Metamorphosism

Composition

Well, that was easy.

I ripped the tune from the CD and converted it to an MP3 and uploaded it to my server. That's the short version with all the bitching and whining cut out. Thanks to everyone who gave me good advice.

So, yes. As promised. To keep from exceeding the bandwidth limits of my hosting account, and for other reasons, I should leave this file online for a limited time. After that, if you still are interested in listening to it, mail me at metamorphosist [at symbol here] gmail.com and I'll mail you a copy.

Llik Daor MP3, 7.4 MB

(For a logical reason that escapes me now, I originally had the link in the extended entry. Sorry to anyone that confused.)

The file is 7.4 MB.
The title of the song is "Llik Daor"
It was composed with ten harps in mind, and a cello, and two cellphones and a digital camera. At the debut performance, of which this file is a live recording, it was performed by six classically-trained harpists, a cellist (not me), two cellphonists and there was a young boy taking pictures, so it came awfully close to the ideal I had imagined.
When I spoke to the professional composers at the workshop as a part of which I composed this tune, they asked me if I envisioned further evolution of this piece and I said no, it's done. But now I have changed my mind and may go back to this with several things in mind including arrangements for other instruments such as bells or saxophones and so on.
The piece was, as I may have mentioned, inspired by a dead fox seen at the side of the freeway, and the general sadness I felt at my father's death; and the evolution of the piece sort of kinda reflects me starting to move out of that grief. It's not supposed to be a sad song, although that was the original idea. It's supposed to be about life winning, not that I want to put any pressure on it or anything.

Little-known facts about the Amazon Molly

• Native to Texas, the amazon molly, or poecilia formosa, is always female.
• They reproduce gynogenetically, by mating with males of related species, whose sperm stimulate egg development without contributing genetic material, with the result that offspring are genetic clones of the mother.
• Or do they?
• Maybe the males of the species just to have their existential crises in private.
• It is possible that, while the females are interrupting the mating rituals of the poecilia mexicana or poecilia latipinna with the result that sperm from the confused males of this species enter poecilia formosa egg cells, the males are driving down the street in a wind storm, watching trees break and blow into traffic, thinking, one good thing about global warming is at least the storms are more entertaining.
• It is not conclusively proven that the males don't wake up at 3 AM with a splitting headache after drinking what turned out to be bad wine and eating what may have been bad cold cuts and finally puke, which makes the headache worse but then better although they can't really fall asleep again so they get up and make coffee and pack lunches.
• It is not unthinkable that a male, when he drives his daughter to the train station for her final school-leaving graduation ultra-test, sits and blocks traffic while he watches her until she is out of sight.
• The maximum size of the amazon molly is 9.6 cm.
• They commonly live over mud.

Lunch

I walked to a shop to get some shaving cream on my lunch break. A bakery had sandwiches. I bought a ciabatta with mozzarella, tomatoes and lettuce. You get a bottle of Emotion free with it, the lady said. Emotion is this drink they sell here. It is like water, only with some sugar and a choice of essential oils or flavors, I think. They have, maybe, lemon grass or pear or guarana and so on. But the lady was out of most of these. All she had left was either frustration or ass-consciousness. I have enough frustration already, I joked. I'll take the ass-consciousness.
Today it's hot so I'd better eat this salmon-cheese spread sandwich I made early before it can spoil.
My physical therapist told me one half of my ass was significantly bigger than the other half. Your wife has probably told you this already, she said. Nah, I said.
So ever since then, everything I do, I feel how my ass is lopsided.
I can barely sit on a bike. It's a miracle I don't walk in circles.
It ties in with my back pain. I have a bad knee from a fall I took skiing a long time ago. That might have set everything else into motion, affecting other joints, giving me bad posture and a crooked pelvis and so on. And the back pain.
She said the a(s)symmetry might be because the pelvis was crooked and go away when it was straight.
She straightened my pelvis last time, but I forgot to ask about my ass.
I should never have drunk that Emotion.

Limerick Contest Winner

Jann won first place in the famous 2007 Metamorphosism.com Valentine's Day Limerick Contest back in February. I told her the grand prize was a link to her site. She said I could link her flicker site when it was ready. Later, she mailed me and told me it was ready, but I had forgotten my promise and didn't know what she was talking about. Eventually I figured it out, and am hopefully making up for it here, and apologizing for taking so long.

Music file question

I got a CD with a recording of the tune I composed a while back. I know nothing about file formats etc, but this seems rather large, at 6 MB for a 6 minute tune. The file suffix is m4a. I would like to upload it and link it here so anyone interested can hear it. Do I need to convert it to an MP3 or anything?

We've all had relationships like this

The tortoise was lonesome, staring at its reflection for hours at a time, so Gamma gave her a rock for company.

Despite certain indications to the contrary, we persist in calling the tortoise "her", I guess because "tortoise" is a feminine noun in German.

Research study

Busy on research into the side effects of painkillers this weekend. It's kind of a lousy study, with only one subject - me - but a big control group - everyone else, and the fact that I'm taking four different products simultaneously might appear to the casual observer to make it difficult to tell which product is causing which side effect, but in fact if one reads the fine print carefully, it becomes clear that each product can cause, in theory, different side effects so that, for example, if I go into shock, it is product A and if my heart slows it is product B whereas if it stops altogether it is product C and we'll know it's product D if I become psychotic, which if you ask my wife has already happened. The only side effect one doctor (I have in fact been to two so far, because try getting a single non-internet doctor to prescribe four painkillers nowadays) warned me about was dizziness in the case of the one you're not supposed to take if you are or ever have been addicted to narcotics, because it could make one dizzy and also you could sweat, so don't drive on this one.
I ran straight home (figure of speech, I am not actually running at the moment, but rather taking tiny little resthome steps with a Nordic Walking pole in each hand - I highly recommend Nordic Walking, by the way, as a form of exercise, better upper body workout than walking or running, and easier on the joints than running, and always good for a joke) and took the first one he prescribed me (I had been at his office getting an intravenous other painkiller after taking a different one in the middle of the night) and it didn't seem to do much so a couple hours later I took the one that makes you dizzy but so far I'm not dizzy, although my composition/editing skills have obviously taken a hit.
Doctor 1 and doctor 2 both also considered prescribing muscle relaxants, of which I am in favor, but product 1 makes me suicidal (previous research) and product 2 gives me a persistant facial rash similar to acne (which then makes me depressed) so they passed, unfortunately. I figure if I get really desperate, a little gin would have a relaxing effect on top of the rest of this stuff.
Take good care of your back kids, this has been a public service announcement.

On the probability of horror

You sit there in the rain and realize how beautiful it is.
You sit there in your seat and the world turns.
You sit there at your desk and life rolls at your feet.
You sit there in the moment and hear, first, the clock ticking, then a chicken clucking outside the window, then your stomach growls as gas bubbles through a valve.
You sit there in the moment and see the fresh green of new growth and hear the laughter of children playing in the school yard.
Nine times out of ten everything is okay. Ninety-nine out of a hundred. The odds are on our side and when things do go wrong they do it on a spectrum of from bad to worse, from irritation to horror.
It's not always immediately horror, is what I'm saying.
In a world constructed such as this one is, one ought to have a lot of trust.

I jump into the deep water although I cannot swim, because you will save me.

Jump and a dragon will appear.

Imagine, however, a pervasive and omnipresent technology dedicated to skewing people's perception of the probability of horror. Fear, for I am with you. In Japan, a boy brought his mother's head (in a bag) to a police station (after spending a few hours in an internet cafe with it first) saying war and terrorism should stop and it didn't matter who he killed. See how the technology feeds on itself?

It is said by some that there have been societies so afraid they worshipped evil. Perhaps there have been others so trusting they worshipped good. Neither seems to have been viable.

You sit on the terrace under the tent, or as it said on the box, the garden pavillion, with your father-in-law in a thunderstorm. The frame is heavy metal and not grounded. Neither one of you says much.

You sit under the tent at night with your wife, drinking tea and listening for hedgehogs in the bushes.