Category Archives: Uncategorized

The secret to winning at Rock, paper, scissors.

I can’t believe I had never heard this story:

A Japanese art collector who could not decide whether to sell his Impressionist paintings through Christie’s or rival auction house Sotheby’s, instructed them to play the game against each other.

Christie’s consulted its employees on strategies and, on the advice of the director’s 11-year-old daughters, chose scissors.

The little girls, keen fans of the game, explained that “everybody expects you to choose rock”.

As predicted, Sotheby’s went for the open palm in a bid to beat the expected clenched fist, and lost the deal.

Of course, the more devious RPS strategy is to play for what you don’t want and intentionally lose. Most people won’t be able to pass up the allure of a RPS game. Just play a millisecond late, nobody will care as long as they are winning. Mwa ha ha.

Blackle

For a far more grinchy view of Christmas, let us go to Christopher Hitchens speaking/singing for the folks at Reason. He’s kind of a buzzkill but, as always, thought-provoking. And it makes at least as much sense as my Extended Shiverism view of Christmas.
Let’s put the X back in X-mas!

Learned how to reprogram a NBX 100

Went to a drag show with my mom, sister, niece, and girlfriend

Beta-tested for Ableton Live 7

Played my first professional recital

Waiting patiently for 7 months (and counting!) for the return of Lost

Ditto for BSG

Ate bull’s penis

Had two blood transfusions

Recorded a new Alarm Will Sound album

Got freaky on the subway

Finally learned about dynamic range compression

Arrived at a gig with no music, had Melly fax the music from home to the fax machine in a conveniently open church office, and played the concert on fax sheets while telling nary a soul of my brush with disaster.

Had a botched operation that I narrowly survived

Started a real blog

Started a podcast

Drank Everclear for he first time (oy…)

Lived through a tornado

Created an ensemble/produced my first concert

Was banned from a Cleveland bar for attempting to pay my bill with a credit card

Pissed off D.J. Spooky

Had a morphine button for a week

Waited 8 months for a thousand-dollar check

Laughed as my friend had his arm broken

Finished my Master’s Program

Ducked creditors seeking tons of money I do not actually owe

Played a solo, sang, and performed original electronic music at Carnegie Hall

Took my longest break from horn ever

Wrote more music than I have in my entire life

Left in the middle of a rehearsal for a Carnegie Hall performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony (playing principal) with Benjamin Zander to hop on a train to New Haven and check myself into the emergency room.

Began writing a musical

Finally got on Gmail/Fell in love with Google Reader/ Had my life changed by getting Google Maps on my phone

Walked 3 miles up a mountain in the snow, in Vermont, in sneakers due to bad information Google Maps gave me

Collaborated with Melly a whole bunch

Played concerts in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Holland, Massachusetts, Washington D.C. and New York (duh.)

Transcribed and arranged a piece of music for a concert for the first time

Spent my 27th birthday eating tater tots and drinking Shirley Temples

Gained and lost 20 pounds through no effort of my own

(P.S. this will be updated as I think of more. Feel free to leave any additions in the comments section!)

Wow. Sometimes words fail me. Btw, Nevena I think I love you.

-thanks Kate (I would link to you, but you still don’t have a blog! Waaa waaaaa…)

Rather than spending hours IMDBing your favorite directors to find out their upcoming films, here is a guide to a huge number of anticipated films coming out in 2008. This is where I found the Be Kind Rewind trailer and there is an insane amount more. Looking forward to new films by the Coen Brothers, Aronofsky, Richard Kelly, Nolan (Dark Knight, wuz ^??), Meirelles, Fincher, Tykwer, J.J. Abrams (new Star Trek?), Eli Roth, Jonze, Kevin Smith, etc.
Jesus, I could do posts featuring like 20 of these trailers. I’ll save it. Just view the list.

This movie looks beautiful. I love Michel Gondry and this seems to accentuate his down-to-earth metaphysical approach to effects and filmmaking as a whole. It looks kind of like a gamble, but I’m optimistic (as always!).

Of all of the freedoms I enjoy in this wacky country of ours, one I hold most dear is the freedom to name our children strange, awkward-sounding, and just plain dumb-ass names. Let freedom ring around all of the Bumquesha’s, Sunshine’s, Brooklynn’s, America’s, and all manner of pretentious baby names.
Actually, I kind of have a thing for alternative baby names. Amidst the many less-than-masculine tendencies I have (affinity for musicals, indifference towards sports…) is an odd obsession for the name(s?) of my future child(ren?). I’ve never had any desire to name my child John, Michael, Matthew, or any of the typical names of my generation. Now, while I’m not going to name my child Starlight Express or anything, I’ve thought a lot about finding a unique name and the experience the child would have with the unique name. My brother has had good ideas for baby naming, his three girls are named Paige, Sadie, and Livi.
But, all of these creative ideas would fall short if you happen to live in the country of Denmark, where there is a list of approved baby names, which, if your fancy name ain’t on it, you’re out of luck. There are a good number of names, but something tells me Bumquesha isn’t on there.
I learned this courtesy of Mental Floss and an extra-courteous commenter left some instructions on viewing the seemingly exhaustive list.
Here they are:

1) Go to familiestyrelsen.dk/navne/ (add the www, etc. to the front)
2) On the left, click on Navnelister (”lists of names”)
3) The following options appear as Radio Buttons:
A) Godkendte drengefornavne (5552) – (”authorized boys’ first names”)
B) Godkendte pigefornavne (7662) – (”authorized girls’ first names”)
C) Frie efternavne (165) – (”Free surnames.” A list of of surnames held by 2000+ people, can be taken by anyone)
D) Firma- og kunstnernavne (52) – (”Company and business names”)
E) Udenlandske navne (6318) – (”Foreign names” – traditional foreign names)

Select HTML or CSV format and click on “Vis liste” to display the list.

The best is the name of the governmental bureaucracy that governs this:
The Names Investigation Department and the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs
Don’t fuck with them. Seriously, take your Jim, Jane, or Bjorn with a smile and exit swiftly.

A couple of years ago I made peace with Christmas music. I had to, it was inescapable. Every trip outside my apartment during “The Christmas Season” was saturated with Feliz Navidad, Jingle Bell Rock, White Christmas (which I’ve still never had…), and the Augie Rios smash hit, Donde esta Santa Claus?. I tried glowering, displaying my distaste to anyone in eyeshot. I tried the permanent use of headphones blasting my preferred music. Mainly though, I tried to bear it like I do the cold weather, letting its tendrils of artificial goodwill lap at my hard exterior, while I held strong my rigid core of unemotional stability. Every once in a while though, as we all know, one sneaks inside and provokes an involuntary shiver.
If the definition of involuntary is a lack of control, then every shiver can be viewed as a sign of weakness. All shivers tend to deliver a modicum of transcendent warmth, one that is always proportional to the degree of prior discomfort, which is itself is proportional to ones weakness. The more one submits to weakness, the higher the priority on comfort, or the rejection of discomfort, becomes. This is where independence is lost and parasitic behavior begins. If my reward for walking 2 miles through the snow is a warm bath once I finally arrive at my home, then the independence of my walking moments are sacrificed to the weight of the moment I lower my body into the steaming water; I shiver, sigh, forget about my tribulation. During my walk, I am emotionally parasitic – I live for the bath, the shiver, much like an addict doesn’t feel alive before his fix.
“The Christmas Season” is one long shiver for a country that endures throughout the year. We are addicted to it, yet we esteem it to hold its place at the end of the year, only extending it as early as the day after Thanksgiving. After Christmas is over (the 26th), we hover in a strange delirium until we dash out all memories and emotions of the “Season” on New Years Eve, and vow to start the parasitic process over with new methods of dealing with it.
About two Christmas’s ago I decided to start “feeling the Christmas spirit”. It wasn’t so much of an embrace as it was a submission, but the seduction of submission can often trump independent desire. Picture me as Ripley, falling back into the flames, arms outstretched in vague Christ-imagery, the monster of independence ripping free from my bosom.
Here’s a visual:

The main manifestation of my yule-tide resurrection was my tolerance and even appreciation of Christmas music. But even if I tolerate Feliz Navidad, I still much prefer the more obscure and unique Christmas songs and covers.

This collection has been making the blog rounds recently. It is a collection of old (old!) recordings of Christmas music on cylinder, going back as early as 1904! There are some favorites, as well as a whole bunch I do not know. I’ve had trouble downloading/listening to the songs from the site, but a commenter made a RapidShare download of them all as a whole. The commenter has no email or website, so as always download with caution, although I did and it seems legit.

http://rs216.rapidshare.com/files/77420864/Vintage_Christmas_Wax.zip

And as always, for all your old-timey music needs, check out the 1920s Radio Network. I listen to this station daily on iTunes and their selection of old Christmas tunes is great.

I’ll be blogging through the holidays, but while I’m at it, Happy Annual Extended Shiver everyone!

Yours truly, Matt(hew) Marks got a nice review for my horn-playing in CityMusic Cleveland last week:

Franz Joseph Haydn was well-known for his musical hijinks. His Symphony No. 59 in A major or Fire may not have been intentionally difficult, but keeping up with the composer’s idea of ‘as fast as possible’ could certainly lead a less accomplished orchestra into worlds of trouble. No problem here, however, as CityMusic’s players are more than capable. The high horn parts in the third and fourth movements were superbly performed by Matthew Marks and Ken Wadenpfuhl.

-CoolCleveland.com

Yay! All the more rewarding since I stressed like crazy before every performance of that dad-blasted Haydn Symphony! Haydn is known for his casual writing of in-the-stratosphere horn-writing. This Symphony was no exception! High B’s held for 10 measures, trills on high A’s… Zoinks. It was fun, but I’m glad it is over!
Now I can return to playing comfortable microtonal loopy horn stuff!

P.S. Ken was a dream 2nd horn player, super nice guy and incredibly easy to play with.