Based on a recommendation from a friend, I decided to upload my songs into an online music shop called SNOCAP. Its now available on my exploding august myspace page, or here:
Let me know if you have any questions.
Rory just found Ruby in the drawer of my sewing table in our bedroom. Its the kind of moment when you are glad to have a digital camera nearby. I know she kind of looks evil here, but she was purring.
She’s laying underneath a pile of clothing that I am ripping into and sewing up later. I also have a bunch of things to put up on eBay and etsy today.
I got completely spoiled this Christmas. I received the most amazing gifts, all perfectly tuned to my tastes and overflowing with amazing design, color, comfort, and function. I was feeling kind of overwhelmed by the first half of Christmas when I arrived home Christmas Eve to find that I had forgotten every single gift to give my family members up north in Rory’s basement, an hour and a half away from my parents’ house. After realizing that I had nothing to give anyone in return, I burst out crying. My emotional outburst totally took my by surprise, but I was genuinely mortified and upset about leaving the presents behind.
Shortly after my discovery of the missing presents, my older sister Janine dropped her husband’s laptop on her foot and broke her toe! Suddenly I realized that the gifts weren’t that important.
Thankfully, my sister Sarah and her boyfriend (oh wait, I mean fiance!) were up in North Jersey near his family, which happened to be near to where Rory’s parents’ live, and they met somewhere on a local road to pick up the gifts before heading home. I know it was kind of out of their way, and they were already so late in leaving that they didn’t end up getting to my parents’ house until well after 2AM. So, thank you Sarah and George.
The fact that I cried so hard about the presents made me realize, however, that I really value giving gifts as an emotional expression. I was looking forward to giving these gifts for weeks before the holiday, wrapping them carefully in recycled maps (they looked awesome), and choosing each piece carefully… I guess that giving gifts is one of my favorite things to do.
Who knew?
Had a chance to help Rory photograph a second xylophone-related project involving robotic xylophones playing a canon of sound. Its the piece he performed for NIME a few weeks ago. Here he is getting the photoshoot set up. His dad is working in the background of their basement workshop, soldering handmade Christmas ornaments. Like father like son, in this case.
In related Rory and the Xylophones news, Solarbotics.com has started carrying a solar xylophone kit, complete with all the pieces needed to build the xylophone as featured in MAKE issue 12.
Is it weird to look at a robotic xylophone and think that its cute?
Because I do that.
First Wardrobe Refashion project:
I took apart a women’s blouse I picked up in the mall a few months ago, and turned it into two different pieces so far. The shirt had a lot of pintucking and shaping with darts. That, coupled with the stretchiness of the fabric, led me to try and create headbands or collars out of these bell sleeves that were truly hideous.
On the first collar I added lace and detailed topstitching, plus a few buttons for fun. I think it could be worn either way, “up” or “down” for a frilly little pop of color.
On the second collar, I just did a really simple zig-zag stitch to allow a lot of stretch, keeping the piece in tact as an object to be pulled over the head. I think I like this one more, though it took far less of my time to create.
Since it has been my goal to get some things up for sale online, I think I’ll be putting these up in my etsy shop later this evening.
We had a holiday party last night in our apartment. It was a bit odd, since half the bands and half of our friends canceled at the last minute (valid reasons withstanding). Kevin still played as snowstorm, and we still had a good time. Kevin’s new songs are really good, and his album should be done soon. Will likely be having more shows of this mellow caliber in the future.
Best thing of all was definitely having a friend come from Pennyslvania and stay the night. We spent the morning, hungover just a bit, exploring the neighborhood and getting some food at the diner nearby. It was really incredible and satisfying. Worth all of the frustrations of getting this show together in the first place.
I miss the old days, but I concede the new days leave us better off in the end.
We used lights someone else threw away, a potted fir gifted to us by Rory’s mom, and whatever we had lying around to make the apartment feel more Christmas-y today. I am mostly through with wrapping presents, but am baffled by a few small trinkets I bought. To Whom on Earth had I intended to give these things?
Spent the day at my aunt and uncle’s house, then came home to wrap presents and watch Helvetica with Rory. Also bought myself a pretty expensive gift today: a year at the gym that just opened around the corner from our apartment. I feel a little weird spending money on myself in such a big way, especially when I’m on task to pay off my credit cards (completely!) this year, but I don’t want to emerge on the other side of my debt mountain and feel like I could have been losing some weight and taking care of myself in the meantime. At least I didn’t use my credit card to pay for the gym membership.
We threw my parents a surprise birthday party last weekend, because they both recently reached the milestone age of sixty years. It was fun and low-key but festive, because we had the party catered in the house, and every single one of my siblings was able to be home for the party. Plus, we also had my aunt, uncle, and cousin show up for an added surprise. We couldn’t invite any more people, simply because the house would not hold us all. The blessings and curses of having a large family.
I was in charge of the Decorating Committee, which was comprised of myself and my nieces. I love getting to spend time with them! They really enjoyed the party…
Hannah and Helen, after we decorated some princess crowns.
Helen holding “Yallow Puppy”, her BFF.
Helen’s dad is sitting in the back by the ponsettias.
Lizzy’s boyfriend Brian, left.
My parents were surprised, and it was really nice to do something special for them. I know that just having Jenny’s family up from Florida, and having everyone in the house again was a real treat.
We actually had to do what we called a “Slow Reveal”, because we couldn’t coordinate everyone effectively enough to keep Mom and Dad away from the house after church. Mom walked in and the streamers were up, so we just said, “Oh, yeah. We are throwing a party. We aren’t going to tell you anything about it though.” Then Dad came home, and we gave him the same treatment. Funny enough, Hannah couldn’t take it and spilled the beans about picking up “the food”, and we were all sort of giddy about the surprises we had in store.
Dad got out the guitar and played Christmas carols, after handing out lyric sheets to everyone. The girls danced like ballerinas, and Lucy clapped along. Toward the end of the night, however, we found out that Lucy had a bad fever and had to be taken to an emergency care place to get some medication. She was so sweet, you could hardly tell she was sick.
We had so much food it was ridiculous, and then too much dessert for us to even make a dent in the platters. To my family, that means the party was a success.
My parents are so awesome. We are all grateful we have them.
Lots of great photos up on flickr, including my bro, younger twin sisters and their darling beaus. Some of the pictures of the girls are marked private, because I don’t feel like allowing creepy strangers to download high-res images of them. Cheers!
I feel like my life is about to get overly crazy with Holiday, craft, and work things. Pieces of every obligation that I have are flying in different directions. I keep dreaming that all of my responsibilites are flying around my head like Legend of Zelda fairies, and I’m meant to jump up, grab them, and get them back into their little jars, but its just nearly impossible. And just when I think I’ve had enough, one of the fairies will revive me and I’m still stuck where I was weeks ago. Sorry, maybe you didn’t know that I was an ultra-nerd.
Anyway, part of the reason is probably due to Rory being in the same boat and finishing all of his finals at break-neck speed. I barely see him and when I do, we are both exhausted. We have a date planned for tonight to alleviate this crossed-path syndrome… then I’m off to my parents’ to see my sister who is up from Florida… and then I’ll be back at work again for the craziest week since I started (I am so scared).
One thing that is helping is the very slight amount of exercise that I’ve done this week has given me a tad bit of energy. I know that if I keep going with that goal (and by going, I mean s l o w l y working up to exercising and eating healthy all week long), then things will only improve. Okay, enough dwelling on that.
My one saving grace is that I have a week off for Christmas/Winter break. That is my finish line, so to speak. I hope to cross the line triumphantly, but we shall see. Allison and I cooked up plans to throw a Holiday Party during the break, and we’ve selected a Marc Jacobs theme. I have no idea what we mean by this, but we’ll run with it and it will be amazing.
Rory and I performed last night at EXIT ART, as part of a class project for ITP at NYU. You can actually view some of the video of the perfomances here:
http://www.menscher.com/blog/2007/12/14/fall-2007-nime-algorithmic-composition-show/
The piece I performed in was Lesley Flanigan’s Speaker Synth Choir. The video is not inclusive of the bulk of the piece, but only the initial set up of the instrument (the first movement, if you will, which is simply getting the speaker synth to do its thing). I’m disappointed not to see the rest of it, because we had no monitors set up and we could not hear anything that was going on with all the layers that Lesley built into the performance. Rory said he’s going to try and ask for the original video files, which would have the singing parts as well.
From the link above you can also view Rory’s “Canon in Robot Major”. The video gives you a pretty good idea of what Rory’s performance sounded sounded like. In the performance space, the instrument resonated more and filled the room.
Okay, weekend. Let’s go!
So, my music project exploding august has been out on Monotone Records for awhile, and you can buy the EP in my Etsy shop. I also help my exboyfriend Kevin with his band snowstorm, sometimes, which I enjoy immensely. Both of these projects are kind of moody in their own ways, and we each get a sense of satisfaction from coercing a lot of emotion out of lyrics, song structures, and recording styles.
Well, every once in a while we write songs that don’t fit either of our music projects. Usually because someone has commissioned something from us, or there is an event coming up, we will just be in a different mood entirely. The songs are generally sillier, and very much of an indiepop aesthetic. (And–if I am playing drums, the rhythm will be really horrible and funny.)
For these songs we go by Wax Museums, and I just got around to putting one teeny little song up on myspace. Its a cover of a song by Say Hi To Your Mom, which we recorded because of an audition I was doing for SHTYM that never worked out. Anyway, now you can check out Wax Museums on MySpace! We have a few other songs that I will hopefully get from Kevin to put up soon. Most notably a song written for Chris and Arianne of indiepages, and at least one song written about at least one ex-relationship by each of us. Ch-ch-check it out and enjoy!
So, I’ve been helping a fellow grad student in Rory’s program with her Speaker Feedback Choir, a choir that is set to sing along with an instrument she invented which produces sound from the feedback created from five different speakers. Its an analog instrument without amplification outside of its own set of five speakers. To compliment the synthesized sound, the “choir” is set up as five human voices that will sing in conjunction with the instrument, and the piece has been composed to play around with the two sets of voices so that they seem to meld together, and interplay with one another.
The sound of Speaker Synth is really lush and intense to listen to at first, kind of like Rites of Spring (Stravinsky, not the hardcore band). Since I’ve been rehearsing with them, I feel like I hear dissonant chords everywhere! Traffic, trains screeching, the headphone noise pollution of my fellow commuters.
Anyway, this is me and fellow choir-mate Chris waiting for the speaker feedback to do its thing so we can continue singing OOOOOOoooooooooooooh.
Lesley is in front, playing the instrument.
Okay, so Chris and I weren’t actually sad, we were just being serious musicians for the dress rehearsal this afternoon at NYU. Some of the logistics were off, and we’ve still got some rehearsing to do for Thursday night’s performance. We’ll have microphones and be up on a stage, I think. I have yet to see the space, but its going to be cool. Our piece is set to run about 10 or 15 minutes long.
Which brings me to this announcement:
The Speaker Feedback Choir will perform at the NIME exhibition being held at EXIT ART this Thursday evening. Admission is free, and the experience is bound to be interesting. This is really going to be like no other show I’ve put on or performed in. Or that I’ve attended, for that matter.
Rory is also showcasing his Robot Canon: a piece performed by him with three mechanized and programmed xylophones that he plays with. (Look a bit like his Solar Xylophone project, which was featured in MAKE magazine last month?) His piece is really pretty and melodic–he’s got some time to play with the composition, and I think he’ll change it by the night of the performance, but on the run through today a lot of people were impressed, and it brought kids from down the hall into the rehearsal space. Just sounds really neat!
So, yeah. Come see the first show that Rory and I are performing in TOGETHER. Its going to be really fun!
475 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Performances 8PM-11PM
NIME: New Interfaces for Musical Expression.
“Over the course of this year’s 14-week course, students are developing projects such as an musical weaving loom, a instrument made of speakers that feed back and make glorious noise, an augmented rocking chair, a musical abacus and a host of others.”
NIME at ITP
http://itp.nyu.edu/nime
ITP
http://itp.nyu.edu
EXIT ART
475 Tenth Avenue (at 36th Street)
New York, NY 10018
(212) 966-7745
info@exitart.org
On things we may not be.
And, thanks to darling Rachael, softspoken and gogodistro are now both syndicated on livejournal: here and here.
This picture represents three things:
1. pandas in the circus (acrylic on stretched canvas) painted and hung by me.
2. my dream future as a dog groomer with great hair (also, and I hope this is obvious, acrylic on stretched canvas) painted and hung by me.
3. a pile of things that I have made to rip up, donate, and deconstruct, which was step one in my wardrobe refashion challenge. This step involved hanging up all of my clothing in one room, and then looking at everything on the rack and deciding that, yes, perhaps I have made some pretty ugly choices in my fashion past, but it is time to move on.
Also you are going to want to check out this DIY cat bed we made out of cardboard, recycled packing materials, and various forms of crinkly paper:
The cat is optional, but so worth the extra effort.
Tonight we watched Project Runway on the couches in the living room and made fun of all of the commercials, and the breaking news story about the suicide gunman in a mall in Omaha, but only because he looked like Rory and Rory isn’t home yet.
I got the details on the Scandinavian Speaker Feedback Choir performance that I’m involved with for next week, but I’ll post more about that later. Planning on catching some of the BUST Craftacular again this weekend before choir practice! And if I don’t finish my Christmas shopping there, it is just not going to happen for me this year.
I, emily august, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 4 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that my thriftiness brings! Signed emily august.
The Rules
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1.
No buying new! (handmade is excepted; So this allows for Etsy purchases etc!!) All clothing must be Recycled, Renovated, Preloved or Thrifted, or Handmade only for the term. Employment related and special needs clothing (ie sports, school), shoes and undies are excepted from the rules, although you are encouraged to have a go at making these.
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2.
In extreme circumstances, maybe a special event, or the worlds greatest and most amazing never to be repeated sale that you simply can not pass up, you may use the Get out of Refashionista Jail Free card. You are able to use this card once during the 2 month part of your contract; ie 1 for 2 months, 2 for 4 months etc. Of course you need to fess up on the blog and display the button!
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3.
You must post on the blog at least once a week to let the community know what you’ve been up to. This will not only give you brag points, but inspire and encorouge others! Of course you need to display the button on your blog and have copied the pledge in at least one post, and provide a link to your pledge under the button.
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4.
You need to be honest and admit when you’ve fallen off the Refashionista Wagon! Go directly to Refashionista Jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200! Apply for parole once there.
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