Saturday, in the Dark, I think it was the 18th of November

Time keeps slipping into the future. It's been a quiet day of reading, games, and football. It's also getting dark early. This was noticeable yesterday, when my 4:30 bus got me home at the very end of twilight. Today, when I didn't get out of bed until after 9, daylight seemed particularly fleeting. I have to remind myself that when I was in Wales, it was far worse than this. And that it's still got six weeks of getting shorter here before it turns the corner.

I've really been digging the new Decemberists album. It's creepier than The Picaresque, but it also rocks harder. It's an odd combination, but one that's growing on me. It seems less...contrived. Colin Meloy's big words are still there, and the subject matter still smacks of the 19th Century. But it's guitars that drive everything, sometimes kinda Zeppelin-ish.

In other news, spring registration has begun and I seem to be setting myself up for another Semester of Epic Page Counts. There's just too much interesting stuff out there to take. And some more aural skills remediation to keep me grounded in the practical. In a sign of how much my attitude towards the dreaded ear-training has changed, I'm actually looking forward to continuing with it next semester. Somewhere along the way, I decided that it's a skill set I want, that I don't totally loathe tonal music, and that doing something that's skill-based rather than knowledge-based is a healthy balance. It's also the one class that really deals directly with music. My other seminars are all second or third level discourses where we listen occasionally but don't talk about what's in the music except to dispute with the authors of the various articles we've read.

The pendulum has swung from the start of my composition studies at BG. I added the music history degree to my program there in large part because nobody was talking about the second and third order questions--the "why" of music. [Something other people have noted about the composition division there...] Now I'm only studying the "why" and not paying much attention to either the music or how it's put together. I've done astonishingly little listening this semester. Hopefully next semester is better in that regard.

The Anxiety of Interpretation in Time

You see a pile of meat. To the Victor go the spoils. You change your name to Victor, take the spoils, and quickly change it back.

Logical Time and the Assertion of Anticipated Certainty

...I stole the title from a Lacan essay (a very short one) that I'm working with for a paper. Er, excuse me. "Working" should have quotes on it because, obviously, I'm not working on it at this very moment.

Today it is warmer than normal for November, but there's a chill wind and it feels like fall. I dig it.

I find it a little strange that although none of my classes are spectactular this semester, the three seminars I'm taking fit together neatly. One of the things I liked about the U.Minn program is that it encourages you (read: requires you) to take classes outside of music. After spending the better part of four years in the Moore Musical Arts Center with nary an academic escape, I'm pleased to get across the river. Even if I only have ten minutes to do it.

I feel like I'm getting my critical theory chops not just back into shape, but improving them. This, again, is a good change from BG, where I was often moving in directions that were foreign to the faculty. I'm having to think hard about how I think, and having to get my fingers 'round some fairly slippery intellectual constructs.

In the meantime, my birthday came and went. Had a good visit with my brother (who came out from Sioux Falls), ate a lot of pizza, played the last two games of this year's fall ultimate league, and generally ignored anything have to do with school for 55 hours or so.

Post-election thoughts: huzzah for two years of gridlock, bickering, and nothing happening (hopefully). How sad is it when the prospect of two years of a frozen government is an improvement?

Lacan Calling
(with apologies to The Clash)

Lacan calling the battement de temps
Black discs and white, the warden's bomb
Lacan calling the anxiety
How many discs does the prisoner see?
Lacan calling, don't dare look at him
The crazy logician, he ain't all that dim
Lacan calling, see we ain't got no time
From moment to moment, the logic is dyin'

(CHORUS)
The moment is coming, conclusions are in
Hesitation and quickstep, for freedom and gin
The warden is waiting, I'm nothing but fear
Cause Lacan is burning and I, I have a white disc

Cave-In

So. I've gone and started a blog on account of not being particularly keen on writing a review of an introduction to semiotics and anthropology.

Establish now: a pattern of updating erratically and mostly when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Establish later: content of interest, entertainment, or potential intellectual value.

Tomorrow I turn 27. I've been alive nearly three nonets of years. Or nine trios of years. Imagine if you will a piece composed in 9-8, with nine measure phrases in three-phrase periods. Now base the pitch structure on ninefold rather than eightfold division of the "octave." Put that in your softsynth and smoke it.