Spring Training

In honor of the start of spring training and the fact that there's currently no snow on the ground here, I reverted back to the old style sheets.

I'm starting to think about stadiums I'd like to get to this season... obviously I'll return to Comerica, as that's the easiest for me to get to. More than likely I'll get to a Metrodome game at some point as well, as I'm bound to go home at some point. Given the frequency with which I go to Cincinnati, revisiting that stadium seems likely as well. The next closest stadium to me is Jacob's Field in Cleveland to the east and to the west, the only stadium that may rank as high as Fenway, Wrigley Field in Chicago. (Oh, and Chicago has that other team too. I think they were pretty good last year, so I may attempt to brave the Southside as well.) And as long as I'm driving to Chicago, I may as well go a little bit north and hit Milwaukee (perhaps with Amrys?). My other option for a short road trip is to go to the north and west and visit the only remaining Canadian team in Toronto, though I've already been to the Skydome.

For longer road trips, I'll more than likely be driving to Jenn's wedding in DC, which would be a perfect chance to catch a Nationals game at RFK, before they replace it with a real baseball stadium. (And kudos to Jenn for scheduling her wedding during a weekend when the Nationals are in town.) Saturday's probably out, though it is an afternoon game, but if people aren't too hungover after the reception, anyone else attending the wedding would be welcome to join me at a Cubs-Nationals game on Sunday afternoon. (Laura Lopez, I am specifically thinking of you here, given that it's your team and all.) Pittsburgh is conveniently located right between Ann Arbor and DC, but unfortunately, the Pirates are away that week, so it doesn't appear that that would work out too well.

So... Comerica, Dome, Great American, Jacob's Field, Wrigley, Comiskey (because US Cellular is too stupid a name to recognize), Miller Park, Skydome/Rogers Centre, and RFK are all on the short list of stadiums to visit this year. Stay tuned to see which ones actually pan out.

Henry Partch

My roommate, Alyson, is an ethnomusicology PhD student here at Michigan. As a result, I get exposed to things I normally wouldn't. Tonight, for example, she brought home a video on a 20th century American composer named Henry Partch. I looked for a good online biography of Partch or description of his music to link to, but other than a few references to his wind chimes, I didn't find much. Perhaps it's because his particular compositions never caught on with the mainstream public.

As most people with an elementary knowledge of musical theory know, the Western scale breaks the octave into twelfths (C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B). But this was not enough for Henry Partch. He didn't like the idea of conforming to these rigid standards and preferred to split the octave 43 ways instead of 12. Given that he started his work in the 1920s, well before synthesizers or other digital forms of music that could easily do this for him, this meant that he had to build his own instruments -- mostly elaborate windchimes.

And he didn't necessarily stop there. The video we just watched included clips of Partch in his garage, making his "music" by pinging glass bottles. His big observation was that you could get different notes out of different brands, ranging from Old Heaven Hill Sourmash on the low end to Bristol Cream Cherry on the high end. Not to knock his art, but it sounded like a bunch of out of tune banging around to me. Even my roommate commented that "he looks like a bad impression of what I imagined him to be." But maybe we're still too conformist and unlightened to appreciate Henry Partch... a man whose time has still not come.

Meta Puzzles

During the Mystery Hunt off-season this year, my team has decided to try something new: practice puzzles. This week I was assigned to post two meta puzzles. Instead of culling from previous hunts, I decided to write two of my own. Now that they've each been test solved, I'll post them here for people that Big Jimmy didn't fantasize about to solve.

Puzzle 1:

• GIFT
  
• FETID
  
• CHRIST
  
• DOTTING
  
• ELLIPSIS
  
• BIBLICIST
  

Puzzle 2:
(Besides the answers, each puzzle in this imaginary round came with a musical note next to the title. These are in parentheses. You've only solved four of the seven puzzles, but you have the notes for the remaining three.)

• MONKEY (G#)
• FRIENDS (E)
• SKELTER (C#)
• RACCOON (A#)
• unknown (F#)
• unknown (B)
• unknown (D#)

I'd Love To Turn You On

When I was very small, my dad used to say this to my sister and I every morning as we got ready to go to daycare. One of my earlier memories, it was probably the first instance of the Beatles influencing my life, although I didn't know it at the time.

Flash forward about ten years to our living room, me staying up late watching television with my dad. An old black and white movie about a British rock band from the 60's was on PBS.

"What is this?" I asked my dad, mildly impatient. I vaguely recall wanting him to switch to Nick at Nite or something.

"A Hard Day's Night," he said, "a Beatles movie. Let's watch it." And so we did. Of course I had heard of the Beatles, but I never really paid much attention to them before. I realized that I already knew all the songs from the radio or ballgames or wherever it is that we hear songs that we don't really pay attention to, and that I liked them. And even though I didn't get all of the jokes, something about the four lads from Liverpool absolutely transfixed me. Thus was the beginning of my obsession with the Beatles.

Later that year, the Beatles Anthology aired on ABC and I watched every minute of it, along with my father. On the second night, they covered Sgt Pepper's and the song "A Day in the Life." The song moved to the middle part and I heard the lines "Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way upstairs and had a cup, and looking up, I noticed I was late," and then suddenly, "Found my coat and grabbed my hat... made the bus in seconds flat."

I looked at my dad. "You took that from the Beatles?!" He gave me a little smile before simply saying, "Yep."

As I sit today re-watching the anthology on DVD while minimizing some logic circuits for class, I once again find myself watching the bit about "A Day in the Life" and once again flashing back to being a small child getting ready for school. It's funny what will trigger a memory or five.