Each Wednesday night reminds me that playing in an orchestra is some kind of enigmatic healing ritual. Nothing consoles you about your terrible week and that ugly red 66 on your Math 33B midterm quite like pulling out a cello and playing some 20th century classical music. I am rejuvenated - orchestra is the only addiction of mine more powerful than sugar. It's a bit worrisome how much I enjoy it - I hope there are opportunities to continue it after college.
This quarter's program for UCLA Symphony includes the following:
Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
This summer was continuous hoping to play the overture to Candide, so seeing this on our program in September was a little disappointing. I have never been very fond of Brahms, but after five weeks I will admit reluctantly that this does have its moments. I try to think on the positive side: at least he doesn't screw over the trombones here like he does in his symphonies. At least it's not the overture to Don Giovanni. At least the original is better than that awful transcription for band...
Liszt - Piano Concerto no. 2
This is the kind of piece that I would have enjoyed a lot more about 3 years ago, when I lived on the seeping romanticism of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. But as soon as I heard the soloist I fell in love with it again. The soloist is fantastic and I like his interpretation more than Richter's. I find it amusing that I will have now performed three concerti with UCLA Symphony and all of them are for different keyboard - first an organ concerto by Rheinberger, then a harpsichord concerto by Poulenc, and now this. Our part is refreshingly involved accompaniment, unlike certain concerti I have played over the past few years (Saent-Saëns' first violin concerto comes to mind.)
Delius - Walk to Paradise Garden from Village Romeo and Juliet
The opera that this is from is pretty screwed up - it's like Romeo and Juliet, except instead of Romeo and Juliet it's Sali and Vrenchen, which are probably two of the least romantic sounding names imaginable. Fortunately that is quite the opposite of this interlude, which is strikingly gorgeous - Delius is like the English version of Ravel. The climax is one of those tutti string passages, where the celli play in the high tenor clef range, and we melt the audience. So pretty.
Prokofiev - Suite from Lt. Kijé
I have also never liked Prokofiev much. But maybe I just wasn't listening to the right pieces. This music is from the score to the 1927 Russian film, Lieutenant Kijé, and it's quite nice. Prokofiev orchestrates just how I love - like Poulenc, lightly and sparsely - everything shimmers. It's unique, and it's colorful - a string bass solo that isn't Mahler, a tenor sax that isn't Gershwin, and jingle bells!. The first movement even has some major sevenths. It's like this music was written for me.
All romantic and modern - I wonder how we get away with this.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
You know you're a math major when...
...you see someone who looks like he could be the offspring of people you know - and you're saying it in your head, "Hey, that guy looks like a cross between Eric and Jeff!" - but instead you word it instinctively as "Hey! That guy looks like a linear combination of Eric and Jeff!"
True story. Do me a favor and word it like that whenever this situation arises.
Butler had another amazing joke today in class:
"You know - computer scientists are always get Halloween and Christmas mixed up. You know... because OCT 31 = DEC 25."
It has occurred to me lately that my humor here is becoming a little too esoteric.
True story. Do me a favor and word it like that whenever this situation arises.
Butler had another amazing joke today in class:
"You know - computer scientists are always get Halloween and Christmas mixed up. You know... because OCT 31 = DEC 25."
It has occurred to me lately that my humor here is becoming a little too esoteric.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I support Barack Obama - I don't support Barack Obama T-shirts
That's the best way I can think of putting it - this is something that has bothered me for a while. It's the same situation that we had during the primaries - Clinton vs. Obama: I recall vividly several large Hillary 08 signs hung proudly on Hedrick Summit dorm windows.
We don't care if you like Hillary or Obama, we don't care if you like Obama or McCain. We may agree or disagree with you - wanting to discuss actual issues is one thing, and we'll do it - but your Hillary bumper sticker and your Obama pins do nothing besides turn politics into a baseball game. A game where people blindly and unconditionally support one team. It's important to realize that even if one politician resonates deeply with you, he/she is still a politician. Obama isn't a messiah, he is a politician - he may help this country, but he certainly won't be saving the world. Our constitution revolves around the assumption that politicians are fallible, that we should keep their power in check - doesn't plastering their names across ourselves then become a little contrary to our ideals?
Some other political irritations swimming around in my head lately, as the election nears:
TV debates: If there's one thing that trivializes politics more than political candidate apparel it's these "presidential debates." And what's worse than the debates themselves is the people who remain undecided in late September, and watch the debates to decide. Do people honestly think that the debates reveal anything substantial about the candidates? The film Thank You for Smoking summarizes what these arguments generally become - some kind of bizarre speaking tournaments. America wants answers and we get them: who can dodge the questions the best, who can recall and regurgitate the lines they have rehearsed the best, and who can dodge the questions by turning them into opportunities to recall and regurgitate the best. I worry that people don't realize that public speaking is not really all that essential in being an effective president.
Sarah Palin: I'm deeply surprised whenever I am reminded that people actually support her. It's a shame, really - one of the most self-destructive things McCain could have done for the Republican party imaginable. Is it honestly not 100% apparent that this was a meager attempt to win the votes of a few disgrunted (and increadibly stupid) Hillary supporters? Do people actually think this was a long and calculated decision? It seems pretty clear to me that it was basically spur-of-the-moment; with all the controversy over her McCain was bound to have predicted some. Not to mention that she is completely unqualified and offensively stupid. Blatant pandering to small-town rural states, which despite their lower population allegedly constitute real America, her complete reversal on the bridge to nowhere, the whole Troopergate incident, claiming to be a role model for women while pro-life and making rape victims pay for rape kits... the list goes on.
Couric's questions weren't particularly brutal in her interview - what struck me was Palin's utter failure to answer them. Not failures to address the questions - dodging them is a trend among every politician - but failures to even cough up some nonsense to make herself sound good. This wasn't an elitist versus average Joe, it was a journalist versus a complete moron.
Controversy over proposition 8: It still boggles my mind that in a progressive 21st-century nation that this is even an issue. Proponents of 8 are always saying "Homosexuals already have all the rights that we do - allowing them to marry infringes upon our rights." I just have to ask - why do you think that knowing that homosexuals can marry somehow trivializes your own? The common argument is religious - it somehow diminishes the sanctity of the whole ordeal. Then I have to ask - why do Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or anyone else who doesn't share your faith and marries anyway not defile the sanctity of your marriage?
I love those TV ads - "Gay marriage will be taught to your children! Yes on 8!" Heaven forbid public schools actually teach something. Why exactly should this be kept a secret, regardless of whether 8 is passed? How can you teach elementary school kids about bus boycotts, Martin Luther King Jr., or the Little Rock Nine without a little voice crying out in your subconscious - "Oh, by the way, gay people can't get married!"
We don't care if you like Hillary or Obama, we don't care if you like Obama or McCain. We may agree or disagree with you - wanting to discuss actual issues is one thing, and we'll do it - but your Hillary bumper sticker and your Obama pins do nothing besides turn politics into a baseball game. A game where people blindly and unconditionally support one team. It's important to realize that even if one politician resonates deeply with you, he/she is still a politician. Obama isn't a messiah, he is a politician - he may help this country, but he certainly won't be saving the world. Our constitution revolves around the assumption that politicians are fallible, that we should keep their power in check - doesn't plastering their names across ourselves then become a little contrary to our ideals?
Some other political irritations swimming around in my head lately, as the election nears:
TV debates: If there's one thing that trivializes politics more than political candidate apparel it's these "presidential debates." And what's worse than the debates themselves is the people who remain undecided in late September, and watch the debates to decide. Do people honestly think that the debates reveal anything substantial about the candidates? The film Thank You for Smoking summarizes what these arguments generally become - some kind of bizarre speaking tournaments. America wants answers and we get them: who can dodge the questions the best, who can recall and regurgitate the lines they have rehearsed the best, and who can dodge the questions by turning them into opportunities to recall and regurgitate the best. I worry that people don't realize that public speaking is not really all that essential in being an effective president.
Sarah Palin: I'm deeply surprised whenever I am reminded that people actually support her. It's a shame, really - one of the most self-destructive things McCain could have done for the Republican party imaginable. Is it honestly not 100% apparent that this was a meager attempt to win the votes of a few disgrunted (and increadibly stupid) Hillary supporters? Do people actually think this was a long and calculated decision? It seems pretty clear to me that it was basically spur-of-the-moment; with all the controversy over her McCain was bound to have predicted some. Not to mention that she is completely unqualified and offensively stupid. Blatant pandering to small-town rural states, which despite their lower population allegedly constitute real America, her complete reversal on the bridge to nowhere, the whole Troopergate incident, claiming to be a role model for women while pro-life and making rape victims pay for rape kits... the list goes on.
Couric's questions weren't particularly brutal in her interview - what struck me was Palin's utter failure to answer them. Not failures to address the questions - dodging them is a trend among every politician - but failures to even cough up some nonsense to make herself sound good. This wasn't an elitist versus average Joe, it was a journalist versus a complete moron.
Controversy over proposition 8: It still boggles my mind that in a progressive 21st-century nation that this is even an issue. Proponents of 8 are always saying "Homosexuals already have all the rights that we do - allowing them to marry infringes upon our rights." I just have to ask - why do you think that knowing that homosexuals can marry somehow trivializes your own? The common argument is religious - it somehow diminishes the sanctity of the whole ordeal. Then I have to ask - why do Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or anyone else who doesn't share your faith and marries anyway not defile the sanctity of your marriage?
I love those TV ads - "Gay marriage will be taught to your children! Yes on 8!" Heaven forbid public schools actually teach something. Why exactly should this be kept a secret, regardless of whether 8 is passed? How can you teach elementary school kids about bus boycotts, Martin Luther King Jr., or the Little Rock Nine without a little voice crying out in your subconscious - "Oh, by the way, gay people can't get married!"
Monday, October 20, 2008
Now I know
Math 33B: This class is regarded as one of the more difficult of the 30-series, but so far it's been considerably more tolerable than I anticipated. It's amazing how much of a difference that having a professor who actually pauses once in a while and asks "Does this make sense?" can make (even when the majority of the class is afraid to say no). And I actually like the textbook - a nice divergence from the one for 33A, which offered minimal explanations for abstract ideas, completely unhelpful and unrepresentative examples, and somehow managed to make even the easiest concepts appear daunting.
Math 61: It's called "Introduction to Discrete Structures" but I have decided that a better title would be miscellany. Every class we end up going off on tangents from our already disjoint material. However, it has proved to be interesting so far - we are formally taught things that we otherwise wouldn't have thought twice about, like sets. To my dismay, the topic for the past week or two has been combinatorics, which invokes nightmares from high school. Specifically, the memory of one of two math tests in high school that I didn't get an A on - the test on combinatorics and probability from Alegbra 2. Today's midterm was ridiculously easy - unfortunate because I rely so heavily on grading curves, and I've already thought of a few irritating mistakes.
The professor is amazing - here is some evidence:
Music History 5: Undoubtedly the worst class I have taken so far at UCLA. Imagine this: Mondays and Wednesdays at 9AM, 500 people trudge into Schoenberg auditorium. The professor spends 30 minutes explaining to the class how to resolve some technical issue people have been experiencing with Moodle, the online portal where most of our work is done. Then she spends another 20 minutes explaining some aspect of our research project that somebody inevitably misunderstood. The lecture commences and she spends about 30 minutes explaining some inanely simple topic in music - AABA forms, 4/4 time, backbeats. Each lecture contains only about 10 minutes of actual history of rock - the rest is frivolous at best. You wouldn't believe how many Youtube videos she has shown us...
Math 61: It's called "Introduction to Discrete Structures" but I have decided that a better title would be miscellany. Every class we end up going off on tangents from our already disjoint material. However, it has proved to be interesting so far - we are formally taught things that we otherwise wouldn't have thought twice about, like sets. To my dismay, the topic for the past week or two has been combinatorics, which invokes nightmares from high school. Specifically, the memory of one of two math tests in high school that I didn't get an A on - the test on combinatorics and probability from Alegbra 2. Today's midterm was ridiculously easy - unfortunate because I rely so heavily on grading curves, and I've already thought of a few irritating mistakes.
The professor is amazing - here is some evidence:
- While giving an example about relations: "xRy if x has major Y. Let X be the set {Amy, John, Sam} and Y be the set {Econ, Math, Art History}. Art history majors. You've all seen some of those. They help subsidize the rest of us."
- While discussing unary operators: "You know, unary. Like 'ooone', if you mispronounce it. Like people who ride a unicycle. I ride a unicycle. It's a lot harder."
- While introducing combinations: "n choose k is equal to n!/(k!(n-k)!). This is really important. Now I'm going to draw a box around it because it's so important. Now I'm going to draw a halo around it. Now I'm going to draw some stars because that's how important it is."
- After erasing the formula for C(n,k) to make room for an example: "Oops, I shouldn't have erased that. It's imporant."
Music History 5: Undoubtedly the worst class I have taken so far at UCLA. Imagine this: Mondays and Wednesdays at 9AM, 500 people trudge into Schoenberg auditorium. The professor spends 30 minutes explaining to the class how to resolve some technical issue people have been experiencing with Moodle, the online portal where most of our work is done. Then she spends another 20 minutes explaining some aspect of our research project that somebody inevitably misunderstood. The lecture commences and she spends about 30 minutes explaining some inanely simple topic in music - AABA forms, 4/4 time, backbeats. Each lecture contains only about 10 minutes of actual history of rock - the rest is frivolous at best. You wouldn't believe how many Youtube videos she has shown us...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
New year
There has been an admittedly shameful drought of posts here lately, but the rapid approach of the last few minutes of September has pushed me to remedy this tonight. The 2008-2009 school year has begun, and so far it hasn't been markedly different than the previous one - except perhaps in that I have been enjoying marching band a bit more. I haven't exactly had much experience in each of my classes yet - but I think I like all of my professors.
Yesterday our Math 33B professor wrote a function on the board and then spontaneously decided that it was time to demonstrate that our choice in variable names didn't matter (I still don't understand why he would even consider that students with 3+ years of experience with calculus wouldn't know this.) He erased what he wrote and replaced it with the following:
And speaking of elementary, Monday's Math 61 lecture was all about sets - a concept that always seemed completely self-explanatory to me since it was formally taught to us all in 8th grade. Our professor was showing the class the notation for the null set, Ø : "Does that look like a zero with a slash through it? It's not a zero through the slash through it. It's actually a Norwegian letter or something. I think it's pronounced euuuuugh."
After class there was some crazy Chrisitian evangelist telling everyone on Bruinwalk that we are going to hell. This isn't hyperbole - he was brandishing a flag that read DON'T GO TO HELL! and on the opposite side, SATAN'S CHILDREN: followed by a list of everyone. I couldn't help but think of sets - according to this man, hypocritical Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, pornographers, and sodomites were a subset of SATAN'S CHILDREN. Nothing I read made me an element of this subset, but the list dragged on and on so I undoubtedly am. I wish I had bothered to read the rest of the list because it was hilarious.
There was something envigorating about the whole experience. I felt an odd combination of deep appreciation for freedom of speech, shocked disbelief that some people are crazy enough to actually believe that 99% of the world is going to hell, and sympathy for the real Christians who have to put up with this guy. And of course the endless amusement of being reminded that people like this regularly come and preach at college campuses and actually expect to convince anyone of ANYTHING.
Yesterday our Math 33B professor wrote a function on the board and then spontaneously decided that it was time to demonstrate that our choice in variable names didn't matter (I still don't understand why he would even consider that students with 3+ years of experience with calculus wouldn't know this.) He erased what he wrote and replaced it with the following:
And speaking of elementary, Monday's Math 61 lecture was all about sets - a concept that always seemed completely self-explanatory to me since it was formally taught to us all in 8th grade. Our professor was showing the class the notation for the null set, Ø : "Does that look like a zero with a slash through it? It's not a zero through the slash through it. It's actually a Norwegian letter or something. I think it's pronounced euuuuugh."After class there was some crazy Chrisitian evangelist telling everyone on Bruinwalk that we are going to hell. This isn't hyperbole - he was brandishing a flag that read DON'T GO TO HELL! and on the opposite side, SATAN'S CHILDREN: followed by a list of everyone. I couldn't help but think of sets - according to this man, hypocritical Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, pornographers, and sodomites were a subset of SATAN'S CHILDREN. Nothing I read made me an element of this subset, but the list dragged on and on so I undoubtedly am. I wish I had bothered to read the rest of the list because it was hilarious.
There was something envigorating about the whole experience. I felt an odd combination of deep appreciation for freedom of speech, shocked disbelief that some people are crazy enough to actually believe that 99% of the world is going to hell, and sympathy for the real Christians who have to put up with this guy. And of course the endless amusement of being reminded that people like this regularly come and preach at college campuses and actually expect to convince anyone of ANYTHING.
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