I loved reading this guy grouse about Adobe. I feel exactly the same way. I had a funny realization the other day launching Photoshop CS 3 on my MacBook Pro: it still feels exactly the same as it did launching Photoshop 3.5 on a Performa. Like, OK, better get in gear to do some GRAPHICS. Think you can handle it?
How do you think moon-landing doubters would explain this? It’s literally an artifact from a parallel universe. Perhaps one wherein Deep Impact was really well-written.
John Adams just accepted my friend request on Facebook. There is a delicate art to figuring out if it’s really John Adams. (On MySpace, where nobody is who they say they are, it would be another story.) Here are some pros: he lists “Steve Riech” under favorite music (no official impostor from Boosey & Hawkes would let that slide). Actually that’s the only pro. Many more cons: his photos are all headshots of himself, dating back to the 80′s. I think it’s time he brought back the horn-rimmed spectacles, though I am biased in that regard. The “about me” section is just his program bio, with “I” replacing every instance of “John Adams”. This makes for a rather hilariously self-aggrandizing profile beginning “I am one of America’s most admired and respected composers”. Really John. Do tell.
In other news, I am now a New Yorker/freelancer/bum. I stay at home all day and do things on my own computer, which is nice! Here is something I recently worked on; hire them for your next Rosh Hashana gathering. I am applying for grants; I am procrastinating on writing a violin concerto by composing iPhone ringtones in Logic (for fun, sadly, not profit); I am consuming endless quantities of WNYC programming, which is incomparably better than WNPR (hearing Faith Middleton’s voice makes me want to get out my knife sharpener). I think I saw Ursula Oppens at the midtown Fairway last week; I couldn’t see what she was buying (Nancarrow, in bulk?) but she looked befuddled.
Fig. 1: Playlist in celebration of John Cage's birthday, two days late.
Shouldn’t performers have broader musical taste than composers, not the other way around, as so often seems to be the case?