When in school at Central, I worked as an associate in the Theatre Department. So, when special events occurred, i.e. Nureyev doing a dance recital, I would get to do some special element to make the show come off. When Nureyev did his number, I was chosen to follow him with a spot light. I discovered very quickly, that he could jump. Man could he jump! Right out of the light. I was sweating more than Nureyev after that performance. I still remember meeting him and him thanking me for my efforts. He said that he would always try to stay in the light, but sometimes it was very difficult on the lighting people. One of my many memories of theatre at CMU.

Very cool. Nureyev’s jumps are legendary and often the topic of comment by my ballet instructors.

What is amazing to me is that you do this daily. I don’t know how much time you spend on blogging, but I surely couldn’t whip this out in less than hour. I do read every day and am pretty clued in on what is happening in the Jenkins household. I do appreciate the time that you devote to this.
It allows me to reflect.

And thank you for reading and commenting. My little counter at the bottom of site tells me I get about fifty hits a day. Not sure that’ exactly indicative of actual people viewing, but what the heck. I find the writing of it therapeutic and think that it’s definitely a way for fam and friends to keep up with me conveniently.

Information and knowledge. This element that you mentioned is a topic of all my classes at the beginning of the semester. I believe that it is a simpler idea. Information contains “data”. Information represents knowledge that has been obtained by someone else. It is not my knowledge until I decide to make it my knowledge. This is about the individual taking the “information” and turning it into their knowledge.
The problem is related to the amount of information that is currently available to us. So, really the problem is deciding “what” information that you want to make “knowledge”. This is, in my opinion, the problem that most people face in today’s communication oriented society.

I thought that Albert Brooks was the one who committed suicide yesterday, but it was Joseph Brooks. He wrote the song “You Light Up MY Life”.

The water colors are terrific. At least they look like water colors. Hard to tell with media used in art today.

They’re going to install Windows 7 at my office at the church. I will look at it and see if I can find any sort of solution…. If not it’s really, really shameful of them to do that. I mean REALLY!

There are advances in the the system that takes a few times to make it work properly. However, the cloud is supposed to make the systems easier to access and to operate. The idea is that they are always available in Read Access Memory (RAM)and on the desktop. This does require a new way of thinking about the use of the system. The college always is slower about doing these upgrades until they have been worked out. I have seen the New Windows 7 on a huge RAM system and it works very well. My belief is that you will need to have i7 processor or dual core processors with 7-12 gigs of RAM for it to work properly.

Spoke to Mark on the phone and figured out that he was confusing my comments about Window 7 starter with Window 7 in general. FWIW both Mark and I have used the cloud for ages.

Intellectuals have long been saturated with the idea that socialism is a good thing. It is not. I repeat it is not. This idea that someone else knows best how you should live your life, is ridiculous. There are plenty of examples of failure of these kinds of social order in Europe, from one extreme to another. The true issue is about individual freedom.

Are you free? Free to write? Free to think? Free to start a business? Free to speak? Socialism limits these freedoms. Of course all for good reasons. This is the way it always works. Who decides? Who is responsible?

Well, shouldn’t it be the individual?

I would ignore per… he writes a lot of nonsense on facebook just for his own amusement. goodness knows what he’s going on about…

Sarah, I find Per amusing. I like his sense of humor. I engage people who disagree with me in an attempt to establish conversation in which I and they can comment and ask questions to clarify our thoughts and provoke more consideration. This seems to have occurred in my last back and forth with Per, so cool beans.

Ray, You obviously feel strongly about socialism. However, I find your sweeping generalization about intellectuals and vague rhetorical questions incoherent. To imply that people who use their intellect (intellectuals) are saturated with ideas you disagree with is illogical and self-contradictory since you are attempting an “intellectual” proposition yourself when you do so. Your series of questions seem to imply that socialism prohibits free thought and speech which would surely surprise conservative commentators like Brooks not to mention entire countries like Canada and the U.K. where socialist politicians depend on and espouse the very things you are accusing socialism (by implication) of “limiting.”

If you are espousing capitalism instead of socialism as an expression of individual freedom of thought, I find this also confusing. But maybe that’s not what you mean. FWIW Capitalism can (and does in the USA) stifle the same kinds of individual freedoms that you accuse socialism of doing as well. The market tends to only entertain and support free thoughts when these can be used to make a profit. It actually can suppress free conversations and new ideas by limiting their distribution via the market. See all TV news. Bigger enterprises gobble up smaller ones and limit freedoms of individuals to start their own businesses. And so on.

Socialism, capitalism, individualism are all fraught with both strengths and weaknesses as are most “isms.”. When I think of them (which is not often) I try to understand them on their own terms and make sense of people who espouse them. Not always successfully.

Hi Steve,
I finally got my SONY TC-650 tape deck repaired. It only took $255.00. I have reviewed some of the master tapes on some of my music from the past and am in the process of digitizing this. Much of my production tapes were recorded on 1″ tape utilizing an Ampex 24 track machine and a 48 track sound board. This was then mastered on to a am Ampex .5″ stereo mixer and then recorded onto a SONY TC-650 which became the stereo final master. This was then sent to the vinyl press for mastering and then converted to vinyl records. I am happy to have my machine back and listen to these tapes. They cover rock and roll to Musical Theater. I hope to share some of this with you as available.

cool

I listened to it, but my comment is unimportant. It is your music, but I was trying in my mind to rearrange it. I think this kind of music, must be heard by all of the instruments to be effectively understood. But hey what do I know.

Yeah, it’s a lousy mix. I made the MP3 by simply converting a music notation file in Finale to an audio file. The only way to mix it better would be to modify the notation file meticulously or make three notation files of the three instruments then after converting them to audio files, mixing them.

I know that you and other people I know are skilled at listening and recording. I’m sort of a throwback. I grew up making music. For me it’s the doing. I certainly respect the idea of mixing and the input from recordists and listeners. Maybe I’ll go back and do some of this.

Good luck on your compositions. I noticed that your fonts changed. Are you modernizing?

No, not intentional, it’s just sloppy HTML.

I saw a biographical special on TCM on Dave Brubeck which was produced by Clint Eastwood. It was tremendous. Also, there was one on Thelonious Monk which was quite good and informative. I didn’t realize that Eastwood was such a devotee to Jazz. I have never been a Thelonious Monk fan.
It reminded me of the 5/4 measure in Brubeck’s “Take Five” that you taught me many years ago. Jazz is very structured and has a lot of rules, which most people do not realize. Paul Desmond’s sax in Take Five is outstanding. Any way just a side note.