The high art of procrastination

Was working on Honors thesis: 15 pages on the status of Beckett's self-translations. Reading up a lot on authorial intentionality, and the popular persistence/post-structuralist criticism thereof. Which led me, naturally, to Wikipediaing computer-generated music, and coming across this really cool article from a few months back (okay, I only skimmed it, because I'm not that much of a procrastinator, but I guarantee it's interesting):


Triumph of the Cyborg Composer

You should read it. Or at least listen to the music samples:


Sample of Emily Howell - Track 1


Sample of Emily Howell - Track 2

Two things strike me about the article:

1) I'm very impressed with Douglas Hoffstadter, who's quoted in it. I'd only read his book Gödel, Escher, Bach, which is quite fascinating but makes pronouncements like "Any computer that can beat a human at chess will also be able to write poetry." Hoffstadter, as quoted in this article, is clearly willing if reluctant to adjust his views on music, artificial intelligence, etc as new developments arise. Which is cool.

2) The whole debate of "Is it really music?" seems strikingly similar to the debate around the turn of the 20th century about whether photography was really "art." I have a feeling it'll turn out the same way--people will acknowledge that, yes, even if a machine does all the mechanical work (reproducing a certain view of a certain place at a certain time, or arranging a certain set of notes in a certain way), the important bit is the human element directing that production, however distantly. Even if the production was entirely uncontrolled by humans after the initial programming--if the program was just left on its own, with no one saying "write a slow waltz in a minor key for full orchestra" or "give me something in a 12-bar blue progression with arpeggiated ostinato for bass, harp, and drum kit" or whatever--humans would have defined the parameters for the composition anyway. And even if they didn't, frankly--if, I don't know, a computer programmed a computer to program a computer to produce music--I think we'll really stop worrying about this stuff. Because, you know, humans still enjoy looking at things like sunrises, and we know the sun and the rotation of the earth and the atmosphere don't get together and plan to look pretty.

In other news: Joel Grey + Muppets. Don't ask questions. Just follow the link.

Finals!

I'm happy to report that one week from today, I will be entirely, 100% done with finals and with the spring 2010 semester (well, except for a research paper I'm writing, but that's for my internship not for school so it doesn't entirely count), relaxing in festivities after watching my brother, and the rest of the MHC Hunter 2010 class, graduate at Lincoln Center. It will be much fun.

Sadly, the 6 days in between now and then will probably not be much fun at all. My schedule currently looks like this: wake up at 7, study German for an hour, work on CHC report (finished it today! Hoorah), study biology at the library all afternoon, come home to study chemistry all evening, work on poster for research presentation till ~12:30/1, go to sleep, repeat. Yuck. So I'm choosing to concentrate on that nice post-final feeling and it's impending real-ness.

No longer legally aiding

See this?



That's my ID holder, without my Legal Aid ID. All empty. And that's kinda weird. Like, whoa. Today was my last day (actually, last Wednesday was supposed to have been my last day, but I didn't really do anything last Monday, I would have taken the day off to work on my Law & Lit paper except that was a day I might have had to testify in court, so yeah... I just sat around researching for the paper until it was confirmed that the case was being moved back to next month... point being, I figured I might as well come in one more day to make up for having not really been there one day). Dropped off my ID at the Legal Aid headquarters, picked up my Completion Certificate (I would have gotten it at the closing ceremony but I had my Law & Lit final at the same time as that).

[oh, and the earphone is because I took this picture while looking up different recordings of Shostakovich's 2nd Waltz, which I've had stuck in my head for nearly a week and must therefore get on my iPod, along with the rest of the Suite for Variety Orchestra. Ended up getting the recording that Kubrick, according to Wikipedia, used in Eyes Wide Shut. This is all utterly irrelevant, and you have my permission to refrain from retaining this information in your consciousness].

Other than that, well, there's finals. This is that weird part of the semester where the regular-going-to-school stuff is over, but the finals aren't. Still got to do my Honors thesis (15 pages on translation and authorial intent in Beckett's work), and my Women and the Law exam (which is fun, you just analyze fact patterns to see what precedents would apply). No final for the writing workshop. Law & Lit--well, not feeling terrible about it, but neither the paper nor the test went as well as I'd hoped. I knew I wouldn't do too well on the test, but I had hoped for a more solid paper. It's probably A- material, though I'm not ruling out B+ altogether. I just didn't manage to get any sources. There are five entries in my works cited, counting the text I'm analyzing. Took too long to read Discipline and Punish, you see, and needed to get that done to do a good job reading other sources. So yeah.