Gas Powered Perambulations

Please bear with me as I take one of my occasional breathers from the world of modeling and delve back into other subjects almost as far removed from poetry and the symphonic, but still closely entwined with art.

A bit of background to catch up my newer readers: my wife is from Vietnam so I have recently had the pleasure of periodic travel to East Asia. While there I've spent most of my time in  a lovely vibrant town once called Saigon and now officially designated Ho Chi Minh City. I've come to the conclusion that one of the more characteristic things about any given place is the way we get around. Ho Chi Minh is quite unlike most other places I've been. (And I've covered some distance in my short life, touching the soil of forty-seven states, nine countries, and three continents. Typically for at least 24 hours and in many cases quite a bit more than that.)  The US is a car country defined by fancy highways of almost exorbitant length, with a few significant exceptions. (And even the exceptions have their share of pavement.) Europe, with less space for roadways and more people per square klick, is remarkably multi-modal.

Asia, particularly South and East Asia, make Europe seem only slightly more densely populated than the moon. I expect most people have seen pictures of Asian traffic; the solid walls of people on the streets of Mumbai, the miles long parking lots leading into Beijing, the trains breathing pressurized human life in and out of Tokyo. Ho Chi Minh isn't quite like any of these. There are no trains to speak of. There is but one highway (though a second is under construction) and it isn't as yet a parking lot. And no one seems to walk much of anywhere. (I'm a little surprised people walk from their bedroom to their front door, but the houses are small and vertical and motor vehicles don't do stairs well.) So what is Saigon traffic? Motorbikes: mopeds, scooters, crotch-rockets, even the occasional cruiser. It seems as though all the bikes at Sturgis have been hit with a shrink ray and gotten very jiggy populating the streets and lanes of a large, but surprisingly compact Southern Florida style paradise by the millions. It may be the largest collection of two-stroke love on earth. And of course everyone is honking or beeping at all times, traffic laws are fluid, and signals are scarce. In short, it . . . is . . . FUN!

Some minor temporal liberties have been taken, but I hope this gives you a flavor of where I'm going. It's a fun town, Saigon, a great place to relax, eat, visit friends and family. It's a busy, bustling place where a lot of people work and play hard. It makes for a truly memorable power-assisted walk in the park.

Work, websites, and piano concerti

My most loyal followers might note that I am, as usual, overdue for the annual fleet review. I am sad to say that this will continue for a little while longer, but do not fear, ships will assemble in the harbor very soon. But first, a bit as to why this has not yet occurred. (After all, the Grand Empress just had her first jubilee. It is that time.)

Ships have lately taken a back seat to music . . . or at least thoughts about thinking about music. Or perhaps more accurately fury at a website lost. For somewhat over twenty years I, your humble composer, have been a minor functionary at the local ShowMe University Inc. I was mostly retained for the sake of hanging heavy things in the air once or twice a year. Well, said University has revamped their HR procedures. They used to purge the rolls of employees who had not worked for one calendar year. Now they do it every six months. One rigger who works twice, or maybe once a year never got the memo.

So I found myself without benefit of the free (though less than completely convenient) web-hosting services I'd enjo . . . excuse me, used for the last eight years or so. I have been reconstructing my website in the wilds of the internet, away from sheltered academic surrounds. In short, I am back. It took some real effort to get here, and there will no doubt be one or two bugs to work out, but I'm back. I may not be completely finished with my U career, since they do still need to hang heavy things twice (or once) a year, but the terms of any engagement will henceforward be different, more interesting. Indeed, more rewarding. And I will maintain my website elsewhere. More fun anyway. I pay a little for the privilege, but I have more freedom and better access. It's hard to complain now that the work is more or less done.

So if you can stand a little music, take a poke around my new demesne. I had long meant to talk about music on this blog and do so only rarely. I even have good reason to do so presently. I'm releasing the first elements of a Piano Concerto into the world on my new works page. This is yet another piece whose thematic material came to me in the shower one day. I like to think of it as Rachmaninov meets minimalism. Sort of. With luck it's one of my more approachable pieces. In any case, I hope that you might enjoy it.

Sincerely,
The Composer

A brief poetic distraction . . .

Several years ago I wrote a poem while in transit between one place and another. At least, I believe that's when I wrote it. You see, I got home, edited it some, and promptly lost it. Well, I finally found it, edited it some more and appended the date when I think I wrote it. I hope the date doesn't make it fiction, but even if it does I still think it's one of my better travel poems. Without further ado I bring you:

Information Dance

Sound.

Color. The

Air is a confusion of

Information.

Esters bunch in pressure waves as

Frequencies collide. One

Wave transmits another, permits

Passage, but

Not

Without

Interference.

Photons skim past the

Rarefied stuff of

Matter.

In the same

Space other ideas find

Transmission.

Above us

Grand algebraic

Dragons bound among fluid clouds of chaos

Transposing genes through

Non-Euclidian space,

Fermenting synaptic construction and

Mixing,

Matching, giving

Passage while

Changing like

Two particles in a

Vacuum.

In this vast cosmic

Radiation of information

Our own attachments

Are both

Distinct and

Infinitesimal.

Next to unity

Beethoven measures the same as

I.

9 December 2011

A bit off topic but oh so important . . .

Here's a little photo-essay that explains a few things.

(The baby is unrelated. Well, not unrelated, exactly, but not ours.)

This is a little overdue, but hopefully it gets the point across. Thank you.

The Face of the Earth or Where Have I Been Lately?

First, to discourage the ugly rumors that might pop up when you disappear for six months:

I am not dead. In fact, I am VERY not dead. I'm so not dead I'm getting married. (Death tends to annul marriages in even the most conservative of cultures.) Which also explains why the 2012 installment of the annual fleet review didn't happen in 2012. It's been rescheduled as a coronation review. More on that later. But for now I give you a few photographs from a recent trip to visit my intended Queen:

These things tend to begin when you arrive in distant places. It's been my turn twice now. Next time she can do the arriving.

Once you're done arriving, you might pass an immigration interview.

After which celebration might be called for . . . 

Sometimes young Beans like to shoot zombies with peas . . .  

More elaborate celebrations might call for trips to visit interesting places like museums filled with rusting locomotives. (I do have a somewhat anomalous definition of interesting.)

Thank goodness she loves me. I enjoy my locomotives, but they'd be a lot less interesting without good company.

Buddhist temples are also worth seeing.

If you chance to visit Vietnam, do eat the food. The food is generally incredibly fresh and very very good. And the array of different eats is positively dizzying.

Did I mention temples?

The landscape is also quite lovely.

Since Vietnam is conveniently located between India and China (hence the regional exonym Indochina) Vietnamese religious culture is nearly as rich and ancient as Vietnamese cuisine. Buddhism is much more prevalent than Hinduism, but both can be found. I believe this is an older Khmer icon but I will not attempt to comment on who might be depicted.

Somewhere in the above room I can only surmise there must also have been an icon of Shiva. As it happens, he's not the only creator/destroyer who can dance.

Of course, smiles from loved ones do give us a reason to dance. Cam on em yeu. Gap lai em rat sau.

I wonder if the human heart

I wonder if the human heart is like the weather.

Does it, in spring, blow hard by degrees,

One day hot, the next cold, damp, and grey?

Is it ever frozen by winter's sorrows, or

Cut off in its promise by a late frost or

An early storm leaving only moments;

Scrap paper and dried roses like fallen leaves?

Does it ever have the constancy of tropical summer,

Before the rain, hot and still, smothering you with

Patches of brilliantly colored air sewn into a

Crazy quilt of romance and desire, touched here

And there with thick thread of pungent fruit;

Of fish sauce and tittering laughter as we both smile

Coyly, embarrassed by our sudden shyness?

December 2011

To Luong Thi Mai Hong

Music and Miniatures

I've been involved in an online discussion lately where a group of us are trying to refight the Second World War as Japan. We represent a kinder gentler Japan. (Though one still bent on securing the resources we need for independence. And liberating East Asia from colonial oppression seems the way to go about it.) For the most part this has involved cleaning up our military, treating the locals with decency so that we can gain their support, waging a PR campaign in the United States so that the electorate there knows that we genuinely have swept away Tojo and the militaristic nationalists, and of course lots and lots of logistics. (How many c. 5" rifles can we build? How many graving docks over 600' do we have? How much steel? How much rubber? How much bauxite can we get from Indochina? How much oil from Borneo? How many additional merchant hulls will we need? How can we prevent losses? How much efficiency will we lose by instituting a convoy system? Can we afford conversions? Destroyers? Carriers? You get the idea.)

Well, in the midst of all this serious talk our esteemed Prime Minister, while talking about what to call some of our proposed special use infantry units, suggested "storm troopers" and wondered if we could get someone from Hollywood to write some theme music. Well, that was enough for the good Admiral Noka Shijin. In his academy days his friends called him "Shinfonikku Shijin." (Or Symphonic Poet if you prefer English.) So he blew the dust off some "theme music" and posted a couple of videos to YouTube featuring our fleet, and one with some trolls and goblins just for entertainment. (Should we wish to be evil and twirl our mustaches.)

Since this is falls at the very intersection of all that I try to write about here, save for the poetry, I would be quite remiss if I didn't repost it . . .

So, if you want to hear my third symphony, you can listen to the first movement on YouTube.

Since it's longer than their beblasted ten minute limit there's also a second part to said first movement.

And the mustache twirling (from a ballet I wrote for my late sister) is also available for your listening pleasure. (With orcs.)

Sincerely,

The Composer