Post-Literate Humor

Parental Discretion

Despite being in the midst of a game of musical 'flu - we all keep giving each other the updated version of our latest midwinter virus - I actually have gotten some useful research work done of late. But that's not very entertaining, so I thought I would post here some play-time pieces I've made while resting between bouts of usefulness. The idea was to bring the communicative power of icons (and other simple signs) to their next logical level. I'm sure this is not a new idea. In any case, here's what I spun out. They're named to provide an extra layer of entertainment but it ought to go without saying they they ought to go without saying. Enjoy!

Escalation



La Différance

You can never go home, again.

(I wasn't sure it was obvious enough, this one.)


Glubat Se.
(Latin: Let him blow himself.)

Some Days Are Low

Howdy friends. Well, I'm on the fourth day of a feverish sick (same one, it would seem, that I had two weeks ago, and thought I'd had done with), and a bit down. Stuck in this apartment staring out at the rain. Today I heard of the death two days back of a good friend, Lou Genise (pictured), age 38, of various cancers, in LA. He brought great riches to all his friends' lives, but I'm feelin' pretty broke, now.

What to say. I'm just going to post here this link to him breathing some fire and a piece of music I wrote and recorded for three friends named Lou, and some explanatory text below it. And then I'm going to drink a little and try to get some sleep.



A Tale of 3 Lous

I’ve had three friends named Lou. One of them, Lou Harrison, a composer, taught me among other things to appreciate long-lined melodies of the sort common in the classical Turkish music I now play and compose, but rarer in Western music, which I was studying at the time I met him. He passed away at a respectable old age, having gotten his nickel’s worth, and then some. They’re making a documentary of his life here.

Another Lou, Lou Genise, was a fire-breathing, triple-X, Godzilla-taming space gaucho of long acquaintance. At only 35 years of age he got liver cancer a couple of years ago. The first doctors to see him gave him six months, but he was having none of it. After about eighteen months of aggressive treatment and his usual kickass drive he was *this close* to being cancer free, but it recently came back with a vengeance that even this buffalo of a man couldn't take down and live to tell the tale, and I am very pissed off at cancer. You can see him at play here.

The third Lou, Lou Savett, at 76 and strong as a bull came down with pancreatic cancer last March that swept him away in a shockingly short six weeks. My girlfriend (his step-daughter) and I got to his house in Santa Monica about forty minutes after he'd gone, but our last times with him had ended with peaceful smiles. He was a mensch of the old school menschen and I don't think they make them like that any more. When we got back home to Santa Barbara, full of the gravity of life and death, I wrote this piece to celebrate my three friends named Lou.

(The piece is also called Hüseyni Peşrevi: Üç Lou Hikâyesi, though here in Turkey it has been criticized as neither a true peşrev nor strictly in makam hüseyni - I am holding it to a different standard of authenticity, and you may call it whatever you will.)

New Year for Trees

Hello all! Not much to report on the research front (I hope that slow and steady will do the job, since that's what I have to work with). I just wanted to thank all of you who have (and who yet will) wished me a happy birthday - all of 43 solar revolutions completed successfully as of today - and remark on the delightfully silly Jewish holiday Tu b'Shevat, the New Year for Trees, which is also today. Didn't think they even wanted one, did you? Well, they're already drunk and half-naked in my neighborhood - I expect some sort of fruity fireworks to break out at any moment, and it's only noon.

Anyway, I'm not planning on doing anything special for the day (though am not working, either), but I did have a good time at my friend Sinan's last night, which will stand for a party. Earlier in the week he'd said some musicians were going to meet at his place (which, as I have mentioned before, is also the tomb of a Sufi saint, Ümmi Sinan) and would I like to come play? Well, it turns out to have been a house concert, and when I got there the musicians said, "OK, now we can start!" and lead me to a room with maybe 30 to 40 people waiting for the performance to begin. Awkward! I'd never heard any of the music before, though there was sheet music, and, a little shocked, I declined to play the first half, which was all religious music - hymns and whatnot - since I didn't want to screw it up for them, especially at a saint's house. But I joined in for the second set, for which there was no written music, but it was all secular tunes - easier to follow, less serious for the audience, and some of them I knew already, so I jumped right in with both paws.

Anyway, it's the first performance I've done on this trip, and it was fun and everyone enjoyed it - I got some good feedback afterward, and my lâvta was a big hit with the musicians. On the whole it seemed to me to be an apt set-piece/metaphor for life - "Surprise... you're on, kid!" - so it was a good birthday present/celebration.

And that's it! I think I'll wander around to see if I can find a decent Chinese restaurant. Thanks again... back soon!

(Photo of almond tree by Nicolás Pérez.)