Art has its appeal...

Although I'm not too familiar with art in general, modern art usually doesn't do anything for me. But, I have to say that MoMA in NYC currently has one exhibit I'd love to visit: Janet Cardiff's The Forty-Part Motet. Yup, Tallis' Spem in Alium strikes again! Although...I think I'd rather hear a live performance, even if I couldn't walk amongst the choir members as they sang.

For those of you who are interested, I've found a great classical music blog. Now I can get my daily news from this site and from cnn.com (which, um, rarely covers my type of music in its entertainment section). :)

Oh, and woohoo weekend!

Tallis = amazing

I just finished some programming at the radio station I volunteer for. No, not computer programming...music programming! I had fun trying to use their database of music (over 62,000 cds) to fill an afternoon time slot with music. It was fun, and I'm definitely going to have to familiarize myself with more classical pieces of music if I want to get better at this. Gee...that's just too bad. ;)

Anyway, at one point I was looking for a short piece from the modern music genre. So I decided to search for a piece that is pi minutes long...well, pi to two decimal places. When I did that, I found a solo piano piece called "The Pig Town Fling." And...it's composed by a guy named Ernst BACON! Highly amused, I popped in the cd and listened to the piece, and it was very cute and will make a great addition to the classical hour. :)

I was going to leave the radio station a little awhile ago, but I wanted to talk music while I was thinking about it. Oh, and I guess that I don't want to leave the station right this second because I'm waiting 'till the end of a beautiful Thomas Tallis piece (Spem in Alium - written for eight 5-part choirs!!).

So what do I usually do at this radio station? I write commentaries for the announcers. These commentaries are meant to introduce a piece of music or a composer. Here's an example of one that I wrote earlier this year. I love having a chance to actually like learning about history. :)

Tarantella for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano (by Camille Saint-Saens)

What can you do to ward off the ill effects of a tarantula’s bite? Well, many people in the Middle Ages believed that you could thwart the hallucinogenic effects of the spider’s poison by frantic dancing. This belief eventually formed the basis for the tarantella, a dance in which couples whirl and twirl and change directions as the music, typically in 6/8 time, becomes faster and faster. We’ll listen today to the Tarantella for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano by the famous French composer Camille Saint-Saens. As you listen, imagine an amused tarantula watching its victims from a distance.

Happiness!

Well, I'm very happy that it's a saturday today. I got a decent amount of sleep last night, I had fun at piano lessons this morning, and I'm looking forward to watching the PSU game and going salsa dancing tonight.

And I sat down at my computer to update my blog, but I can't really think of anything to say. Oh yes, except that I found myself in an out-of-the-ordinary setting yesterday, and I enjoyed myself (which was sortof surprising). Basically, I went to a happy hour and had a fun time, even though drinking and inhaling smoke is not really my thing (I wasn't actually drinking or smoking, just around people who were). I think that I enjoyed it because it was different, if that makes any sense. I got to chat with people who are quite different than a lot of my friends and I felt like I once again saw a perspective on life that I haven't been exposed to much since college. Why do I care that I re-discovered this perspective? I'm not sure, although I have some theories.

So that's all for now. :) If anyone has suggestions of things I should write about, let me know. Otherwise, you might end up with a poem about chocolate or an ode to Rachmaninoff or something like that. :)

Childish curiosity

Curiosity can be a very good thing. It can also be incrediby frustrating. To me, curiosity is like the opposity of apathy, and while I'm generally not a big fan of apathy, there is a time and a place for it. Right?

What makes either curiosity or apathy bad? Well, we might think that our curiosity is misplaced when it is not realistic that we will find an answer: curiosity becomes "bad" when we experience a negative feeling like frustration. We might think our apathy is misplaced when we notice missed opportunities: apathy becomes "bad" when it gets in the way of a positive feeling like understanding. But I don't think things are always that clear-cut. I think that curiosity can be bad even when it leads to positive feelings, and I think that apathy can be bad even when it doesn't prevent us from a positive feeling.

I wonder how much curiosity and apathy hinder us from living a healthy life. Misplaced curiosity can be very, very bad. Misplaced apathy can be very, very bad. I can pinpoint situations in my life (both in the past and present) where I wish I felt more curious towards certain things and more apathetic towards others. But there is a balance to strike. To me, the danger of curiosity is that it can lead to obsessive attachment, and the danger of apathy is that it can lead to protective detachment. Now, I don't think that either trait is fundamentally bad; it depends on the situation. After all, the world would be dull and static without curiosity and frantic and competitive without apathy.

I also wonder how much curiosity and apathy interact to allow us to live a healthy life. Perhaps they serve as sources of positive and negative feedback in a regulatory system. For example, when I discover a new idea X, feelings of curiosity may lead me to seek out more information on X. As I build up information on X, my curiosity is more satisfied and apathy begins to settle in -- not necessarily apathy about X itself, but perhaps apathy about learning more about X. As conditions change, however, it might be wise to reevaluate X -- and so curiosity kicks in again. It is easy to imagine how not having sources of either positive or negative feedback can be dangerous: if I only have curiosity, I become obsessive about X. If I only have apathy, I am never motivated to formulate ideas about X or reevaluate previous ideas when the environment changes. There's a healthy way in which these two things interact, but the balance may change depending on the subject X itself. It's probably good for me to be aware of what X's bias me more towards unhealthy curiosity and which bias me more towards unhealthy apathy.

Well, I started this post by feeling the need to explore my thoughts on this subject...and now I'm pretty much feeling like I don't want to write/think anymore about it for now. There you have it, folks -- this post is brought to you by the interaction of my own curiosity and apathy. Enjoy!

Mourningtime

The Penn State game in Ann Arbor yesterday was awesome. Until the last second, that is. In the last SECOND of the game, MI scored a touchdown and catapulted themselves to victory. If you haven't read about the details of the game, you can read about it here. To make a long story short, the fourth quarter was incredibly fast-paced and tense (and exciting, except that calling it exciting makes it sound like I'm somehow happy with the outcome of the game).

We had the best seats ever though -- we were in the second row of seats, right on the 30-yard line. Joe Pa was on average 40 feet away from me the whole game. The football players were lined up in front of our seats. The Blue Band sousaphone section was 20 feet to my left. A crazy and excited PSU fan (who made the 8-hour drive from State College) was right behind us. And the MI fans surrounding us were actually pretty friendly and humorous.

Of course, all of this made things even harder when the game ended abruptly. The players hung their heads. The sousaphonists looked devastated. I could see the facial expressions of so many PSU people, and that made the ending of the game even harder.

But, it was a good (in the technical sense of the word) game. And I'm glad that I had the opportunity to go. And I'm trying to not be too down about the loss (it's only a game! And Penn State will go on to kick butt the rest of the season anyway). ;) As my friend just reminded me, I should be happy today because "today is a weekend day that isn't yesterday."

Lion pawprints on Wolverine territory

Provided that our tickets arrive by fed-ex tomorrow morning, some friends and I are going to see the PSU game in ann arbor!!!! Awwww yeah!!!

The last time I was at a PSU game was...well, I can't remember the year ('98?), but it was the game where the Nittany Lion proposed to the Blue Sapphire (feature twirler) during halftime. That was pretty cute, except that I heard that they broke off their engagement later. :(

Anyway, the Blue Band will be there too, so I'm definitely excited! Can you tell? :)

A (sub)scripted life

Okay, for this post, a symbol like X_y reads “X sub y”; in other words, y is a subscript.

For awhile now I have been thinking about how I sometimes act or feel or think differently in different situations. While I am generally okay with that, sometimes it bothers me; sometimes I think that my reaction should remain constant over a variety of scenarios.

In other words, often I want K_i = C for all i, where K_i refers to my reaction given some context i, and where C is a constant.

This simply isn’t always possible. So usually I’ll end up with something more like: K_i = C_i. Here, my reaction changes depending on i.

And when this happens, I find myself questioning the nature of i. What does “i” index? The person I am interacting with? My emotion of the day? Age/the passage of time? Reflection? I often tend to assume that i is some intrinsic quality of myself (my own emotional state, the amount or quality of reflection I do on a topic, etc.). And there, the question becomes when and whether I should strive to reduce (or expand) the range of i. For a weird example, should I have a different personality when interacting with each of my friends (i labels friends), or should I have just a few different personalities to choose from when interacting with friends (i has only a few values, so i labels subsets of friends), or should I always just be me (i has one value)? Just so that you’re not too worried, I don’t think about this particular case very often – besides, you all know how scatterbrained and wacko I can be!

And instead of indexing some intrinsic quality of myself, is it possible that i can sometimes index some quality about something completely external to myself? Basically, can “i” be not just an index, but an indicator? For a silly example, I’ve noticed that often K_i = good on sunny days but K_i = bad on overcast days. That suggests that i is an index for weather. Even Mom tells me that this trend was apparent back in my days in the crib (crib being a real baby crib, not ghetto slang for something else). :)

A blizzard of white

Penn State won yesterday! In the words of a sports illustrated writer, "Paterno could walk away tomorrow comfortable in the knowledge that Happy Valley is hip again." Hehe...come on. When wasn't Happy Valley hip? ;) I only got to watch the last quarter of the game, but maybe that's a good thing, because I was soooo tense. I don't think I've ever been that excited about any non-olympic sporting event...ever. :) My dear friend who let me watch the game's ESPN coverage at her apartment seemed a bit surprised, but she handled it and me quite well (by offering me candy and assuring me that PSU defense wasn't going to let silly OSU score a touchdown).

I'm also happy that my town didn't riot -- supposedly there was a police helicopter hovering over the town, just in case. Hehe...I suppose there was a great potential for disaster when 109,839 (!!) fans pour out of a stadium at 11 at night (after partying all day, of course).

Jay Leno was hilarious as usual. He talked about his wacky italian family, the craziness of Los Angelos ("the only place where you can be both held at gunpoint and eaten by a mountain lion in a single day"), how women love some characteristics of cats but hate those very same ones in men, the occupations of several audience members, and his favorite topic, America's obsession with food. In reference to the fact that Dairy Queen now has a blizzard with chunks of cheesecake, he commented "cheesecake is now merely an INGREDIENT!" And Domino's double-decker pizza? "Hm, what topping would I like for my pizza? I know! How about...another pizza!"

Peeling away the layers...

A friend sent an article/cartoon to me, and it's absolutely hilarious. Most of it is one-sided, and I apologize if anyone is offended, but I believe in finding humor in life.

Here's the article: "Intelligent Design Trial"

As a side note, I take this topic very seriously. As objective as it's supposed to be, I find myself to be very emotionally involved in it, and I have to watch myself. The issues behind the Dover, PA court case really play to my curiosity, my pride, my beliefs, my sense of fairness, my hopes, and to some extent my fears. Although I'm glad that I'm interested in it (since most political/current events don't really matter to me), I tend to frown upon people who defend their side as if their person/personality is being threatened. It bothers me that I probably do the same thing.

Autumn Leaves

Some small but fun things I am looking forward to this month:

1. Jay Leno! He's coming to MSU this saturday and I'm going to hear him speak. I can't wait to hear the jokes about Michigan (both the school and the state), MSU, and the Lansing area. If only he would do his "headlines" segment...

2. Penn State football! Now, I don't really follow any sports or sports teams...but Penn State football is the exception. So far they are 5-0, which is (sadly) their longest winning streak in a season since my freshman year at Bucknell. I can't wait to see them cream OSU this weekend. ;)

3. Autumn activities. My roomie and I want to get to Uncle John's cider mill -- this great place nearby that makes apple cider, good fruit wines, yummy pastries, and grows and sells lots of pumpkins.

4. Nerdy math music: Sometime this month, the Klein Four Group will release their first cd. If you want to get a feel for their music, go to their website, click on media, then performances, and then on their hit "Finite Simple Group (of order 2)." I personally can't wait to hear their "Ballad of Galois."

That's about it for now. I'd say that I am looking forward to candy, but I'm still digesting a huge meal prepared by a friend last night, so maybe I'll post about that later. :)