CatSynth

What better way to reflect upon the year than with marginally meaningful statistics?

The following table represents the frequency of tags in all 2006 articles on CatSynth.com (except for this one). Tags are either those funny words at the bottom of every post or the category names that follow the dateline at the top of every post.

With 285 distinct tags during 2006, it is rather difficult to show them all in the graph above. However, most are only used once. As can be seen in the following pie chart (hey, who doesn't love a good pie chart?), the top 15 tags account for almost 50%:

Here are the top 33 tags for 2006:

cats			85synthesizers		54news			34music			33luna			26weekend cat blogging	20worthless kitty		17kitty			17art			17wcb			14new orleans		9photography		9experimental		8electronic music	8lebanon			7modernism		7osw			6emulator x		6stats			6kitties			6e-mu			5beirut			5fun with stats		5podcast 		5jazz			4computer music		4analog			4improvisation		4open sound world	4funk			4sculpture		4mathematics		4resonance		4

Happy New Year!

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At a christmas party last monday, I participated in a free jam with some of my musician friends – I played a bit of guitar during the jam and that gave me the impetus (could I really use “kick in the tuchus” two posts in a row?) to get my own recently-acquired guitar in shape. In particular, it needed stringing – fortunately, there are plenty of online guides to guitar stringing and how to do it well.

Now that I have a working guitar, I have been noodling around a bit the last few days, mostly playing through effects and other signal processing on the computer. This release is a short improvisation I did with the guitar and various effects on the E-MU 1616m. Like most of my releases, it is fairly experimental/abstract, but it does contain a fair number of guitar cliches in the mix.

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I am collaborating on an art installation for an upcoming exhibition in January at the The Pajaro Valley Arts Council Gallery: the piece has both a visual (sculptural) component and a sound component, the latter being my contribution.

I've been doing bits of it over the holiday break, but finally gave myself the proverbial kick in the tuchus to complete at least a full draft today. I am making things simpler by using only sounds on the computer, not external synthesizers – and also focused on two sound libraries I purchased last year but have made only limited use of until now. The libaries focus on highly processed organic sounds (animals, environment, etc.) and modified analog synthesizers (including some circuit-bend instruments).

The “composition process” was simply auditioning various sounds from this library and assembling them into a continuous sequence – a collage – that works with the visuals. The material is primarily ambient noise, gitches, percussive effects and sounds that only “hint” at speaking voices.

Next step, after any additional changes and mastering, will be to put it together with the sculpture, presumably sometime next week…

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This New Years edition of Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by Champaign Taste. We wish all our WCB friends, feline and human, a happy and healthy new year!

Our contribution this week continues our tribute to James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, who is a hero of ours here at CatSynth; he passed away this past Monday. In addition to his music (which is playing in the background as I write this), he made contributions to civil rights and the “Black Power” movement, through his efforts to promote African American ownership of the distribution of music on records and radio, and of course his classic anthems such as “Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.” It is in honor of this anthem that Luna strikes a proud, stately pose this week, reminiscent of the iconography of the Egyptian goddess Bast:

The connection between black cats and civil rights isn't entirely gratuitous. Consider the well-known symbol of the Black Panther Party. Although founded in Oakland in 1966, the story goes that the party took its symbol from the Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization:

We chose for the emblem a black panther, a beautiful black animal which symbolizes the strength and dignity of black people, an animal that never strikes back until he's back so far into the wall, he's got nothing to do but spring out. Yeah. And when he springs he does not stop.

Getting back to James Brown, I would be remiss if I did not also recognize one of my former cats Morty, the original “Supa-Bad Kitty”:

He got his nickname for his constant mischief, like sitting on the dining room table, but remainingly devilishly lovable. Plus, he could shake his money maker like no other kitty I've met. I miss him – he was taken by a former girlfriend and although I haven't seen him in many years, I hope he is doing well.

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Traveling between my family's home in Westchester and the major airports in Queens often requires passing through the massive Bruckner Interchange. This rather impressive interchange in the Bronx connects the Hutchinson River Parkway (aka “the Hutch”), the infamous Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95 and I-295), the Bruckner Expressway (I-278 and I-95) and I-678 (The Van Wyck Expressway) to JFK Airport.

One does not usually associate New York with massive freeways like those here in California – but remember that New York is the largest city in the U.S. and the traffic has to go somewhere. Much if it is carried on large aging freeways in the outer boroughs, such as the Bronx.

There isn't really much of a “statement” here – I just think large highway interchanges are cool. However, I do recommend for those interested reading up on the rather harsh history of highways in New York, most notably the Cross-Bronx Expressway and the never built Lower Manhattan Expressway.

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I cannot let the passing this morning of the Godfather of Soul go unremarked. The music that James Brown launched remains among my favorite popular music – funk and soul from the 1960s and 1970s have a special place in my heart and my CD collection. In particular, I return the 1970s era with the original JB's, funker, grittier and with just the right amount of slop. Indeed, the track “Turn It Up or Let It A-Loose” from the 1970 collection Funk Power was included in the research for my dissertation. I probably have the only PhD dissertation in Computer Science that includes a reference to James Brown in the bibliography. I suppose that's my tribute.

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From John Battelle's Searchblog, we have some self-described “fun stats for the holiday:”

If you were expecting something more directly apropos of the holiday season, consider a few of these gems courtesy of New American Dream:

* A typical middle income family earning around $45,000 a year saw its debt burden grow by 33.1% between 2001 and 2004, even after adjusting for inflation.

* Recent statistics show that in November of 2003 54% of consumers were still paying off credit card debt left over from the previous holiday season.

* The amount of household garbage in the United States generally increases by 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, from 4 million tons to 5 million tons.

* 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. Of those, 30-plus million get carted to the landfill every year.

* The National Mental Health Association cites the financial stresses of the holiday season as one cause of the ?holiday blues? which, for many, transforms the holidays into a time of anxiety and depression.

So folks, lay off the credit card debt for a bit, and spend some more time with your family and friends, both furry and not so furry.

Maybe give a little something to your local animal shelter, too. You can find shelters and other organizations near you on Petfinder.

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Here at CatSynth we get into the holiday spirit with the traditional lighting of the channukah candles in our not-so-traditional music-inspired menorah:

The astute observer might see Luna in the background of the photo above. She keeps a good distance from the candles, as is appropriate. However, we'd like to remind everyone not to take any chances with candles this holiday season, especially with animal friends. Please make sure all candles are lit on safe, non-flammable surfaces (such as granite) and observed at all times.

For safer holiday kitty fun, Luna got some new toys in the appropriate blue and silver colors:

Not exactly a dreidel, but still fun!

Our family has a tradition in which we try to guess which candle is going to last the longest. In the photo below, the likely candidate is number six (third from the right, the center candle doesn't get numbered).

Sure enough, in the end the sixth candle was the last one alight. Watching the candles go out is fascinating. The flame dims to just a point, then sometimes flares up again in a last push before flickering and going out in a beautiful puff of smoke.

Hmm, this is starting to sound a little depressing, isn't it? Better hop over Tiggy the Tiny Tiger for some more feline holiday cheer!

From m/n/m/l we have a cat under a Serge synthesizer kit. Looks like a comfy little spot.

m/n/m/l has some interesting music available on CD and for download. Judging from the quote on the website, I am guessing m/n/m/l shares my frustration with low CD and download sales:

June 2006

people from all over coming here. USA, Germany, China. But why?? read, look at pictures? download a couple tracks?

sales from downloads and CD's was up during the winter, lately it's dead again. don't really feel like spending all my time doing marketing marketing marketing,too much else going on now anyway.

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It has been a while since I have completed one of graphic-art images like the Green Kitties piece posted a while back.

If the previous one was “green”, this one is definitely “blue.” It is actually inspired by an evening on the Singapore waterfront several years ago, which including a sculpture/installation with blue spheres and illuminated pools.

This work was created using a combination of Poser and Bryce (in which the final render was done, along with everything except the figure).

It is interesting to compare how both works combine abstract geometric elements with “realistic” figures.

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