Hey, I'm older than I look (I hope!) Somehow I can't handle a full week of Open Ears concerts while still holding down my 9-5 job. So tonight I decided to stay home, play with my cat, get some work done, and actually sleep.
But first I went to YouTube to check out the latest videos I've subscribed to, and...well, you know how it is. You see a "related video" that sounds intriguing, and twenty minutes later you're sucked into a collection of horribly addictive clips.
JUDGE JUDY.
My grandmother watches court shows all day, every day. She told me this on Easter and I scoffed at her. I said she was rotting her brain. She agreed.
I just spent two hours watching clips from Judge Judy, because I'm just as susceptible to brain rot as anybody else. My only defense, your honour, is that I never INTENDED to watch them. At worst I am guilty of SECOND DEGREE consumption, so please go easy on me.
To try to get SOMETHING worthwhile out of this monumental waste of time, let me explain why Court TV is so addictive. It's because we spend all day feeling like we're the innocent ones and everybody else is guilty, but we're punished while the guilty people go free. We don't want to wallow in wishy-washy stuff like "points of view" and "selection bias" and "willful blindness of our own stupidity," we just want an omnipotent being to come down and say "You're right, they're wrong, you're better than they are, NEXT!"
Fictional television programs give us a bit of this thrill, but they throw in a bunch of other things and -- after all -- it's only fiction. Reality TV gets closer to home but we still sort of know it isn't real. Trashy talk shows fulfil our need to watch people who are stupider than us actually FIGHT, because sometimes we don't want JUSTICE, we just want some righteous inbred ass-kicking.
But Judge Judy...she is the authority figure we want to have on our side, the one who not only comes down and clearly draws the line between right and wrong, but also delivers the ass-kicking as a sort of frosty dessert. We see exaggerated cases where one person is clearly lying, or stupid, or evil, or all of the above, and then we see us on the other side -- the rightous one who is still fallible enough to get whupped by JJ now and then -- and then the holy fires of Judy come down and reward the right people and send the wrong people away to pay what they owe and make a final statement ("Don't trust JERKS, is all I have to say.")
There are a lot of other things going on as well. We respect Judge Judy's no-nonsense practicality and her ability to get straight to the point (in the editing room). We like to think that Judy would give us a break and approve of our behaviour. We also like the freakshow of people who are clearly stupider than we are...it makes us feel superior in our intelligence, amazed at their incompetence, and furious at their attempted duplicity. If they happen to WIN a case we can get angry that those stupid people were taken ADVANTAGE of, and we can mentally pat them on the head and say "Thanks for being honest, stupid person."
This is all an extension of what we do every day...but it's a HUGE extension. It's narcissistic and polarizing and a gross distortion of what human disagreements are really about. I mean, sure, there ARE times when people go to court for indefensible reasons and get their butts kicked, but usually it's a matter of subtlety, perception, and who-said-what...
...you know, all that stuff we hate thinking about every day because we know that WE are always RIGHT.
Judge Judy, you are fulfilling human needs that are, ultimately, anti-social and demented. But you're funny anyway.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Open Ears 2009: Wedesday April 29
Tonight was one of extreme contrasts. Open Ears is, at its best, capable of surprising you with a mix of contrasting styles and approaches...two hours and two blocks can span the corners of the globe and the moodiest of moodswings. Tonight was one of those nights.
But first, let me mention the common threads woven through this year's festival: the ubiquitous on-stage Macbook, the ever-present whispered spirit of R. Murray Schafer, and the venue-bracketing duo of mismatched photographers who -- for lack of an introduction -- I think of as "Yo-ho Jack" and "Bungie!"
Elevated with David Lang
The show started with a friendly, goofy-looking dog attempting to get a treat out of a glass mason jar. It pawed and chewed, knocking the jar around. The dog didn't have a plan, its approach showed no evidence of learning or consideration...instead, endearingly, he just worked at the problem with no sign of ever giving up.
Despite the sad piano accompaniment, this film was funny at the beginning. People in the audience laughed at the bumbling, innocent, silly and simple animal.
Then the glass jar broke, and the dog started chewing at the sharp edges, trying to reach the treat that was still inside. The piano's downbeat tone took on a totally new meaning. As the animal continued to chew on the broken glass, a palpable wave of disbelief, hostility, and betrayal rose up around us. We, the audience, were shocked to the core.
So, with the film "Treat Bottle" (by William Wegman) and a song called "Wed," the show began, and though the rest of the performance was somewhat less visceral, the mood continued to be one of futility. Then futility again. Then a darker, more oppressive futility than the futility that had come before, with an emphasis on "futility."
I loved it all.
The films were accompanied by professional musicians playing in total lock-step: not a note out of place, not a baffling beat dropped. For a totally miserable ten-minute adaptation of "Heroin," Nadine Medawar sang with perfect pitch, yet fragile and halting and emotionally devastating. They went about this performance like a business and it suited the mood perfectly.
The show ended with the film "Elevated" by Matt Mullican, consisting of slow fades of irregularly-cut 1935 New York scenes: Madison Square Garden, Central Park, burlesque shows, Christmas shoppers, Luna Park. Meanwhile the musicians performed "Men" for trombone, english horn, bass clarinet, baritone sax, two pianos, percussion, viola, cello, and double bass.
Most of the instruments played single extended notes, sometimes harmoniously, usually with a slight dissonance. The man at the bass drum kept time in an almost -- but not quite -- regular tempo, signalling the instruments to change their notes after an uncomfortably long span of time. This created a repetative and disturbing drone that might have been somewhat lulling...
...except for the constant staccato tinkling of single piano keys, and the endless scraping of a brake drum, going on and on and on against those scenes of long-ago people smiling and bustling and shopping...
...and after five minutes you began to get agitated...
...and after then minutes you didn't think you could take it anymore...
...but after twenty minutes you realized it could go on forever and there was nothing you could do to stop it, and it felt like the aftermath of a speed-drug high when time is dragging and you're unable to sleep and even the most pleasant things leave you with a feeling of terrible emptiness...
...and after thirty minutes you've stopped hoping for change and lost all track of time...
...and then forty-five minutes later it stops. And you feel so good.
E.T.C.
So while the first show was a rigidly-constrained evocation of the most hopeless emotional depths, the second -- The Ellis Tanguay Cram E.T.C. Trio -- was a wild, joyful jazz improv. It was like finding out that the doctor was only kidding when she said you had cancer, and what's more you just won a car. YAY!
I used to hate free jazz, but over the years -- thanks mainly to exposure at past Open Ears festivals -- I've begun to learn how to relate to it. When the musicians start down a particular path I get a sense of the parameters they're setting themselves, and I can follow along with some degree of competence. When the drummer seems to be ripping the song into impossible and ever-unravelling shreds, I can find the beat makers that hide underneath. In short, I've learned to simply loosen up and have fun, and it helps when the musicians are having as much fun as E.T.C. were.
I'm exhausted after a day of work and shows so I can't give the guys their due, but...wow. They brought me up and made me happy, and I certainly wasn't alone. I could have listened to them all night long.
But first, let me mention the common threads woven through this year's festival: the ubiquitous on-stage Macbook, the ever-present whispered spirit of R. Murray Schafer, and the venue-bracketing duo of mismatched photographers who -- for lack of an introduction -- I think of as "Yo-ho Jack" and "Bungie!"
Elevated with David Lang
The show started with a friendly, goofy-looking dog attempting to get a treat out of a glass mason jar. It pawed and chewed, knocking the jar around. The dog didn't have a plan, its approach showed no evidence of learning or consideration...instead, endearingly, he just worked at the problem with no sign of ever giving up.
Despite the sad piano accompaniment, this film was funny at the beginning. People in the audience laughed at the bumbling, innocent, silly and simple animal.
Then the glass jar broke, and the dog started chewing at the sharp edges, trying to reach the treat that was still inside. The piano's downbeat tone took on a totally new meaning. As the animal continued to chew on the broken glass, a palpable wave of disbelief, hostility, and betrayal rose up around us. We, the audience, were shocked to the core.
So, with the film "Treat Bottle" (by William Wegman) and a song called "Wed," the show began, and though the rest of the performance was somewhat less visceral, the mood continued to be one of futility. Then futility again. Then a darker, more oppressive futility than the futility that had come before, with an emphasis on "futility."
I loved it all.
The films were accompanied by professional musicians playing in total lock-step: not a note out of place, not a baffling beat dropped. For a totally miserable ten-minute adaptation of "Heroin," Nadine Medawar sang with perfect pitch, yet fragile and halting and emotionally devastating. They went about this performance like a business and it suited the mood perfectly.
The show ended with the film "Elevated" by Matt Mullican, consisting of slow fades of irregularly-cut 1935 New York scenes: Madison Square Garden, Central Park, burlesque shows, Christmas shoppers, Luna Park. Meanwhile the musicians performed "Men" for trombone, english horn, bass clarinet, baritone sax, two pianos, percussion, viola, cello, and double bass.
Most of the instruments played single extended notes, sometimes harmoniously, usually with a slight dissonance. The man at the bass drum kept time in an almost -- but not quite -- regular tempo, signalling the instruments to change their notes after an uncomfortably long span of time. This created a repetative and disturbing drone that might have been somewhat lulling...
...except for the constant staccato tinkling of single piano keys, and the endless scraping of a brake drum, going on and on and on against those scenes of long-ago people smiling and bustling and shopping...
...and after five minutes you began to get agitated...
...and after then minutes you didn't think you could take it anymore...
...but after twenty minutes you realized it could go on forever and there was nothing you could do to stop it, and it felt like the aftermath of a speed-drug high when time is dragging and you're unable to sleep and even the most pleasant things leave you with a feeling of terrible emptiness...
...and after thirty minutes you've stopped hoping for change and lost all track of time...
...and then forty-five minutes later it stops. And you feel so good.
E.T.C.
So while the first show was a rigidly-constrained evocation of the most hopeless emotional depths, the second -- The Ellis Tanguay Cram E.T.C. Trio -- was a wild, joyful jazz improv. It was like finding out that the doctor was only kidding when she said you had cancer, and what's more you just won a car. YAY!
I used to hate free jazz, but over the years -- thanks mainly to exposure at past Open Ears festivals -- I've begun to learn how to relate to it. When the musicians start down a particular path I get a sense of the parameters they're setting themselves, and I can follow along with some degree of competence. When the drummer seems to be ripping the song into impossible and ever-unravelling shreds, I can find the beat makers that hide underneath. In short, I've learned to simply loosen up and have fun, and it helps when the musicians are having as much fun as E.T.C. were.
I'm exhausted after a day of work and shows so I can't give the guys their due, but...wow. They brought me up and made me happy, and I certainly wasn't alone. I could have listened to them all night long.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Open Ears 2009: Tuesday April 28
Sunday was my mother's birthday and I had to work on Monday night, so I missed a few minor things...but Tuesday appeared to be the REAL beginning of OE'09.
Jesse Stewart, Improvisations for Solo Waterphone
You want to hear a waterphone in action? Jesse's your man!
But wait, what the heck is a waterphone? It's a very cool, extremely resonant instrument that looks like a cross between a footstool and a sexed-up porcupine. You can tap it, scrape it, pluck it, shake it, then fill it up with water and do it all over again!
Stewart's approach seemed a bit like "A Young Person's Guide to the Waterphone" -- trying every technique once, then moving on to the next one -- but I quickly realized that the effect was infinitely richer if I closed my eyes. With open eyes I found myself intellectualizing in an extremely mundane way ("Now he's rubbing it with something soft...now he's rubbing it the other way!"). But when I was unable to see what he was doing the sounds became rich and mysterious. They became an improvisational composition instead of a demonstration of technique.
I seriously think that Stewart should do this with his back to the audience.
Incidentally, if you've ever heard the soundtrack for "The Hunger," you may have wondered how they made all those wonderful atmospheric noises. Now I can tell you with absolute certainty that they were rubbing a violin bow across the waterphone's spikes. Tell your friends.
tranSpectra
They're the winners of this year's "Stinky Ears" award! (unless something worse comes along, God forbid).
During the endless show -- which made me think of a warm glass of milk growing steadily more tepid beside a collection of videos by The Parachute Club -- I thought of two dozen vicious, evil, absolutely CRUEL things to say about their performance. But I want to be nice about this, because the tranSpectra people are human beings with families and feelings, and there was one exceptionally good moment (see below).
So instead of writing a snarky list of everything I thought was terrible about their show, let me briefly describe what it takes to win a Stinky Ears award. It's open season on whether or not tranSpectra were guilty of these things...you don't have to do ALL of them to win, you lucky devils.
At the end, after the hernia-inducing "Deaths of Children Update," I was just rising to leave when the tranSpectra creatures announced that they were GOING TO CONTINUE. This was like being told by an executioner that more children were scheduled for death, and I must watch until the end. I couldn't take it. I left.
So yeah, all-in-all a pretty grim night, but I DO feel the need to point out that the very capable dancer was Yvonne Ng, who I instantly recognized as the freaky baby from "Silent Hill." I almost stuck around to ask her about it but I wasn't sure if it's the way she'd want to be remembered. In the featurette she talked about how difficult it was to pee.
Jesse Stewart, Improvisations for Solo Waterphone
You want to hear a waterphone in action? Jesse's your man!
But wait, what the heck is a waterphone? It's a very cool, extremely resonant instrument that looks like a cross between a footstool and a sexed-up porcupine. You can tap it, scrape it, pluck it, shake it, then fill it up with water and do it all over again!
Stewart's approach seemed a bit like "A Young Person's Guide to the Waterphone" -- trying every technique once, then moving on to the next one -- but I quickly realized that the effect was infinitely richer if I closed my eyes. With open eyes I found myself intellectualizing in an extremely mundane way ("Now he's rubbing it with something soft...now he's rubbing it the other way!"). But when I was unable to see what he was doing the sounds became rich and mysterious. They became an improvisational composition instead of a demonstration of technique.
I seriously think that Stewart should do this with his back to the audience.
Incidentally, if you've ever heard the soundtrack for "The Hunger," you may have wondered how they made all those wonderful atmospheric noises. Now I can tell you with absolute certainty that they were rubbing a violin bow across the waterphone's spikes. Tell your friends.
tranSpectra
They're the winners of this year's "Stinky Ears" award! (unless something worse comes along, God forbid).
During the endless show -- which made me think of a warm glass of milk growing steadily more tepid beside a collection of videos by The Parachute Club -- I thought of two dozen vicious, evil, absolutely CRUEL things to say about their performance. But I want to be nice about this, because the tranSpectra people are human beings with families and feelings, and there was one exceptionally good moment (see below).
So instead of writing a snarky list of everything I thought was terrible about their show, let me briefly describe what it takes to win a Stinky Ears award. It's open season on whether or not tranSpectra were guilty of these things...you don't have to do ALL of them to win, you lucky devils.
- Interesting, complex subjects applied in a pedestrian, "yearbook poetry" way.
- The subjects must have already been "done to death" -- and done much better -- at least ten years ago, preferably twenty. Bonus points for ecology, poverty, physics, mathematics, warfare, and thinly-veiled guilt at one's own social privilege.
- Total, single-minded pretention. Nobody can crack a smile. The sopranos -- if there be sopranos -- must look stern and sing in a verrrr-eeee seeee-reeee-ussss waaaaaay.
- Sloppiness. It looks and sounds like a rehearsal. The performers appear to be amazed they're getting away with it.
- Far too long. Awkward pauses.
- No empathy with the audience.
- Over-hyped techniques which fall far short of expectations.
- Musical instruments which fail to mesh together and simply sound ill-conceived or poorly executed. Granular synthesis is a plus, as are boopy keyboards.
- Dirty ears (not necessary).
At the end, after the hernia-inducing "Deaths of Children Update," I was just rising to leave when the tranSpectra creatures announced that they were GOING TO CONTINUE. This was like being told by an executioner that more children were scheduled for death, and I must watch until the end. I couldn't take it. I left.
So yeah, all-in-all a pretty grim night, but I DO feel the need to point out that the very capable dancer was Yvonne Ng, who I instantly recognized as the freaky baby from "Silent Hill." I almost stuck around to ask her about it but I wasn't sure if it's the way she'd want to be remembered. In the featurette she talked about how difficult it was to pee.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Set the Lady on Fire
Just when I'd thought the Murad folks had exhausted their list of "embarrassing moments," they present a new one.
Jeez, has anybody actually DONE this? And if they did, was it helpful to respond by standing there and smoking a cigarette? Why not throw the lighted cigarette at her as well?
Jeez, has anybody actually DONE this? And if they did, was it helpful to respond by standing there and smoking a cigarette? Why not throw the lighted cigarette at her as well?
Open Ears 2009: Saturday April 25
Yes, it was day two of the 2009 Open Ears Festival...and I was there. Sort of.
"Vexed," 16 hours, 840 repetitions, much fun
Remember when I said "I was there" in the first sentence of this post. Forget it. I didn't go to "Vexed"
Why not? I guess because I have a strong aversions to "happenings" of any kind. I'm not the type, and I'm generally not a huge fan of those who are. And even though -- in retrospect -- it looked like there were plenty of innovative ways of making it less than simply "840 repetitions," I still couldn't bring myself to take part in it.
Saturdays are good days for breakfast, underwear shopping, and catastrophic thunder storms. I enjoyed all three.
"Flying Bulgars"
Not a SINGLE ONE of them actually flew! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This was held at St. John the Evangelist church. Do you know how many "St. Johns" there are? The taxi driver told me all about them...John the Baptist, John the apostle, John the Evangelist. Neither of us knew who this particular evangelist was...I don't believe he's ever had a TV show.
Anyway, what do you get when you have a concert in a church gymnasium? Tinny sound, unfortunately, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band sounded best when they were laid-back and quiet. When they pulled out the stops and really started romping around, the gymnasium became their Enemy of Treble Echoes.
Even so they were fantastic. I'm not a klezmer fan by any stretch of the imagination -- I find it awfully repetitive and just a tad goofy -- but the Flying Bulgars set consisted mostly of original compositions, and those compositions were AMAZING: original, complex, beautifully articulate, and sometimes political.
Two downsides, though: these new songs will only be available on their UPCOMING album. And they also played a few klezmer songs, surprisingly. I mean, songs that make me think of "The Chicken Dance." Done in a top-notch way, of course -- the arrangements were, I'm sure, absolutely the best -- but still an awful lot of "mazel tov." Which is a shame because, as evidenced by their original work, they can do SO MUCH MORE.
Flugelhorn. How is it differentiated from "a trumpet?" I'm not sure. David Buchbinder can sure play it. Deviating somewhat from the traditional sound of the set, Buchbinder coaxed his flugelhorn into doing some very unusual tricks, without ever -- EVER -- seeming stupid or gimmicky. And Dave Wall has a voice of unleashed power and beauty. Everybody else was great as well, and if their new album had been available I would have bought it in a second.
Oh yes, and the Evangelists served us alcohol and gave us cheese. That's always a good thing!
I leave you with Dana International. Everything I know about Yiddish* I learned from her, so here she is singing "Yesnan Banot." The Flying Bulgars were not particularly like this.
* As Gary pointed out in the comments, Dana International is singing in HEBREW, not Yiddish. So I guess it really IS true that "everything I know about Yiddish I learned from her," ie. "nothing."
"Vexed," 16 hours, 840 repetitions, much fun
Remember when I said "I was there" in the first sentence of this post. Forget it. I didn't go to "Vexed"
Why not? I guess because I have a strong aversions to "happenings" of any kind. I'm not the type, and I'm generally not a huge fan of those who are. And even though -- in retrospect -- it looked like there were plenty of innovative ways of making it less than simply "840 repetitions," I still couldn't bring myself to take part in it.
Saturdays are good days for breakfast, underwear shopping, and catastrophic thunder storms. I enjoyed all three.
"Flying Bulgars"
Not a SINGLE ONE of them actually flew! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This was held at St. John the Evangelist church. Do you know how many "St. Johns" there are? The taxi driver told me all about them...John the Baptist, John the apostle, John the Evangelist. Neither of us knew who this particular evangelist was...I don't believe he's ever had a TV show.
Anyway, what do you get when you have a concert in a church gymnasium? Tinny sound, unfortunately, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band sounded best when they were laid-back and quiet. When they pulled out the stops and really started romping around, the gymnasium became their Enemy of Treble Echoes.
Even so they were fantastic. I'm not a klezmer fan by any stretch of the imagination -- I find it awfully repetitive and just a tad goofy -- but the Flying Bulgars set consisted mostly of original compositions, and those compositions were AMAZING: original, complex, beautifully articulate, and sometimes political.
Two downsides, though: these new songs will only be available on their UPCOMING album. And they also played a few klezmer songs, surprisingly. I mean, songs that make me think of "The Chicken Dance." Done in a top-notch way, of course -- the arrangements were, I'm sure, absolutely the best -- but still an awful lot of "mazel tov." Which is a shame because, as evidenced by their original work, they can do SO MUCH MORE.
Flugelhorn. How is it differentiated from "a trumpet?" I'm not sure. David Buchbinder can sure play it. Deviating somewhat from the traditional sound of the set, Buchbinder coaxed his flugelhorn into doing some very unusual tricks, without ever -- EVER -- seeming stupid or gimmicky. And Dave Wall has a voice of unleashed power and beauty. Everybody else was great as well, and if their new album had been available I would have bought it in a second.
Oh yes, and the Evangelists served us alcohol and gave us cheese. That's always a good thing!
I leave you with Dana International. Everything I know about Yiddish* I learned from her, so here she is singing "Yesnan Banot." The Flying Bulgars were not particularly like this.
* As Gary pointed out in the comments, Dana International is singing in HEBREW, not Yiddish. So I guess it really IS true that "everything I know about Yiddish I learned from her," ie. "nothing."
Saturday, April 25, 2009
iMovie '09 Stabilizes Me
This "make a movie from scratch" thing is entirely new to me, but every project is a learning experience. I've learned a little bit about composition, and a bit about lighting, and a LOT about how to use iMovie for something it's not meant for.
iMovie is a video editing tool that is part of Apple's iLife, a suite of integrated multi-media products. You get iLife for free when you buy a Macintosh so a lot of people create their home video projects using iMovie. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than Apple's professional offering (Final Cut Pro).
But why should Apple bother to even SELL Final Cut Pro if people are happy to simply use iMovie? Well, Final Cut Pro is marketed to the professional video editor, and iMovie is marketed to hobbyists. And for that reason, before Apple releases a new version of iMovie, they usually go into it with a stick and beat everything useful out of it.
Even so, if you have a little bit of ingenuity (and an awful lot of patience) you can stretch iMovie beyond its limits and create -- say -- all the videos I've been putting online for the last two years.
This week, however, I ran up against something new: shaky video. In the past I have always filmed footage using a tripod, but now that I'm trying something radically different -- which you'll see soon if it works out halfway decent -- I actually had to take my teeny-tiny camera (a Canon PowerShot SD1000) outside and shoot things by hand...on a windy day.
Despite the wind, there's apparently a growing problem with cameras getting smaller and smaller: tiny, light cameras are hard to hold without shaking them. When I got my hard-filmed footage home and looked at it on my computer I absolutely freaked: it wobbled all over the place, rendering all my focus and detail into an incomprehensible stew!
Short of hiring a steadycam operator I had only one recourse: to upgrade to iMovie '09, which -- besides a whole whack of other new features -- allows you to stabilize shaky video. It analyzes your clip, tracks the motion, and then zooms in JUST ENOUGH to crop out the edges while moving in the opposite direction of the shake.
People are raving about this feature, and about iMovie '09 in general. The thing is, you can only buy iMovie '09 as an integrated iLife '09 package, and this costs (in Canada) $100.
That would be fine if I actually USED anything in iLife other than iMovie and iPhoto, or if there were an existing upgrade path from the relatively pathetic iMovie '08 (which is what I've been using for the past year)...but no. As the folks in our local Apple store said, "There's no upgrade path, but the suite is WAY cheaper than anything you'd get from another company."
Plus there is simply no other game in town. All the other video editors for the Mac are either crappy or vapourware.
So I bought iLife '09 yesterday and installed it late last night. It came to life instantly and worked perfectly. And when I instructed it to stabilize one of my shaky clips -- which it does at about half the speed of the clip itself -- it...holy wow, it WORKED! It looked PERFECT!
I've stabilized half the footage I shot yesterday and it has all come out clean: no shake, no weirdness, just a smoothly-flowing image. All my carefully-filmed details are visible again. iMovie '09 -- despite its slightly galling price -- did exactly what it promised to do.
How often can you say that about software these days? And I haven't even looked at all the OTHER features yet.
Apple, I quite often love ya.
iMovie is a video editing tool that is part of Apple's iLife, a suite of integrated multi-media products. You get iLife for free when you buy a Macintosh so a lot of people create their home video projects using iMovie. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than Apple's professional offering (Final Cut Pro).
But why should Apple bother to even SELL Final Cut Pro if people are happy to simply use iMovie? Well, Final Cut Pro is marketed to the professional video editor, and iMovie is marketed to hobbyists. And for that reason, before Apple releases a new version of iMovie, they usually go into it with a stick and beat everything useful out of it.
Even so, if you have a little bit of ingenuity (and an awful lot of patience) you can stretch iMovie beyond its limits and create -- say -- all the videos I've been putting online for the last two years.
This week, however, I ran up against something new: shaky video. In the past I have always filmed footage using a tripod, but now that I'm trying something radically different -- which you'll see soon if it works out halfway decent -- I actually had to take my teeny-tiny camera (a Canon PowerShot SD1000) outside and shoot things by hand...on a windy day.
Despite the wind, there's apparently a growing problem with cameras getting smaller and smaller: tiny, light cameras are hard to hold without shaking them. When I got my hard-filmed footage home and looked at it on my computer I absolutely freaked: it wobbled all over the place, rendering all my focus and detail into an incomprehensible stew!
Short of hiring a steadycam operator I had only one recourse: to upgrade to iMovie '09, which -- besides a whole whack of other new features -- allows you to stabilize shaky video. It analyzes your clip, tracks the motion, and then zooms in JUST ENOUGH to crop out the edges while moving in the opposite direction of the shake.
People are raving about this feature, and about iMovie '09 in general. The thing is, you can only buy iMovie '09 as an integrated iLife '09 package, and this costs (in Canada) $100.
That would be fine if I actually USED anything in iLife other than iMovie and iPhoto, or if there were an existing upgrade path from the relatively pathetic iMovie '08 (which is what I've been using for the past year)...but no. As the folks in our local Apple store said, "There's no upgrade path, but the suite is WAY cheaper than anything you'd get from another company."
Plus there is simply no other game in town. All the other video editors for the Mac are either crappy or vapourware.
So I bought iLife '09 yesterday and installed it late last night. It came to life instantly and worked perfectly. And when I instructed it to stabilize one of my shaky clips -- which it does at about half the speed of the clip itself -- it...holy wow, it WORKED! It looked PERFECT!
I've stabilized half the footage I shot yesterday and it has all come out clean: no shake, no weirdness, just a smoothly-flowing image. All my carefully-filmed details are visible again. iMovie '09 -- despite its slightly galling price -- did exactly what it promised to do.
How often can you say that about software these days? And I haven't even looked at all the OTHER features yet.
Apple, I quite often love ya.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Open Ears 2009: Friday April 24
It's time once again for Kitchener's "Open Ears" festival, one of the few events in town that I feel is targeted towards me. It's a time when local venues open their doors to quirky -- and sometimes very famous -- outsider musicians and composers, allowing us to experience new things and finally see those obscure acts we've always heard about. You big-city folk are probably used to this sort of thing, but here in the boonies it's a rare and wonderful treat.
I've been to the last two festivals (it happens every second year) and I've got my full 2009 pass. Tonight the Center in the Square hosted the first two events.
"In C" (Terry Riley), performed by the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of Music Students
I've never seen "In C" before. It's something everybody talks about. Now I know why.
You can read about its structure at the Wikipedia page. In this case it was performed by about thirty musicians, and I think it lasted for 45 minutes. The most obvious thing about it were the constant, regular, never-ending C note played on some sort of small xylophone, while violinists, a cellist, an acoustic guitarist, two pianists, a guy with a discreet synthesizer, and a bunch of people with horns played the phrases in a semi-improvisational way.
Obviously the phrases have been picked to avoid any sort of discordance, but even so this sort of thing could be either a creative dogfight or a woefully flat bunch of boring. In this case, however, all the musicians were playing close attention to each other -- rising and falling in long swells throughout the piece -- and they were also allowing others to take the forefront. In short, everybody stuck together and everybody picked up their cues. It was hypnotic, beautiful, and a wee bit awesome.
I felt sorry for the xylophone woman (known as "the Metronome") and the single vocalist. Sore arms and a dry throat, no doubt.
"Sound Explorations" (various composers), performed by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, conducted by Edwin Outwater with Stephen Sitarski, violin
As usual for me, the ticketing procedure for Open Ears has been bizarre. After no end of confusion actually BUYING my festival pass, the fun continued at tonight's show...the usherettes didn't know what to do with the temporary ticket that was mailed to me ("I've never seen one of these. Should I rip it in half?"). The man at the box-office traded half of the temporary ticket for two (?) ACTUAL tickets to the symphony show, even though I was going alone and had only purchased one. The usherettes ripped ONE of the tickets, leaving me with the other that I suppose I could have hocked.
Once inside the venue I presented the other half of my temporary ticket to a guy at the Open Ears kiosk, and he gave it back to me and also gave me a lanyard, leaving me with one UNCLAIMED show ticket, one CLAIMED show ticket, one half of the TEMPORARY ticket ("You need to always keep this with you," he said), and the thing to hang around my neck.
Then, after watching "In C" (which was performed in the lobby), I entered the theater itself and was shown to my assigned seat. A woman sat on my left, and another woman sat two seats to my right, and they started to talk over my head. This totally confused me -- why hadn't they gotten seats together? -- and when I offered to trade seats so they could chat more comfortably they told me that a doctor and his wife always sat in my seats, "but maybe they're on vacation."
So there I was sitting in another person's reserved seat, beside an empty seat for that person's wife, upon which was taped a special invitation telling me to go to the theater office to claim a special gift I'd earned for donating $1250 to the Center in the Square.
Fortunately the concert itself made more sense.
Two of the numbers ("The Hebrides" by Felix Mendelssohn and "The Sea: Suite for Orchestra" by Frank Bridge) were quite conventional, presented as inspirations for the more experimental works that followed them. I was never taken to the symphony as a child and I haven't made it a practice as an adult, so I'm afraid I've never quite known how to LISTEN to orchestral music. How does it parse? Where does it lead? The only experience with classical music I've ever really had was listening to "Switched-on Bach" and watching "Allegro Non Troppo":
(For those who want to know how it ends, the second half is here and the finale is here).
So when I see a symphony performing a really nice piece of music I find myself unable to just soak it up and not think about it; my eyes are always darting from one person to the other...the percussionist who looks like Dawn French, the cadaver playing the cello, the young violinist who bobs her head with carefree abandon, the endearingly swishy conductor.
More my line was R. Murray Schafer's "The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller," which was a tad more challenging. I tend to be unimpressed by daringly avant-garde symphonic pieces, but this one was short on discord and stayed close within its boundaries: ominous sonic landscape, lonely violin. It was both emotionally and intellectually stimulating.
NOTE: Mr. Schafer himself is coming to Cambridge this week to perform a "Harbingers of Spring" soundwalk which sounds terribly flaky. There are drummers.
After the encore we got John Cage's "4'33"" I was curious to see how the audience would respond to this piece...and I was totally surprised.
Now's a good time to mention that this show overlapped with KW Symphony's "Signature Series" which provides much more conventional fare. For this reason most of the people in the audience were dapper elderly couples, with a scattered collection of the middle-aged. I thought that "4'33"" would annoy them.
As I understand it the piece tends to invoke a lot of "audience noise," which is pretty much the entire point: allowing the theatre environment to express itself. But in this case the folks in the audience were so respectful that we all sat in total silence except for scattered coughs and giggles. A woman behind me even APOLOGIZED for giggling. But I suppose that was one of "the environments" that Cage anticipated.
The last piece was Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." It had very little relation to the Art of Noise-remixed Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, "Rage Hard (The Young Person's Guide to the 12-Inch Mix)," but was just as fabulous.
"Always note the sequencer. It will never let us down. Let it have its wicked way."
What can I say about "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra?" It's a showcase of every instrument's strengths without ever being TOO obvious. It deliberately contains every cliche in the book. All four percussionists -- Dawn French included -- got a thorough workout. It felt great, but the best part was the opportunity it gave the "resting" musicians to watch and appreciate those at work, something I think they rarely get to do in such a segmented way.
At the end of the show I started chatting with Wendy, the woman next to me. She holds a pass to the "Signature Series" and I hold a pass to "Open Ears," so we came from different but mutually-appreciative directions. We talked about the music we'd heard and what we liked, and it was VERY interesting to hear her impressions. She explained by the conductor kept shaking hands with ONLY two of the musicians on stage (they were the first and second violins). And then she drove me home! You rock, Wendy!
Anyway, the festival has begun and it's going to be a busy week. Stay tuned for trivial updates.
I've been to the last two festivals (it happens every second year) and I've got my full 2009 pass. Tonight the Center in the Square hosted the first two events.
"In C" (Terry Riley), performed by the Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of Music Students
I've never seen "In C" before. It's something everybody talks about. Now I know why.
You can read about its structure at the Wikipedia page. In this case it was performed by about thirty musicians, and I think it lasted for 45 minutes. The most obvious thing about it were the constant, regular, never-ending C note played on some sort of small xylophone, while violinists, a cellist, an acoustic guitarist, two pianists, a guy with a discreet synthesizer, and a bunch of people with horns played the phrases in a semi-improvisational way.
Obviously the phrases have been picked to avoid any sort of discordance, but even so this sort of thing could be either a creative dogfight or a woefully flat bunch of boring. In this case, however, all the musicians were playing close attention to each other -- rising and falling in long swells throughout the piece -- and they were also allowing others to take the forefront. In short, everybody stuck together and everybody picked up their cues. It was hypnotic, beautiful, and a wee bit awesome.
I felt sorry for the xylophone woman (known as "the Metronome") and the single vocalist. Sore arms and a dry throat, no doubt.
"Sound Explorations" (various composers), performed by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, conducted by Edwin Outwater with Stephen Sitarski, violin
As usual for me, the ticketing procedure for Open Ears has been bizarre. After no end of confusion actually BUYING my festival pass, the fun continued at tonight's show...the usherettes didn't know what to do with the temporary ticket that was mailed to me ("I've never seen one of these. Should I rip it in half?"). The man at the box-office traded half of the temporary ticket for two (?) ACTUAL tickets to the symphony show, even though I was going alone and had only purchased one. The usherettes ripped ONE of the tickets, leaving me with the other that I suppose I could have hocked.
Once inside the venue I presented the other half of my temporary ticket to a guy at the Open Ears kiosk, and he gave it back to me and also gave me a lanyard, leaving me with one UNCLAIMED show ticket, one CLAIMED show ticket, one half of the TEMPORARY ticket ("You need to always keep this with you," he said), and the thing to hang around my neck.
Then, after watching "In C" (which was performed in the lobby), I entered the theater itself and was shown to my assigned seat. A woman sat on my left, and another woman sat two seats to my right, and they started to talk over my head. This totally confused me -- why hadn't they gotten seats together? -- and when I offered to trade seats so they could chat more comfortably they told me that a doctor and his wife always sat in my seats, "but maybe they're on vacation."
So there I was sitting in another person's reserved seat, beside an empty seat for that person's wife, upon which was taped a special invitation telling me to go to the theater office to claim a special gift I'd earned for donating $1250 to the Center in the Square.
Fortunately the concert itself made more sense.
Two of the numbers ("The Hebrides" by Felix Mendelssohn and "The Sea: Suite for Orchestra" by Frank Bridge) were quite conventional, presented as inspirations for the more experimental works that followed them. I was never taken to the symphony as a child and I haven't made it a practice as an adult, so I'm afraid I've never quite known how to LISTEN to orchestral music. How does it parse? Where does it lead? The only experience with classical music I've ever really had was listening to "Switched-on Bach" and watching "Allegro Non Troppo":
(For those who want to know how it ends, the second half is here and the finale is here).
So when I see a symphony performing a really nice piece of music I find myself unable to just soak it up and not think about it; my eyes are always darting from one person to the other...the percussionist who looks like Dawn French, the cadaver playing the cello, the young violinist who bobs her head with carefree abandon, the endearingly swishy conductor.
More my line was R. Murray Schafer's "The Darkly Splendid Earth: The Lonely Traveller," which was a tad more challenging. I tend to be unimpressed by daringly avant-garde symphonic pieces, but this one was short on discord and stayed close within its boundaries: ominous sonic landscape, lonely violin. It was both emotionally and intellectually stimulating.
NOTE: Mr. Schafer himself is coming to Cambridge this week to perform a "Harbingers of Spring" soundwalk which sounds terribly flaky. There are drummers.
After the encore we got John Cage's "4'33"" I was curious to see how the audience would respond to this piece...and I was totally surprised.
Now's a good time to mention that this show overlapped with KW Symphony's "Signature Series" which provides much more conventional fare. For this reason most of the people in the audience were dapper elderly couples, with a scattered collection of the middle-aged. I thought that "4'33"" would annoy them.
As I understand it the piece tends to invoke a lot of "audience noise," which is pretty much the entire point: allowing the theatre environment to express itself. But in this case the folks in the audience were so respectful that we all sat in total silence except for scattered coughs and giggles. A woman behind me even APOLOGIZED for giggling. But I suppose that was one of "the environments" that Cage anticipated.
The last piece was Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." It had very little relation to the Art of Noise-remixed Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, "Rage Hard (The Young Person's Guide to the 12-Inch Mix)," but was just as fabulous.
"Always note the sequencer. It will never let us down. Let it have its wicked way."
What can I say about "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra?" It's a showcase of every instrument's strengths without ever being TOO obvious. It deliberately contains every cliche in the book. All four percussionists -- Dawn French included -- got a thorough workout. It felt great, but the best part was the opportunity it gave the "resting" musicians to watch and appreciate those at work, something I think they rarely get to do in such a segmented way.
At the end of the show I started chatting with Wendy, the woman next to me. She holds a pass to the "Signature Series" and I hold a pass to "Open Ears," so we came from different but mutually-appreciative directions. We talked about the music we'd heard and what we liked, and it was VERY interesting to hear her impressions. She explained by the conductor kept shaking hands with ONLY two of the musicians on stage (they were the first and second violins). And then she drove me home! You rock, Wendy!
Anyway, the festival has begun and it's going to be a busy week. Stay tuned for trivial updates.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dr. Couney's Babies at Coney Island
File this one under "Did you know...WHAT, he DID?"
From 1903 to 1943, Dr. Martin Arthur Couney had a very unusual show at Coney Island: an incubator full of human babies. Dr. Couney would take in premature babies, incubate them in public, and charge money for people to come and watch.
According to the July 6, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, here's how it all started. Previous to Couney's incubator, nobody had figured out how to keep premature babies warm while still providing them with clean air. In Breslau, Silesia, Couney built a tall chimney which could suck in dust-free air from above the rooftops. It worked!
Some final information that you may find interesting.
From 1903 to 1943, Dr. Martin Arthur Couney had a very unusual show at Coney Island: an incubator full of human babies. Dr. Couney would take in premature babies, incubate them in public, and charge money for people to come and watch.
According to the July 6, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, here's how it all started. Previous to Couney's incubator, nobody had figured out how to keep premature babies warm while still providing them with clean air. In Breslau, Silesia, Couney built a tall chimney which could suck in dust-free air from above the rooftops. It worked!
An American exposition was travelling through Europe then...and the manager persuaded him to come to this country to exhibit his invention as a sideshow. He first set up in Omaha, Nebraska. Eventually Fred Thompson, the old showman who started Luna Park, brought him to Coney Island. That was in 1903. He has been there since and saved about six thousand lives.This location had a surprising benefit.
One lady, expectant, took a ride on a roller-coaster, had her baby prematurely, and was not more than a block away from an incubator. Pretty handy!How could Couney afford to do this? The way EVERY sideshow performer did.
The gate receipts have always been adequate, and the twenty-five cents which the public pays supports the institution, gives Dr. Couney a profit, and enables him to employ two physicians and eleven nurses and provide free board and lodging for his little red beginners.I wonder if the nurses wore spangly outfits and, for an encore, juggled the babies.
Some final information that you may find interesting.
Every three hours the babies are taken out and fed. They get only human milk, from wet nurses, and occasionally a drop of whiskey...
The babies are always grateful, but sometimes the parents aren't. One father, seeing his tiny son attracting boardwalk crowds, demanded that he be given a percentage of the gate.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"Is Prohibition a Success?"
From the "Talk of the Town" section of the July 6, 1929 issue of The New Yorker, regarding "Fifty thousand dollars [being spent] for a publicity campaign to popularize prohibition."
One of the prohibition slogans for school use is "Is Prohibition a Success? Ask the Bankers, or Ask the Salvation Army, the Social Workers, the Mothers. Ask Everybody." In order that school children shouldn't be deceived about anything, we actually started out to ask some of these groups. We asked the bankers first. "Bankers," we said, "is prohibition a success?" There was no answer. All the bankers were out of town, attending the convention of the New York State Bankers' Association--in Toronto, Canada.
Monday, April 20, 2009
"A Big Gay Storm" Gets Some Big Gay Attention
I just noticed that a whole bunch of people were suddenly subscribing to my YouTube channel. That "Big Gay Storm" video I made last week was ratching up the hits, and by following the links I discovered -- wow! -- that I topped a Queerty "Top 10 Gathering Storm Parodies" list!
And our winner for the best NOM parody goes to Ms. Muffy St. Bernard. Leave it to the drag queens to come up with a wholly original take on the ad. This is everything that a good parody ad should be: It's a delightful send-up that is not only wildly entertaining, but also drives home its message by utilizing the comic power of leopard print and tiny, dirty pillows.I mean holy cow, that's pretty cool, though maybe I should clean my pillows next time. Thanks, Queerty!
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