The annual baby name report from the Social Security Administration has been released and the popularity of the name Mark continues it’s plummet from the lofty heights of popularity it enjoyed in the 1950’s and 1960’s (when it finished in the top ten for 15 straight years.)

According to the SSA statistics, my name finished in 129th position last year and has now dropped to 138th. I fear that Mark might be heading for the same hapless fate as that of Mildred, a name which despite being the bee’s knees and finishing in the top ten for the first three decades of the 20th century, hasn’t even been in the top 1000 since 1984!!

In other news, did you see that a robot conducted the Detroit Symphony last night? Nice publicity stunt, but a little frightening. I wonder if its audio receptors are protected under EU law from prolonged noise exposure?

I’ve been taking a bit of break from politics over the past month or so, so last night as I was running through my links on the right, I ran across this message on the Rockridge Institute’s Website:

While the Rockridge Institute closed in April 2008, the Institute’s staff remain committed to fulfilling the progressive vision it advocated and are available for consultations, trainings, and speaking engagements.

Disappointed is the only word that comes to mind. I truly enjoyed their articles and books, especially those of George Lakoff whose discussion of “framing” in political discourse opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at the politicians and what they say. It’s a bit sad to see a progressive think tank go out of business.

I guess they didn’t have an oil company for a sugar daddy.

In my current role as supportive husband and adjunct faculty, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. So much time in fact that I feel that I need to find a few more diversions to keep myself motivated and busy. After all, opportunities often come at unexpected times and as I’ve recently learned, the old saying about making one’s own luck is a good piece of advice, and the business of manufacturing good fortune just can not wait until tomorrow.

Throughout my life, I’ve always observed that when I feel the busiest and under the most pressure I have also been the most productive. With the end of my spring semester last week and without our normal trip to Europe to occupy my time, I’ve got even more downtime than usual so I intend to throw myself into a few projects in the hope that it helps keep my mind engaged and spurs on my creativity.

Although I have several compositions to finish and a collaborative project that’s been on hold for over two years that needs to be addressed, I want to take on some research in theory pedagogy that has been bouncing around my melon for a few weeks and also seriously consider getting out into the community and doing some volunteer work once school resumes in the fall.

In the future I’ll have some more on the research I’ve been thinking about, but in the meantime, I really wanted to get a sense of what sort of community service my peers and colleagues are doing out there. What are some good ideas and good ways that you’ve brought music to your community, especially those that involve education, children, and don’t require the infrastructure and financial backing of a university or college to be successful?

LONDON — They had rehearsed the piece only once, but already the musicians at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were suffering. Their ears were ringing. Heads throbbed.

Tests showed that the average noise level in the orchestra during the piece, “State of Siege,” by the composer Dror Feiler, was 97.4 decibels, just below the level of a pneumatic drill and a violation of new European noise-at-work limits. Playing more softly or wearing noise-muffling headphones were rejected as unworkable.

So instead of having its world premiere on April 4, the piece was dropped. “I had no choice,” said Trygve Nordwall, the orchestra’s manager. “The decision was not made artistically; it was made for the protection of the players.”

“Composers should bear in mind that they are dealing with people who are alive, and not machines,” said Mr. Nordwall of the Bavarian orchestra.

(From Sarah Lyall’s article “No Fortissimo? Symphony Told to Keep It Down” in today’s New York Times.)

It does not take much imagination to realize that if these new European Union regulations were in place in May of 1913, some orchestra manager would have told Stravinsky that the decision to cut Le Sacre du printemps was not made artistically, but rather for the protection of the players. On the bright side, it would have prevented a riot and saved the Paris police the trouble of heading down to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

That’s not really the point though because anyone who knew about these new laws could see this coming from miles away. What really caught my eye was the irony in the comments of Mr. Nordwall. It’s funny that he would presume to advise composers on the nature of life and death as it relates to the performance of classical music. The program for his orchestra’s concert this coming Thursday:

Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Franz Joseph Haydn op. 56a
Alban Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra op. 6
Pyotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor op. 74 “Pathétique”

Under normal circumstances, I would say that it looks to be a fun program and one that I would be happy to attend. Unfortunately, after Mr. Nordwall’s comments and because I have no problem recognizing the difference between musicians who are alive and those who are not, all I can see on that program is 1897, 1935, and 1893.

Building falling! great cracks in the Earth! Fire in the sky!

Not really, but it was an interesting morning when a 5.2 Richter earthquake woke us at 4:40 am. I have to admit, that even though I lived for 10 years in California and a veteran of a bunch of earthquakes, this one was fairly notable. Even though the epicenter was over 150 miles away it was not only pretty strong but I was even able to estimate that it was “probably a five-oh” to my wife, herself a veteran of a year in Japan and the ring-of-fire. Compare this to the 7.1 Loma Prieta Earthquake that rocked Northern California 1989. I was away at college at the time, right around 200 miles from the epicenter and was completely unaware of the event until someone told me about it.

Apparently it has something to do with the soil and bedrock of the two regions, but it does lend credence to the historical reports that the 1812 New Madrid Earthquake which was estimated at 8.0 and supposedly rang church bells in Boston, a claim that I long thought was only hyperbole.

It has started some chatter in the music blog world, including being the inspiration for Scott Spielberg’s weekly FriPod.

And as I am typing we are having an aftershock. I’d better quit while I’m ahead.

Just to let anyone who might be reading know, I’m taking a short break from the blog to focus on teaching, some composition projects that I need to finish up and some other business that needs to be addressed.

I’ll return with something new in a few days/weeks.

In the meantime, good luck with your taxes.

I wrote this on July 24, 2007 in response to the linked article from MSNBC:

If you don’t feel like reading the article (from MSN.com), the premise is that the United States needs a gasoline tax to push prices above the $4 per gallon threshold in order to generate a greater demand for fuel-efficient vehicles and thus push automobile makers to produce more efficient cars for the U.S. market.

Though I am far from an economist, I’ve been thinking about this issue for quite some time and think that the author makes a great deal of sense. It would initially be an extra financial burden for anyone who commutes, and political suicide for whoever proposes the legislation, but in my opinion, the potential to reduce our national dependence on foreign oil as well as the benefit to the environment seem to make a great deal of sense.

Of course, the obvious libertarian argument is that we have the right to drive whatever car we want, regardless of fuel economy and that it should be the market that decides the price of gasoline. I can respect this opinion but it is my belief that nothing will change until us consumers stop purchasing cars bigger than what we actually need. It may happen on its own, but I’m not holding my breath.

The market has spoken and now that these prices seem certain to become more than just a flight of journalistic fancy, I’m curious (especially with my 200 commuter miles every week) to see if any of these predictions come true. In a little less than a year, it turns out that we probably don’t need an extra tax after all, just a world too thirsty for energy.

It’s been two full years and 155 posts since I first created this blog.

I’m sure all eight of my loyal readers will be cracking open bottles of their finest sparkling cider.

Belfry at Mission San Juan Bautista

To summarize the linked story, Ascencion was a Native American and the last known native speaker of the Mutsun language spoken by the Amah Mutsun tribe in the Central Coast area of California (roughly San Luis Obispo to Santa Cruz.) In 1929, Ascencion was visited by the noted Smithsonian linguist John Peabody Harrington who recorded her oral history. After seeing a photograph of Ascencion in the San Francisco Chronicle, her story came to the attention of Fresno State University professor Helene Joseph-Weil who then created a libretto version that was set to music by her colleague, composer Benjamin Boone. (If you are interested, there is a nice audio slideshow with an excerpt from the piece linked to the NPR article. )

When I first saw the article, I was immediately reminded of the story of Ishi, the last known surviving member of the Yahi tribe, who in August of 1911 wandered into Oroville, California. (Very near where I completed my undergraduate degree.) Ishi was subsequently moved to San Francisco where he provided a wealth of information about his people and his native Yana language.

What I found particularly interesting though, is that one of the University of California linguists who worked with Ishi was a gentleman named Alfred L. Kroeber who in turn gave several lectures attended by a student at nearby Stanford University by the name of John Peabody Harrington. Perhaps not a surprise, but I like finding these sort of connections.

Jerry Holbert, from the Boston Herald via Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index.