takes place in a command center (represented on one's computer screen) The UI presented to the player is a line-drawing of the world, in the style of the map presented in the movie "War Games." Population centers are dots of varying size and intensity, depending upon population density. Missile silos, air bases, and naval fleets are depicted similarly. At different stages, different types of deployments and movements are possible. Only at Defcon 1 are missiles able to be launched, for instance. In games against other people, alliances can be formed and broken.

If it had only computer blips and bleeps for a soundtrack, the game would be just another strategy game. But the soundtrack is much like Dark Age of Camelot's in that it's made up of segments of musical material with ambient noise layered on top. The musical material is like Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" meets Giya Kancheli. If that weren't enough, the ambient sounds are things like rumblings, the hush of wind and fallout, a distorted recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and women crying.

Unlike so many other games, the soundtrack is what makes this game so horrifying. Playing with the sound off is a completely different--and less powerful--experience. It's rare to see real musical irony in a video game. Those who play Defcon only to nuke the crap out of their most hated city are missing the point and the experience.

Day 9

When walking home from a friend's house, all the worries and stresses of the past week seemed to dissolve. I stopped for a moment, taking in the newfound stillness, and was overwhelmed by the honeysuckle bush next to me. "Sit in your cell, and it will teach you everything."

Day 8

Last night involved rantings from mentally unbalanced neighbors, and I'm still on edge. I'm also coming down with a cold. If there's one thing a cold teaches you, it's that you need to take time for yourself.

Day 7

At the end of the summer, I find myself back in the same mindset as I was before my exams--unable to relax, and feeling like I should be working all the time. I've seen this attitude with others, and it's one of the symptoms of burnout. It's easy to forget what "holy leisure" is, when deadlines are looming. May we all find the rest we need.

Day 6

Lately I've been reading the book Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by J. Neville Ward. It's a weird book (the author is a Methodist minister--not that Methodist ministers are weirder than anyone else), but while I may disagree with minor details, he's dead on with most of his points about the rosary and his mediations on the mysteries. Here's one passage that struck me (from his discussion of the last of the Glorious mysteries, the Crowning of the Blessed Virgin):

The title "Ever-Virgin" draws on ancient forms of expression in man's long struggle to say what the divine must be and indicates thoughts for which we would use other terms, though they might well be no more effective. It means that, her son being who he is, we see her as one called into a single, exclusive, unrepeatable part of the service of God, as being wholly involved in this spiritually and physically, hearing the word of God and keeping it with all her heart and soul and strength.

Its meaning extends in the thought of an emptiness of self that waits for God alone to fill it, a faith that endures losses and unmet longings and ungranted prayers, without running to compensations and distractions to fill the void, because it believes that God will give himself and his meaning in his own time. The Christian mind in meditation finds the Virgin Mary meaning this absolute openness to God and aspires to it, wants to breathe its free yet dedicated atmosphere.

And most deeply, as the ultimate fulfillment of God's purpose begins in Jesus, there is a sense in which it also begins in Mary, so that she is a sign of the first light of that kingdom of heaven where Jesus said there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage but only the fullness of love that transcends all the limitations and predilections of temporal sexuality(161-162).

Day 5

Tonight in his homily, one of our priests mentioned that the core of ministry should be a path to joy. (Paraphrasing. Unfortunately he doesn't put his homilies up on the web. HINT.)

It's really hard to see myself as a bringer of joy and my path as a joyful one, when increasingly more and more college students care only about the degree and not the knowledge. I know I've been guilty of this, as well, in my impatience to get done with this degree.

I could use a little patience here, Lord. And help me remember the saying of Seung Sahn's, that living in a community is like washing potatoes--they bump into each other in the pot they're in, and everyone comes out clean.

Day 4

Lately I've been wondering if I made the right decision. Did I waste my time going to this school? Am I making the wrong decision to get a doctorate in a field people don't value or care about? I've never questioned my role as a composer (ability, sure, we all do). But I can't help but hear the voices of family and teachers before college, who resoundingly said what a worthless degree I'd be pursuing, if I went into composition.

I know it's normal to doubt one's vocation. When I decided to go into composition, I didn't know how it would work out. All I knew is that this was the path I had to take. "Help my unbelief!"

Day 3

Since it's the second of three Ember Days, there are special antiphons for the Gospel canticles (as are there for all of the canticles, at least in my version of the Divine Office.) Here's the one for today for the Benedictus (same translation as before, to spare you my bad Latin): "A woman who was a sinner in the city, stood at the feet of the Lord behind Him, and with tears began to wash His feet and wipe them with the hairs of hear head; and she kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment.¹"

I've been blessed to have been spared the horror of an abusive advisor, although I know there are many in graduate programs, who have them. The brokenness of an abusive relationship doesn't go away with time, and it's easy to feel like the woman in the antiphon--broken beyond help, and like "damaged goods." In the account of it in Luke, it's her love which frees her. Today's prayer is for all those in the grad student/advisor relationship, both good and bad--may we all be guided by unconditional love.

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¹ from Luke 7:38, with bits from 37.

Day 2

A co-worker forwarded this link to me. It's a site with the final statements of people executed in Texas. I expected angry statements, and ones lashing out at the system that gave up on them. But what I didn't expect were the majority of statements, which were full of peace, love, and acceptance of their deaths. Some of those people have little more than a few years' of high school education, yet some of their statements are wonderfully profound.

Day 1

I'm late starting, but better late than never.

Today is the day when new TA's have their orientation, most faculty are around, and the new students are having their theory/history tests. After weeks of silence, it's jumping around here, and the halls are less quiet. When normally my mornings are filled with quiet, catching up on my blogs, and sipping coffee, I've been jumping today with a thousand things.

It's also the first of 3 Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday), one of four weeks during the liturgical year (all roughly at quarters of the liturgical year) for prayer and fasting. The collect for lauds this morning was, " Misericórdiæ tuæ remediis, quæsumus, Dómine, fragilitas nostra subsistat : ut, quæ sua conditióne atteritur, tua cleméntia reparétur." Or: "We beseech You, O Lord, may the remedies of Your mercy sustain our weakness; and in pity renew our strength which by its nature is ever failing." (Edited...removed my lousy translation I did without a dictionary and replaced it with the one out of the Monastic Diurnal reprint.)

I think it's an appropriate commentary on what I'm after during these nine days.

Odds and ends

First, a video I found linked off newmusicbox.org: How to write a fugue (described recursively) with a subject from a Brittney Spears song. I like recursion.

Second, thinking about pulling a Sr. Susan and doing a sorta-novena the 9 days before the semester starts. Not sure if I'm dumping it here or over on my LJ. Maybe part here, part elsewhere. I like this format for more "serious" things, even though I haven't been overly serious lately.

Thanks to workstudy, I'm stuck in the area until September 26, with the next semester starting September 27. I'm burnt to a crusty little crisp, so I'll probably check in with my advisor and take off somewhere for a week, as long as I've got the laptop set up to do music stuff. I'd love to go back to Our Lady of the Rock, but it's hard for me to get to. Other suggestions are welcome. (I don't drive.)

International viewers: if you wanted to see the BSG webisodes in the last post, you can find them on youtube. (Also good for those of us in linuxland.)

BSG

And now for something really important: Battlestar Galactica webisodes, leading up to the season start in October. If you're in linux and don't have a version of Adobe flashplayer 9 to install, you're screwed. But find a windows or OSX box: they're good so far.

It's tiding me over while I wait for BSG to start back up, the Doctor Who Christmas episode to air, and then season 29 of Doctor Who to start up in the spring.