This is kind of a weird summer. I don't know if I can make it back to California, I might have to hang around school and derive some equations. But I'm making a few trips:

June - Idaho
June - Bard College & Albany
July - Banff center in Canada
August - Sommerkamp 2009 Berlin

Nothing is set for next fall yet but maybe some projects at Mass Art in Boston, Oberlin in Ohio, and MIT? That leaves a lot more time so if you have an idea please get in touch!

So as you may have noticed, I didn't bother to post a blog for a whole year! I guess I don't feel very excited about myspace right now, in fact I hate what it's become. But maybe if I put some love into my page it will come back to life for me.

So yes, I'm once again one of the "Associates" in the B&A title. I'm staying up on the hill again which is lovely, there's no other word for it. Every night I have a beautiful view of the entire bay, San Francisco, Point Richmond, the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate, the Richmond Bridge, the little hill "El Cerrito", and the sun setting behind the hills of Marin county. It's breathtaking! Well more so on the days without fog. When it's foggy, it's cold as hll here! It makes me miss Boston.

This summer I've been to the oyster farm at Point Reyes not once but twice! One time with Don and Nannick, the other with my brother for his birthday. Unfortunately after my brother had five or six oysters he decided he wasn't sure whether or not he liked them. Haha more for me!

I also discovered Math Book heaven, aka Black Oak Books in Berkeley. I bought some Cantor, some Hilbert, some Steve Smale, and about a half a dozen others. I also read a book I found lying around the house, "e: the story of a number" by Eli Maor. That's a really good general interest book if you want to have some fun and also understand e a little better. It's the most important number in the real world actually!

As for the most important numbers in discrete time, 1 and 0, unfortunately I didn't get to do any programming for Don like I'd hoped but I do have a computer I built in an art museum right now, at Skidmore College. You should go to see it! But don't worry if you can't, I'll be building some more.

Tonight I'm going with Don to see Nannick, who's his girlfriend, play piano at a little restaurant in Sausalito. She's really really good at piano!

Also I had the best Chinese food I ate in my entire life at some really gross-looking place in Oakland. But unfortunately I forgot the name!

Don had a big idea that we'd go to a different coffee shop every day. So here are my reviews:

Toot Sweets: so-so coffee, really good chocolate coissants, but watch out for sickly flies!

Bagel Brothers (on Gilman St.): decent coffee, good bagels, but they don't know how to make a sandwich that doesn't fall apart

Fatapples: extremely delicious pastries but the coffee is a little acidic and somewhat burned, also takeout only

Brewed Awakening: really good coffee, food slightly uneven but the scones are pretty awesome. But a lot of annoying old guys hang out there and talk about technology they don't understand

Pete's Coffee at Walnut and Vine: Why did that idiot fill my cup to the exact top of the cup, so that when i picked it up it went all over my hand? And why couldn't he give me a napkin and/or appologize? Also this place is PACKED with 30-something women with little kids, making it difficult to negotiate

French Hotel: this place pretty much rules, there's always a line just a little way out the door, things move really fast, they have some bizarre photos on the walls, they get an A+

Hopkins St Bakery: Shockingly expensive but the coffee is great and so are the scones

Espresso Roma (also on Hopkins St): A victim of its own success - unless you get there extremely early the line is a mile long and every table is taken. Unlike the French Hotel, Roma attracts an older crowd who are a little, ahem, slow moving. But worthwhile if you time it right

People's Cafe: It seems reasonably priced and the bagels are pretty good. The back rooms seem depressing though so I always try to sit in the front, preferably at the window

Hmm I wonder where we'll go tomorrow morning?

I guess I don't write on this a lot right now - because I'd only be writing boring stuff about Laplace Transforms and phase space. I'm experiencing a delirium of math! Not to mention, chaotic effects.

So I'm slowing down with the music, Total Confusion Recreation tour was so amazing that I feel like it's better to rest for a while. I will be doing a show with a dancer at an art museum in April though so you should come to that.

Also I'm into doing workshops now. There will be one at MIT Jan 23-24 and one in Berlin at the Transmediale festival the week after that. I just did one in Norway in November at Piksel festival, that ruled! I got to meet Otto Roessler, who you may have heard of because he found the "Roessler Attractor." Look it up on wikipedia if you're a math nerd. Then look up ordinal numbers and aleph naught and then we can talk about finance! Who's really controlling the world?

Oh yeah, I've been listening to Brethren a lot at work. But also Diane Cluck! Make of that what you will.

Don't worry, it's confusing to me too!

Well I feel so gratified that I get these amazing chances in life. The tour with Naomi was really fun and hopefully I'll even post about it some day. The tour with Bunnybrains got cancelled and I decided I couldn't go to Europe after all. I was just too busy to set it up!

Instead I'm doing an internship in July with the pioneering synthesizer designer Don Buchla! Wow that's probably the greatest gift I've ever received! I get to play tennis with the man who invented the Source of Uncertainty!

Not only that, he was the sound man at Altamont! Probably the most "noise" job ever in history!

Ok I'll let you know how it goes!

I am so excited right now, actually feeling totally giddy except I have "everything under control" because I've been learning how to be a rationalist at school. Oh excuse me, I'm sorry I even mentioned school! Well it's all over now and I even embarassed myself by trying to be a perfectionist and failing, woe is me.

Anyway, I'm really excited to go traveling and playing music. I just have to warn everyone, personally I'm a little sick of "noise" shows right now! It's like, now everyone "learned what to do" and there's no feeling of life. I'm into listening to Michael Savage! Yeah he's a total jerk but he leaves things up in the air.

Anyway if you live in the West US I might be coming to your town soon, and if I am, please come to see my friend Naomi, she really has a special voice! And I'll be playing too! And we'll try to have some fun, but not force it, if it's a bad night, well that's all right!

Also, I'm going to change my songs on this page before I leave. It's kind of killing me to think of doing it and I really appreciated everyone who put my songs on their page - but unfortunately come Friday "This song has been deleted by the Artist!" Haha or something - well it's time to make myself feel nervous again because Can't has gotten too easy!

I'm really into challenges. Does anyone on the west coast want to play tennis?

So I'm half-way between a freshman and a sophomore right now. Not only that, I'm taking fall classes in the spring! So I'm totally out of whack.

I went to see my advisor, basically to find out if I had to go to summer school. I told him that for "work" I have to schedule things a few months in advance, so I needed to figure it out asap. He told me NOT to take summer classes, unless I was in a "desperate situation," which he didn't seem to think I was in.

I was so psyched when I left his office! Now I can just go on tour, play noise, and do watercolors all summer! No more stressing out about getting perfect score to impress the Chinese lady who teaches my circuits class. She's also the one who teaches nonlinear feedback and control, but I don't get to take that for a few more years.

So here's how the plans are shaping up:

May 1 - June 15 Western US with Naomi
June 17 Philadelphia with Alissa Cardone
June 20-July 7 with Bunnybrains
July 9 - 24 Denmark, Holland and Finland
July 27-28 LA
Aug 4 special performance at a wedding

Then I think I'll spend the rest of August working at Flower Electronics and visiting my family. I can't live in the dream world ALL of the time!

Well I thought I was only taking Physics II this semester - but the absolute minumum (according to the advisor) was 10 credits - so I said what the heck! Now I'm a full time engineering student! Total culture shock! But really fun!

Now I have to be at Calculus class at 8:30 am every day, so if you don't see me at the show, it's because I already went to bed!

ok so tonight was the showdown, this time i was wearing heels, she wasn't. wow it's a big difference! it took a while to put it all in perspective. it's funny because our relationship has nothing to do with the song i wrote of the same name. A different song really applies to her!

You're sorry about your life,
and i'm sorry too!
No one likes you, yes it's true:
because you're unpleasant and rude.

And when you feel like talking,
it's only about your problems or yourself!

Well have fun feeling sad and lame!
You'll surely win your selfish game.
Please excuse me while you pass me by!

Keep on rush on,
please pass me by.

So like I was saying about Virilio - The time acceleration is even more extreme now, catching budget flights between identical airports in different countries. But the money is different, the talking is different, and people's body language is different. Taking the night train feels like an atavistic luxury in comparison! At least you have a little time to adjust.

But to be honest, being back home in a boring place, eating boring boiled food, drinking weak American beer (high life thank you very much!) and listening to my favorite easy listening radio station is like the greatest luxury of all!

I'm grateful I got to see so many beautiful things the last few months, especially St. Basil's in Moscow, the Lofoten Islands in Norway, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in Ghent, and yes even that weird duck pig in Finland. But the most fun is being home, taking the dog to the park, and seeing my grandparents at Thanksgiving!

So if I don't see anyone the next few months, it's because I'm having fun hiding out alone, I need to enjoy it while I have the chance!

I don't usually buy records unless it's from someone at a show, and to be honest I don't really hear about music unless except from playing with people. So I only heard of Charlamagne a few months ago. Keith Whitman told me about his concerts, and his uh "quirky" personality. In Belgium a few weeks ago I heard part of a recording. It was great! But that's all I knew.

So I was really excited that we were doing an artist talk together in Oslo. I enjoyed his talk a lot! The way he was talking about music made 100% sense to me, and when he started gossiping about Marayanne Amacher's ex-boyfriends from the 70's of course I was all ears! There was one of them she never mentioned to me! Also he was drinking whiskey this whole time. I thought, of course we have to be friends!

Charlamagne seemed to enjoy my talk (I was talking about the weather), but something I said about "power relations" didn't seem to sit right. But after the event was over he got really agressive and told me I was a typical American and disrespected everyone by talking too fast in English and accused me of being a radical feminist and a bunch of other stuff. I just couldn't figure out where he was coming from! But it really hurt my feelings. Which he also took as evidence of my typical Americanism! (??)

I just couldn't figure out what went wrong! I know he and Keith got along really well.

The next night I was playing at Bla and I saw Charlamagne come in to the show, and we said hello. So ok we'd be civil at least. Then he stood right in front of the stage and videotaped the show, and clearly enjoyed it. And asked some really sensible questions in response to something I said. Ok so we can be friends after all!

Today I went to see him play a piano concert in Oslo. It was in a kind of indoor plaza with a very high ceiling. He was playing a Bosendorfer grand piano with 4 extra low notes on the bottom. He told some very engaging stories, and then he started to play. I think everyone was entirely speachless for the next hour.

In the very beginning it sounded like a piano alone. But soon it started to sound like an organ and a harpsichord together. And for a while it was only an organ, or a synthesizer. I don't know how else to describe it! It was unlike anything I've ever experienced.

At the end of the concert it was like when Maryanne plays: everyone just sat there, and didn't really know what to do for a few minutes. How could something that deep, and that beautiful, and that involving ever have a beginning or end? And how can he bear to play music that touches that close to the infinite? I think that's why he has to drink, to keep from losing control as he's looking into the void.

I told Lasse Marhaug it was the second best concert I've ever seen. He thought that was funny but when I said Masonna was number one he understood that. Masonna definitely changed my life. But Charlamagne's music made me cry more than I can remember having cried at a concert. (A tear or two has been shed watching Prurient and 2deadsluts, and I'm ashamed to admit Jane's Addiction but I was only 16!)

But I wonder what kind of effect that concert will have on me in the next few years, I wouldn't be surprised if I revise my top two list some day. . .