Thirteen ways of looking at May 6th, 2010

1.

Radiohead -- Faust Arp

2.

In the machine learning class at G today, we watched a video by DPC on the basics -- modeling documents as vectors of word occurrences (with one dimension per word -- meaning an unvisualizable number of dimensions).  Reducing a document to a bag of words always seems so deeply wrong -- like technical stock market forecasting.  Even if it works for some set of problems, you're throwing away so much meaning...it feels like a Ptolemaic model, like a fundamentally flawed, inelegant system.

3.

4.

1 potato

several organic carrots

a jar of minced garlic

applesauce

5.

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

6.

I had thought that June 5th was going to be pretty tough on my embouchure, playing for eight hours during the day in a chamber music workshop.  But today I signed on to sub for a bassoonist in an orchestra above my level that's playing a concert the night of the 5th.

7.

Amon Tobin -- Verbal

8.

When I was a child, I was afraid of this movie -- my dad had the soundtrack, and the chaos, insistent rhythm and wild wailing in the opening track terrified me.  I could hardly look at the album cover, I was so frightened.  Then when I was in my twenties, I finally saw it (on ARD, I think) -- and I really loved it.  I bought the soundtrack on CD.  But now that I've read Obama's criticism of it in his biography (his mother liked it, and O rightly nails the naive primitivism) I'm kind of embarrassed about liking it.  But I love it.

9.

How long does it take to bake a fucking potato?  Jesus Christ!

10.

11.

Why is online chatter so snarky?  Is it that the absence of human aura drives a violent free-for-all, along with the abandonment of the primate rituals of hierarchy and conciliation that evolved over the millenia to protect us from one another?  Is snark violence by other means?  Or is it the natural currency of the hyper-democratic online society, in which 14-year-olds jostle with bankers and blogger moms for attention?

12.

The FAQ on the "Hells Angels" website uses the word "metonym" three times.

13.

Bebel Gilberto -- Samba e Amor