How do you know if you're breathing, injured, or hungry? Feedback. Electrical and chemical messages that your brain understands tell you, "Listen up, something needs fixing." Here are some recent cases where I received important feedback. As a diabetic it's important that I check my blood glucose level regularly, but I let it slip. My test strips are a buck a pop, and besides, I've been feeling fine. But I made a New Month's resolution to get back into the habit, and I'm glad I did. . . .
Today I was up to my earlobes in spring-cleaning, but not the kind you're probably thinking. For four hours I pruned and organized my computer's music files. For too long I stored music files as quickly and easily as possible, making those same files not so quick and easy to find. This practice undermined my original filing scheme, a result that is very upsetting to someone who designed databases for a living. So this is spring-cleaning with redecoration thrown in. . . .
The joke is on me. While I was stationed in South Korea from 1970-71, I would escape to the Service Club with my friend Dennis "Moby" Wales. Moby's nickname derives from his last name . . . you know, W(h)ales. He aspired to be a writer, for which he chose the more literary-sounding D. Scott Wales. I'm sure he left "Moby" behind when he returned stateside. At the club we would shoot pool, play table tennis, or watch TV. We also enjoyed looking at fresh silkscreen prints, drying from an ongoing class. . . .
[To listen to my "Two-Minute Symphony" click here.]
I have placed all my multimedia content, except photographs and art clips, in one location. I did this so that you can return to these items without having to search for them in old and archived posts. To access them any time, click MULTIMEDIA GALLERY, the top item under Links, on the right-hand side of this page. To subscribe to the RSS Feed of Multimedia Gallery, click Multimedia Gallery RSS Feed. By subscribing, you will be notified automatically of any new multimedia content on this blog.
I've incorporated Sudoku Solver's documentation directly into the worksheet. To view it, select its tab. For hardcopy enthusiasts, documentation is also available in two formats: DOC (MS Word), and PDF. The Original Post has been updated to reflect these changes.
As portrayed in fiction, the Devil is an entrepreneur eager to fill his treasury with souls. Humans don't queue up for this privilege; they must be tempted. Temptation is a two-legged stool: The Devil, for his part, offers an alluring prize. If we play our part, fevered longing dislodges our usual sense of risk and reward — good and evil, if those terms suit you. Negotiations ensue; capitulation is not inevitable. Should we resist "the prize," citing free will, the Devil has a response. . . .
[This post described a story I was writing. In this cautionary tale a man is enticed by an item he discovers in his newspaper's classified section. It was, of course, placed of course by Old Nick himself. On the same classified page is an arcane crossword puzzle and an equally unusual Jumble. The cartoon in the Jumble depicts a woman sitting at a spinning wheel with the Devil over her shoulder, whispering in her ear, "The secret is selecting the right lambs." The caption of this fictional puzzle reads: What Satan's advice was intended to help her do. Here it is for you to solve. As with any Jumble, unscramble the seven words, one letter to a square. Then, arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer suggested by the cartoon described above and in keeping with the story it is part of.]
I wrote Power To Become [click to play] in the mid 70s. I performed it at church and then as a sing-along at a hymn sing. A week or so later my choir director...
This sign means "Under Construction." I use it when a post is published but may be revised or completed later. An example is yesterday's poem. Since I posted it...
The hem of disappointment
may trail on bare ground,
pawing at the debris of love lost,
or
ruffled by a freshing breeze,
show the flirty limbs of love found.
[I was reading The Writer's Book of Wisdom: 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft while on the bus today. I alluded to it in a recent post which inspired me to re-read it. I set the book aside after reading "Rule #50: The Discipline of Poetry Will Sharpen Your Sentences." I realized I hadn't written any poetry, excepting song lyrics, in some time. A few bus stops later the phrase "hem of disappointment" sprang to mind. Before I reached home I composed a rough draft of this poem.]
To learn our A,B,C's we have the "Alphabet Song." For counting, forward and backward, we have "Three Little Indians." For the musical scale we have The Sound of Music's "Do-Re-Mi." When Matthew and Emily were little, I wrote them short, simple songs to help them learn how to spell their names. I decided to preserve them – they are recorded nowhere else – and share them with you here. Perhaps they will inspire you to compose similar "learning aids" for the children in your life.
As the oldest, Matthew's song came first. A seven letter name is a little tricky, so I borrowed the melody from "Three Little Indians," which has exactly the right meter. You may know this song as "One, Two, Three O'Leary." You can play "M-A-T-T-H-E-W" here and follow along using the lead sheet:
Emily's song came next and is entirely original. As with Matthew's, I created a special guitar accompaniment for it. These songs were often a part of our bedtime serenade, a tradition handed down from my father. Play "E-M-I-L-Y" here and sing along:
Ethan, my grandson, is too young to need his own song. I wrote one anyway. Now this is strictly provisional. My son, who is an abler musician than I, will surely step up when the time is right and continue the family tradition by writing his own song for Ethan. In a shameless piece of self-promotion, I snuck my name into the lyrics. You can play "E-T-H-A-N" here and sing along:
I spent the last twenty-four hours with my best friends from high school. I always enjoy our get-togethers. They usually consist of catching up, reminiscing, socializing, and making music. We are, after all, confreres of the legendary – a term usually reserved for deceased musicians – folk group, The Balladeers.
Part I was an overnighter at Gary Chicoine's. We chatted, dined, bragged about our children, and I coached him on his banjo playing, resumed after a 44-year hiatus. He is playing well, due less to my coaching and more to his resurrection of past skills. Next day we joined Mike Burak and John Gunther at Mike's for Part II. This gathering featured Mike's handcrafted, pH 1.8 chili con carne, our usual minstrelsy, and a spirited round robin of joke telling where successive jokes were often conjoined by a common theme. I myself offered a joke of my own creation. It did, I must say, receive a response as glorious as the period at the end of this sentence. My setup was complex and protracted, I forgot some essential details, and it was a pun, a pun so fetid that it didn't merit even the customary groan. We had a grand time.
I returned home exhausted. I love these guys, but there is a kind of intensity to being with them that consumes energy and demands sharp mental focus. It's the same kind of happy fatigue I often get after spending time with my family. Maybe it's because these relationships are so important that I want to remember and savor every experience. Maybe it's because I want to make the best possible impression. Either way, it's a small price to pay for the love and solace of family and friends.
Politicians are getting a head start on this election cycle. As a result I'm posting this series about political discourse, journalism, and surveys earlier than I had planned. My goal is to make you savvy
about all that you will see and hear. Today I'm writing about a well-known psychological phenomenon which pols and their handlers try to exploit. It's called the Recency-Primacy Effect.
Here's what it is: People are more likely to remember what occurs at the beginning and at the end. This applies to lists, events, literature, movies, and more. Political pros know this and seek to have their candidate speak or appear first or last. Aside from the psychological result, each has at least one other benefit.
Speaking first makes you memorable, but it also lets you set the agenda, to frame the debate. If you're good at this you will draw your opponent into speaking about an issue on your terms. Speaking last is memorable too, and it gives you the last word. If done well, summing up or stating your conclusion can raise doubts about everything your opponent has said.
Debates are one venue where you often observe this scramble for position. Debaters try to make a final response to a question even when it's no longer their turn. Sometimes they will begin their response to the next question by making the point they wanted to make before time or turns ran out. This is a bold attempt to seize both primacy and recency.
You'll see the same thing on Sunday talk shows: A guest tries to seize or hold the floor at the end of a joint interview, even though the host is desperate to wrap up and get to an ad . . . probably from Archer Daniels Midland, or G.E. if you're watching NBC. Journalists with an axe to grind can tilt the news by choosing whomever they wish to have the first or last word.
You will have no problem spotting the Recency-Primacy Effect, now that I've set you wise. A future post will address journalistic trickery; another will describe how statistics in general and opinion polls in particular can distort the facts.
Violence is everywhere: 33 Die Monday at Virginia Tech; 183 Die Wednesday in Baghdad. Though the numbers are numbing, we can't permit ourselves to become numb. To anyone who watches television news, seeing the immediate and lingering consequences of these events is almost unavoidable, maybe even necessary. I don't shirk from that, from being informed. But with so much violence in the real world, I'm less willing to subject myself to it on a voluntary basis.
Television and cinema present sanitized violence in the guise of crime-fighting, war-winning, and WrestleMania. Sanitation of violence means that my favorite heroes can be shot or "knocked out" multiple times to minimal effect. They'll be back next week, same time, same station. Even soap operas, the guilty pleasure, abound with personal coercion, assault and character assassination, especially directed at women. The sheer volume is staggering. Ten years ago violence on TV, especially regarding its impact on children, was a cause célèbre. Most of us recall this statistic: By the time they graduate from high school, children born today will see over 200,000 violent acts on television.
Well, I'm not a child. I'm a 60 year old man who wants to see as little violence as possible before I graduate from this planet. I can only do that by watching less television. I'll miss my favorites. I'll wonder if Grissom ever solved the miniature murders. I'll wonder if Clark ever tells Lana about his superpowers. I'll wonder if Jack can find and disable the last dirty bomb before his allotted 24 hours expires. Not knowing won't be easy given my investment in these story lines, but there's no right time to cut the cord.
I'm announcing this publicly to strengthen my resolve. Whether I succeed or fail or something in between, I promise to give you a progress report three months from today, Thursday, July 19. Sigh, Thursday . . . C.S.I. and Smallville night. I've marked my calendar; more on this then.
Here is the lead sheet for Ethan's Lullaby in PDF format, complete with lyrics, melody and guitar chords. If you sing this song to your young ones, I'd be interested to hear their reaction.
It had to be done. I've childproofed Ethan's Lullaby. Gone is the frenetic pace that was bound to keep Ethan awake. Gone is the shrieking dissonance, like something out of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Gone is the sophisticated string quartet, replaced by a more innocent music box. By removing a verse and slowing the tempo I managed to hold the song to two minutes. Listen to this new version of Ethan's Lullaby and see why it's child-friendly, mother-approved. For those of you who liked the original version from my earlier post, it's still there.
Here is Ethan's Lullaby. It has taken far too long to produce and I apologize for that. I started with some lyrics just after Ethan was born, then wed the lyrics to a melody. I originally committed the melody to MIDI so I wouldn't forget it and set the lyrics aside to work on later. It took a year but the music is composed and arranged as a string quartet, but I can't find the lyrics. I know they're here somewhere, but if I don't find them soon I'll write new ones.
I woke from an interesting dream this morning. In the dream I was a character in CBS's popular show, "Criminal Minds." On that show an FBI team solves a crime, usually murder, by creating a likely profile of the "perp" – "perpetrator" for those of you unfamiliar with crime show jargon – and then by probing the psyche of identified suspects. In my dream the murderer was "outed" by Jason Gideon, the lead character played by Mandy Patinkin, in a climactic two-step. . . .
Last August I subscribed to the RSS feed for Quotes of the Day. I thought that if I ever hope to be a serious writer, it would be good to have a reservoir of funny and profound quotes to draw from. To enhance my vocabulary I also subscribed to feeds from two sites, Dictionary.com and Wordsmith.org, that offer a word-of-the-day. After reading almost a thousand quotations, I have discovered that they follow a pattern that, if used, can marshal you and I into the ranks of the quote-worthy. . . .
When I was a kid we would often travel from Springfield to Bristol, Vermont to see my grandparents. During one visit they returned from the town landfill – there was no curbside trash pickup in those days – with a mantel clock they discovered there. My grandparents were not garbage pickers, but as they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. The clock was the worse for wear and exposure to the elements, but it retained some of its former dignity. There was a problem with its clockworks. . . .
Matthew, my son the pianist, plays many kinds of music, from Billy Joel to Scott Joplin, from Claude Debussy to Andrew Lloyd Webber. I love to watch and hear him play. Sometimes I sing along. But my favorite songs are the ones he improvises, just playing whatever comes into his head. Most of these songs drift off into the ether. But recently Matthew linked his keyboard to his computer via MIDI and started recording. The first result is "Piano Scribble 1 in G". Click to play.
I watched The Ten Commandments on Saturday. It is aired almost every year around Passover and Easter. Laying in bed after the movie, I realized that every one of the commandments is about relationships. Relationship with God:I am the LORD thy God, . . . Thou shalt have no other gods before me.Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image . . . Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them . . .Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain . . .
I don't go out to the movies very much any more. I usually wait until a movie comes out on DVD. Even truer now, since my son and daughter-in-law gave me a Netflix subscription for Christmas. Every time I visit the Netflix website it recommends movies based on my ratings of other movies I've already seen. Recently, when Brokeback Mountain showed up on the list, I decided to see why it won Four Golden Globes, received Academy Award nominations in all the major categories, and won Oscars for best direction, music, and adapted screenplay. . . .
This evening, network news heralded a decision by the Transportation Department to require ESC, electronic stability control, on all new cars by the year 2012. Until now, this feature has been available only as a costly option, mostly on upscale models. This sounds like great news, doesn't it. That's how it was reported. Imagine how many fewer accidents there will be when drivers have greater control of their cars in emergency situations. Insurance companies must be ecstatic. . . .
You know how degrees-of-separation works, don't you. You know someone who knows someone who knows someone. In theory, each of us is linked to everyone else on the planet by no more than six degrees of separation. It's always more interesting if the last person in the chain is someone famous. Here are some examples that begin with you:
If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that you also have close connections to Eva Gabor, Andy Griffith, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sesame Street's Alistair Cookie. But I digress. In fact this entire post is a digression. I had intended to write about a recent experience that involves degrees of separation, but I got caught up in these examples. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the links in that experience, which include a movie, a director, an actor, a short story, an author, and a book.
If you have some close connection to a celebrity, send a comment and share it with all of us. It will bring us all closer together.
I hope you enjoy this version of "Every Breath You Take" by The Police. I recently re-transcribed this arrangement into MIDI from "Chart Hits!" by Hal Leonard Publishing, a collection of nine songs that were popular in the late 80's. I got the book not long after I bought my Yamaha DX7s synth and TX802 tone module. Every instrument's part is included in the score, so entering it into my MIDI software is kind of like painting-by-numbers.
Eighteen months ago, when I first discovered Sudoku, I published a post about it. A few months later I published another post announcing Sudoku Solver, a spreadsheet...
To download and use Sudoku Solver, click here.
I should have mentioned in my previous post that Matthew, my son, enhanced the Balladeers arrangement of Ghost Riders in the Sky. Starting with my MIDI file and using Garage Band™ he chose alternate instruments, then added a drum track and some special effects. The result is a much darker and dramatic version of the song that I think you'll like. Here is the link for playing or downloading his version of Ghost Riders.
Back in high school three friends – Mike Burak, Gary Chicoine, and John Gunther – and I formed a folk group called The Balladeers. Last Fall we had a musical reunion. Since then we've gotten together several times to jam and reminisce. One of our old songs was Ghost Riders in the Sky. It had a simple arrangement with a Buddy Holly-esque thing in the chorus. Yipee-I-Ay-ay-ay-ay. Ghost Riders is one of about ten songs that we decided to focus on, in case the desire and the opportunity to perform ever comes along...
Click here to listen to my arrangement of Ghost Riders.
I want you all to know about Gibbs Family Life, the blog authored by my son and daughter-in-law, Matthew and Karen. It features posts about their son, my grandson, Ethan. You'll see many photos with humorous captions and read about the things he's doing and learning. Because I'm so proud of them, I have to get in the act, just a wee bit. So here is a shot of Matthew, Ethan and me at Grandma Judy's house.
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| From Family |
Those Musical Gibbs Boys
Nearby now, they'll be moving to North Carolina later this year, so I'm really grateful that they created their blog.
All of the posts prior to this on were salvaged from my old site, Tom Gibbs Creations. I'm putting it out of business, but wanted to provide continuity and to archive my posts in a single location. Besides, the Blogger editor is much easier to use. Unfortunately, this site only supports storage for photos and images. I've solved that problem by keeping things like MIDI and PDF files in the storage area provided by my previous host and linking to them from here. It's not ideal, but it should work.
