Cover-a-Week #39: "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King

Here's another ukulele video! It's another foray into more old-school material:



http://youtu.be/iPJV9PwKLLE

And as mentioned in the video, if you're a dancer in New York these few weeks, you should definitely check out Midsummer Night Swing!

Jazz Age Lawn Party

I haven't indulged in historical costuming for quite a while -- ever since I finished college, I haven't had much occasion to do so. Yesterday, however, I went with a contingent of friends to the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island. The "party" is a twice-a-year festival celebrating the spirit of the 1920s in America, complete with a live jazz band, a dance floor, and merchants of all stripes -- from food vendors a cut above the ubiquitous to milliners, cobblers, and tailors. People dress up in their best Prohibition-era garb to picnic on the lawn. I had a lot of fun -- too much fun to take many pictures, considering it was definitely a photo-worthy event.

A photo of the jazz band and their vocalist, taken from the dance floor. You can see some of the garb, like that of the man wearing the beribboned hat and waistcoat, which was just excellent.

Two talented dancers (whom I don't know) performing on the dance floor. The Lawn Party was well-attended by people I recognize from swing dancing in New York. (Also, as is evident from the onlookers in the background, there were people who looked like tourists as well as people dressed for the occasion.)

This is the only picture of me that I have from the event, taken by my friend Mike. It doesn't afford the best view of the dress, which I found in a thrift shop for about $12. Aside from altering it for length, it required very little adjustment for the era; the pleats, the shimmery material, and the cut were all period-appropriate.

And this is a view of lower Manhattan from the Governor's Island ferry as we departed the festival. The skyline has changed in the past few years; the spire and glass facade of One World Trade still takes some getting used to. But this is still New York, still beautiful, and still home.

Cover-a-Week #38: "Cannonball" by Damien Rice

Here's another cover!



http://youtu.be/U7Nsn_lWOLI

I've listened to both the original song and Vienna Teng's cover, and I must confess that I like Vienna's version better. (Really, I just like her voice more than Damien Rice's.)

P.S. -- More amazing channel stats: I have over 10,000 views total, including 1000+ views of "Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)" and 2000+ views of "Take Me Home, Country Roads." I am astonished, and more pleased than I probably should be.

Cover-a-Week #37: "Ivory Tower" from Tripod versus the Dragon

This is my favorite song from the musical comedy Tripod versus the Dragon, which I recently watched at the behest of my friend Deb:


http://youtu.be/e_vkU6ZOI9w

It's a clever musical about Dungeons and Dragons, and it has some great songs. What's not to love?

(Also, I look particularly bewildered in the still frame...)

Cover-a-Week #36: "The Rainbow Connection" by The Carpenters/The Muppets

A while ago, I got a new ukulele -- a beautiful Kamaka tenor. This is my first video with the new uke:

http://youtu.be/9oxouJq2Q1o

Isn't it a wonderful instrument? :-)

Three Minute Photoshop Makeover, the Music Video

I've watched this video a few times this week, in part because the music is catchy, but mostly because its message is powerful:



http://www.policymic.com/articles/79585/watch-this-woman-get-a-complete-photoshop-makeover-in-3-minutes-flat

Body image, especially that of young women, has become increasingly prominent in our social discourse over the past decade or so. There's been, at one end, greater awareness of eating disorders and related insecurities; on the other end, there's been significantly wider recognition of this country's obesity problem. The former is often associated with standards of beauty as dictated by media and peer interaction, while the latter is often a consequence of economics and the vulnerability of children who don't know any better than to consume what appeals to them in the short term (and the adults who were raised that way).

This video deals with the former problem -- that of media perpetuating impossibly exacting ideals, which millions of young women attempt to imitate in real life, without the aid of Photoshop. While a proportion of the changes depicted can be accomplished with cosmetics, other changes, such as altering the symmetry of the singer's face, is not something that women can physically achieve. And while humans are instinctively more attracted to symmetrical faces with higher contrast, one cannot expect a mathematical level of symmetry in our natural, imperfect bodies.

We are visual creatures. When introduced to a pair of images, we all have opinions as to which one we find more aesthetically pleasing. But we, through millennia of civilization and progress, are more than our basest instincts, more than our visceral reactions. We are rational and more evolved creatures who value each other for qualities greater than appearance. While it makes sense for us to make reasonable attempts to look pleasing to others, our society now has the tools with which to project images that are unreasonable to imitate. The crucial part here, then, is to ensure that we all recognize that it would be unreasonable to expect each other, and ourselves, to look like that.

We are none of us aesthetic ideals. Even models, actors, beauty queens -- even those we have collectively deemed the most attractive specimens of our species -- have their own insecurities. We must learn, in our most vulnerable and susceptible years, that we are valued not for how closely we conform to our society's standards of beauty, but rather, for our contributions in areas deeper and more within our power to shape. In appearances, we are limited by genetics, by environment, by the hand we are dealt. In what lies beneath, we are bound by fewer and less arbitrary constraints.

Moreover, we cannot take it with us. At the end of the day, it's all transport. We keep the engine primed and the moving parts oiled so that we might achieve more, and live more happily, in our time. The parts of us that are not flesh -- these comprise what we have made of ourselves.

On another note: this video is a testament to the power of activist art. Slogans and speeches will only get us so far, after all. In order to effect change, people must want the change themselves -- and one of the most effective ways to influence somebody's viewpoint is by creating empathy and emotional connection. As much as I believe in solving problems rationally and logically, there are many situations where the visceral reaction evoked by imagery is a more powerful motivator. As Lincoln famously said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"

Cover-a-Week #35: "Seasons of Love" from Rent

It's 2014, and I haven't posted fifty-two covers yet... so I figured I'd just keep making these videos! This one's belatedly holiday-themed...


http://youtu.be/eHQxDfC39BY

Also, given the previous post, I thought it rather appropriate. :-)

La Bohème at the Met Opera!

A few friends and I got rush tickets to the Metropolitan Opera's production of La Bohème yesterday. I've never seen it live before (even though I have three different recordings on my computer). It was absolutely worth the experience; the show was spectacular. I can't believe what I've been missing. (Rodolfo's character, especially, tugs at my heartstrings.)

It's always interesting listening to music with lyrics in a language I don't know, because so much more of my understanding depends on the vocalists' interpretations of their parts. (The Met Opera has electronic panels on the back of each seat displaying translations of the lyrics, but I tried not to rely on that, because watching the staging of the production is a huge part of the experience.) You can always get a rudimentary understanding of what's going on, because there's enough overlap between the various Romance languages (though that leaves German lyrics nigh impossible), but the nuances are really up to the vocalists, in their facial and body language down to the minute inflections of their lines. For instance, in this production, the audience could tell in the first act the exact moment when Benoît loses control of the situation at Rodolfo's apartment -- you could tell by his posture and the vocals of the other characters how inebriated he was getting.

Another element I've noticed: it's hard for any stage performance to adequately develop character, because it's constrained to about two hours, and there's only so much of each character that the audience gets to see. I do like how -- other than the marketplace scene -- Puccini doesn't include any group or choral numbers. The opera focuses narrowly on the lives of the six central characters -- and really only three or four of them are developed at any depth; the small cast lends it a sense of intimacy that you don't often see in some of the larger, more traditionally theatrical operas in the repertoire. It would be a good choice for an indie opera house -- I'm not surprised that Rent (a very creative update on La Bohème where everyone dies of AIDS instead of tuberculosis) remained an Off-Broadway production despite its success.

Now I really must see Rent. I missed both the original production, which closed when I was in high school, and the revival, which went dark quite recently. (I have the soundtrack to that, as well, and I do like how Jonathan Larson includes so many nods to Puccini.) I've heard mixed reviews of the film, but one of these same friends is organizing a screening of the original production -- I'm super excited! :-)

Cover-a-Week #34: "The Engine Driver" by The Decemberists

It's been quite a long time since I last posted one of these -- I completely stopped making these videos during NaNoWriMo, and during the period of catching up with my life afterwards. But here's a new one!


http://youtu.be/svuvxbpSmR8

Also, just noticed that I now have two videos with over a thousand views; "Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)" just hit four digits. Yay!

Cover-a-Week #33: "Creepy Doll" by Jonathan Coulton

It's Hallowe'en! Ergo, today's the day for a spooky song:


http://youtu.be/f1hddcJiGZ8

This was such a fun piece to cover! (Jonathan Coulton is an evil genius.)

I was tempted to make Coraline-style button eyes out of construction paper to really get in the spirit of "Creepy Doll," but I realized that I couldn't see very well out of the tiny buttonholes...

Cover-a-Week #32: "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" by The Flaming Lips

Because it was recently Ada Lovelace Day:


http://youtu.be/K0Y8pf009yo

I have a lot of friends from college who were female computer scientists and engineers. I'm very proud of them -- of what they do, what they represent, and the hard work and extraordinary talent I know it took (I was there, after all). They might not be fighting pink robots, but they are, every day, combating the societal forces that created this unequal world. They're "destroying the status quo, because the status is not quo" -- and I love them for it. This one's for you, ladies.

Cover-a-Week #31: "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day

I used to listen to this song all the time in high school:


http://youtu.be/CDMJUeJTKcM

All I need are some strings in the background...

Also, I just had my seventeenth video (out of thirty-one) hit a hundred (a hundred?) views. I don't know who you are, but thanks for listening! (It's "Somewhere Only We Know" -- in case you were wondering.)

Cover-a-Week #30: "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen

I love this song (cliché but true):

http://youtu.be/1RbR-VORCAo

I'm getting over a cold, so I suppose I'm channeling more Jeff Buckley than Leonard Cohen here...

Statistics, Demographics, Music, Art

Last night, I went to Vienna Teng's concert at the Highline Ballroom with Brett, who was in town this week. Vienna's touring her new album, Aims. Her sound in this record is rather different from her earlier work -- it's louder, more electronic, more contemporary. But it's still the Vienna we all know and love, and it's not the first time she's tried something new (see "Grandmother Song" and "Radio" from her previous album, Inland Territory).

One of the aspects of Vienna the songwriter that I admire is how she incorporates a wonderfully diverse array of experiences, abstract concepts, and places into her work. One never forgets that she's a true renaissance woman -- she just finished up a dual degree in business and environmental science (one of her passions is environmental sustainability), and she was a computer scientist out of Stanford undergrad. Aims's album artwork, for example, is quite inspired -- it's a population density map of Detroit:

http://viennateng.com/album/aims

It makes the demographics/stats/sociology nerd in me really happy. I've always loved maps -- centuries-old ship's maps, star charts, subway maps, hilariously inaccurate classical and medieval maps (like those inspired by Herodotus, for example), Tolkien's maps... (The maps room is probably the coolest underrated exhibit in the Vatican Museums compound.) Maps that convey information beyond mere geography, like this one, are even better.

On the subject of demographics... I can't wait until The Signal and the Noise comes out in paperback! It's another case of excellent concept meets brilliant cover design (the art department at Penguin has turned out some really thoughtful covers these few years; Moonwalking with Einstein and The Painted Boy come to mind):

http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/the_signal_and_the_noise

I get the sense that Vienna must have read some Nate Silver, and not just because she's an intelligent, multi-talented person with a mathematical brain and two advanced degrees. This occurred to me while listening to two particular songs on the Aims album, "In the 99" and "The Hymn of Acxiom." The former includes the phrase "said the signal to the noise" -- while the phrase (or a variation thereof) didn't originate with Nate Silver, Vienna does use the line in a song about social (im)mobility and economic stratification. "The Hymn of Acxiom" was, more obviously, inspired by Acxiom, a marketing/advertising company that compiles databases of personal information. It's actually rather creepy how much it knows about us -- Vienna even said as much when she was introducing the song. (Just a year and a half ago, she'd said in an interview that she was trying to figure out how to merge the worlds of music and sustainability -- I suppose she found it!) Even in her Inland Territory days, one could sense from her music that she was highly aware of, and engaged with, the social context in which she was writing (see "Stray Italian Greyhound," inspired by the 2008 presidential election, and "No Gringo," a commentary on the illegal immigration issue). 

The first step to addressing any issue is understanding it -- which is especially difficult with broad, longterm problems like climate change, food security, infectious diseases, &c. I particularly admire people like Vienna Teng and Nate Silver because they're not necessarily on the front lines, not really within the system or calling the shots, but they've nonetheless found ways to achieve great things in fields that they love and simultaneously contribute to our understanding of how our world works and how we might face the challenges of living in it. (Vienna's taken the approach of having two mostly separate careers, music and sustainability, that inform each other; Nate Silver has found an innovative way to apply his expertise, quantitative analysis, to a largely unrelated field.) Interestingly -- and I'm sure it's no coincidence -- all of these areas deal with multitudes, the masses, the People.

One of the great advantages of civilization, which elevates homo sapiens above non-sentient species, is our ability to consider and attempt to solve problems which affect humanity as a whole, as opposed to merely dealing with issues that affect our genetic kin and the small populations we interact with regularly. We're capable of viewing our species (and indeed, our world) as collectively valuable -- even the pieces we can't see -- and of thinking in the big picture, in the long-term, in lightyears rather than miles and millennia rather than mere decades. We acknowledge that which is greater than the individual, the genetic, even the human, and embrace the possibility that comes with it. (I am one, but I am of the many, and my words, actions, ideas may one day sway the multitudes, whether they know it or not.)

Cover-a-Week #29: "Greensleeves" (traditional)

A Tudor era piece:


http://youtu.be/dMS42q0wPF8

The original is very long (not to mention that there exist many versions of the song, which was often learned orally, in true balladeer fashion), so I took the liberty of cutting a few verses.

Cover-a-Week #28: "Half Moon" by Blind Pilot

In celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival:


http://youtu.be/91_ZVMVB-QM

It's such a wistful and oddly uplifting song. It reminds me of Thoreau and Emerson (in both the philosophy and the New England aspects), but also of cranes and kingfishers.

In related news, I notice that one of my Cover-a-Week videos, "Take Me Home, Country Roads," recently exceeded a thousand views!

Cover-a-Week #27: "May It Be" by Enya, from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack

It's a week for mourning writers, so in honor of Tolkien's fortieth death-day, here's Enya's "May It Be" from the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings:


http://youtu.be/juwu5tTC0hc

I maxed out the new microphone... again. (It's clearly the deadly combination of high notes, vibrato, and volume.) I tried putting a sweater over the mic -- perhaps next time, I should try sitting a bit farther back?

Cover-a-Week #26: "Nightswimming" by R.E.M.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic this week...


http://youtu.be/JgwJ3Ti4j3s

The rhythm for this song was a bit tricky to figure out; it took me a few tries before I realized that the irregularities were in the chord changes rather than the strum pattern.

Cover-a-Week #25: "Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants

A bit belatedly, for Geek Week:


http://youtu.be/odJD73piZdc

This was meant to be good, nerdy fun, but ended up a little more introspective than I'd intended... (It was fun nonetheless!)

Curiosity Rover Sings Happy Birthday to Itself

Two days late (the rover Curiosity landed on Mars on August 5, 2012), but just as awesome:


http://youtu.be/uxVVgBAosqg

I am reminded of WALL-E. (I trust I'm not the only one?)