I’m proud to announce a project called “Lost Soundtracks from the Wizard of Oz,” a post-collaboration of a bunch of artists who all studied sound together at SAIC. This project stems from a conversation I had with a fellow LSWZ member about all of the work we handed in over the years, but that would never be heard. To be fair, much of it shouldn’t be heard; it’s just not that good. However, we both agreed that we had just a few shiny rocks amongst the vast amounts of sonic rubble. Not only that, but we knew a few of our friends did too. That’s when I decided to curate a project of never-heard material, and not only that, but never-intended-to-be-heard-material. When I collected the work from each artist, it became clear that, while each piece could stand on its own, there was clearly a narrative at play. Perhaps it was the story of six artists starving and slaving through school, or possibly the tale of navigating through the non-community that is SAIC. Whatever the case, one thing was certain, there were characters and story-lines embedded between the shrapnel of each artists’ composition, willing to pop out and greet you with just a little imagination. And perhaps the shiny green city in the distance was in fact our school. Or maybe that’s just what we were told. Anyhow, it’s good to be back home, from one hell of a trip.

Enjoy the album, and a special thanks to all the artists that contributed!

Lost Soundtracks from the Wizard of Oz
Web Site for LSWZ

There have been a lot of side projects I’ve participated in over the years. I haven’t disclosed them on this site, primarily due to lack of a defined product coming from any of them. I played in a few bands in Madison, Wisconsin; beat the concept of podcasting to the punch in 2003 by writing, recording and releasing a song each Monday for almost a year; and in Chicago, I worked and played out a few times with Dan Schreck under the moniker Dewey Decimal.

While you won’t hear the other stuff anytime soon, the Dewey Decimal demos (though few) have aged reasonably well. Had we not both been working and going to school full time, I think we could have produced more. That being said, like most unfinished work, it’s a glimpse at a between-state. And sometimes, between-states can be good to listen to.

Link

A brief note: Mark Beasley, a good friend of mine, and whose work I’m always in awe of, did something pretty cool over the summer. In his own words…

this is made by indexing the signal of every frame/sec of Gordon’s songs, and then doing the same for Tina Turner’s songs. Then, I played Gordon’s songs using Tina Turner’s signal data, effectively calling the equivalent data from Tina’s song through Gordon’s current song. Someone got Tina Turnered!

It’s metallic, unforgiving, and raw. And it’s great.

mark-beasley.com - Mark’s website
Patina Turnered - direct link

I scared the shit out of myself tonight, simply by trying to make some tea. I’m currently without a tea kettle, so I did what any respecting kitchen McGuyver would do: Fill a cup with water and put it in the Microwave.

Well, that’s apparently a bad, bad idea, I found out (see the link below for why). When the microwave beeped, I opened the door, reached my hand in to grab the mug, and all hell broke loose. The water literally exploded all over the place. I jumped back, I was totally spooked. It just was there, then it exploded.

I thought this was weird, but still too shocked to go into safety mode and ditch the tea-making project for the night. So, I put the tea down on the counter, and dropped the tea bag in, and the MF’r exploded again!

At this point, I’m so freaked out, all I can do is come up with crazy conclusions like the water is tainted, the mug is tainted, something having to do with Gremlins. Dah. Freaked. Out. Go to the Google.

Couldn’t believe that my search string actually nailed it on the first attempt (boiling water weird microwave), but weirder things have happened (see above). Result #2 yielded the answer…

(General Electric’s response)

“Thanks for contacting us. I will be happy to assist you. The e-mail that you received is correct. Microwaved water and other liquids do not always bubble when they reach the boiling point. They can actually get superheated and not bubble at all. The superheated liquid will bubble up out of the cup when it is moved or when something like a spoon or tea bag is put into it.”

Ok. Won’t do that again. I think my Dad is an old hand at Microwaving water, best send this post his way. I actually made out pretty well tonight. I managed not to burn my face off, and I learned a little science in the process.

Link

I think that we can all agree on something: Accessible education is the most important service for modern civilization (which has food, water and shelter). However, perhaps the understanding of the importance of education is oversimplifying the matter, which in turn, leaves the accessibility of education to be taken for granted.

There is an important polarity of terms which can be perhaps over-simplified as a need for education: Misconception and Comprehension. Each of these terms, misconception and comprehension, breed their like kind. Misconception breeds misconception, comprehension begets further comprehension. It is the role of education to deliver comprehension, but not to address misconception, generally speaking. Misconceptions are designed to be stealthy, and avoid radar. We don’t know what we don’t know. Comprehension is the exact opposite, it must be obvious to the individual or the instructor, so that further instruction can take place.

I am considering this a misconception of the importance of the term “education”, the very institution that encourages comprehension. Perhaps a better, more sophisticated way to frame the most important service for modern civilization, is a matter of understanding the problem. Should education focus on addressing misconception rather than promoting comprehension? Does comprehension occur naturally from a misconception being popped? For instance, I’ve been of the mind recently that creationists and intelligent designers may have misconceptions about large numbers. This inability to conceive and appreciate astronomically large distances, hypothetical numbers, and even the relatively simple understanding of just how much of anything can be a billion, let alone a million, is telling.

The concept of evolution is an educational problem in that it predicates a certain capacity for comprehension, and a rather low threshold of misconception. If, however, the tables are turned (a high threshold for misconception, which encourages a low capacity for comprehension), such issues of extreme importance are bandied about as heresy. Rather, unfortunately hot-button issues such as evolution may be better taught in our schools as, in the case of evolution, a campaign to kill misconceptions about our world, such as how big a million is; reinforce non-hot-button issues such as understanding large numbers. There is no controversy in the understanding of large numbers. Evolution may only be controversial because there is a large, qualified and shared misconception amongst the general populace, or maybe a definitive set of misconceptions, but nonetheless, these misconceptions share one attribute: there is nothing controversial about them.

Yes, the more we know, the better off we are, and less fearful are we of the world. However, my argument is that the problem is improperly framed. We don’t need better education, that may be a misnomer. We may need to address misconception as an active phenomenon, and comprehension as an effect of the cause of popping misconceptions.