I’m almost recovered from Twenty Four Magazine
But not quite. Last Thursday a bunch of us started making a magazine from scratch in twenty-four hours. We didn’t sleep. We invented strange things and threw them together and hoped the turned out. I wrote two songs and an article that made it into the final magazine. It’s actually quite strange to write music...
I’m in a room with some brilliant people
And we’re making a magazine in 24 hours. I’m probably going to write some music to be printed in a magazine, which is pretty exciting. I’m also doing some collaborative philosophy of language, which should be fun. I want to analyze the concept of “Awesome”. It’s got a technical meaning on the internet these days,...
Useless Whiskey & Pear cocktail
Why useless, you say? Well, how often do you get pear cider from Ikea AND Rogue whiskey? It is tasty though: 20 grams Rogue whiskey 80 grams Ikea pear cider (I suppose another, better cider would be fine, too) splash Angostura aromatic bitters Just put them all in a glass and stir. Ice if you...
Kickstart the Brooklyn Bridge?
Government is the name we give to the things we choose to do together. -Barney Frank Christine Quinn delivers State of the City speech. She calls for NYC govt to use @kickstarter to fund civic projects twitter.com/ystrickler/sta… — Yancey Strickler (@ystrickler) February 9, 2012 The world hasn’t changed yet, but it’s going to. Nation states...
Culture has to be a party now
And that could look like a bad thing, but on balance I think it’s great. People have vastly more choice about what culture and entertainment to consume with their time than they did in the past. And they can get all the films, tv shows and music they like from home, plus all the stuff...
Korean Superbowl Chili
This dish has origins basically nowhere. Standing in a Korean market yesterday, my girlfriend said “let’s have chili.” I said okay, and put some garlic sambal and gochu chang in my basket, and here we are. This stuff is awesome. It’s meaty, warm and spicy with a background sweetness that makes it very hard to...
The Seafarer hits the Festival circuit
I did not expect to get into the land of film festivals when I started reading Burton Raffel’s translation of The Seafarer in a ratty used copy in my Peabody dorm back in whenever that was. 2004? But here we are. Michael Feldman, who directed the film, and I got to work on submitting our...
Sketching Poems Without Names
Here’s my first sketch with actual noteheads in it for Poems Without Names. I can’t believe that this piece is going to be done and performed on St. Patrick’s day. I’m using a lot of the same techniques from The Seafarer and from The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, but instead of a solo performer,...
I’m digging back into this piece – at 10 PM
Which is, for those of you keeping score at home, bad form. Write in the morning. Use that first burst of energy to do the work you care about most. And by energy I do mean caffeine. Save the bills, chores, Finale entry and associated drudgery for when you’re exhausted, your juices have run out,...
About what Rachel Said
My friend Rachel Fershleiser, newly of tumblr, said this: Think piece I don’t have the energy to write but maybe you do: Internet memes seem to be moving towards the smallest sub-cultural groups possible and catching on that way. - I made Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich as a joke on how there was starting to be...
Ruckus Amongstus was a huge success!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the two dozen or so people (I never got an accurate head count) who performed in the show, filmed it, recorded it, served fantastic cocktails, and yes, carried a disassembled marimba around in travel bags. We had one hell of a day, starting with loading in and lunch,...
Junior Bach Doesn’t Stop
One of my proudest accomplishments is the creation and institutionalization of the Junior Bach program at Peabody. In it, Peabody composers teach middle school students from the St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, and prepare them for the first world premieres of their lives. The Academy itself is Jesuit, and draws its students, all boys, from the...
