The Dulcimania Festival Committee is putting out the call for new works for an ensemble consisting of 100 dulcimers for its upcoming “Whole Lotta Dulcimers” festival. Selected composers will be required to provide both instruments and performers for the world premiere. Submitted scores will not be returned, but instead will be published under the name of the executive committee of the festival.

Jethro Ray Poltree is searching for new works for solo jug and electronic tape. Mr. Poltree is a virtuoso jug player, capable of three-note performance, and is interested in extended jug techniques such as harmonics and undertones. Tapes must be sent in one of the following formats — cassette, mini-cassette or 8-track. Composer’s fee is a gift certificate good for dinner at Stuckeys™.

John Williams is holding a competition for catchy 8-bar melodies. Works should be submitted anonymously — prizes to be announced later. Material will not be returned.

Bipolar Ensemble is looking for new scores for e-flat clarinet, piccolo, glockenspiel, contrabassoon, tuba and string bass (all with amplification). Due to programming restriction, works will only be accepted of either under one minute or over one hour in length.

is seeking new material for use in his upcoming album, Hair Cutz. Works must be scored for rap solo with barbershop quartet, and include a sample hook from both “Goodnight, Ladies” and “Jungle Boogie.” Selected composer will receive an autographed copy of Ice, Ice, Baby (Too Cold).

The Digiridoowop Collective seeks new concerto grosso for 2 digiridoos, 4 electric guitars (ripieno) as well as harpsichord and gamba (continuo). Piece must be in the funk-rock-punk-alternative genre with an ethnic twist. Concerto must be 3 minutes or less. Include DAT or CD recording with submission.

Composer sought to write new musical theater piece based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Send inquiries to Baron Webber, London, England.

The Parliament P-Funk Funkadelic Philharmonic Orchestra (PPFPO) is looking for new weapons in their orchestral Funk arsenal. Only boogie-inducing works that tear the roof off the sucker will be considered. Send all submissions to: PPFPO New Music Director Bootsy Collins, Chocolate City Center for the Fine and Performing Arts. Students of Sir Nose D’voidofunk need not apply.

Librettist seeks a composer to collaborate on a 12-day opera cycle loosely based on Hegel’s Critique of Pure Reason and Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Performance will take place in a cave in the New Mexican desert. Send 1-day sample opera (preferably with a Philosophical masterwork as text/subject) along with resume.

Well, I’m back. All trip goals were met or exceeded; wedding, ocean, food, coffee, stuff. Expect a full write-up over the next few days.

The rest of the world didn’t go on holiday and there’s a boatload of catching up to do.

The bags are packed. Bright and early tomorrow morning the great Oregon adventure begins.

I’ll see you on Wednesday.

There was a brutal amount of code to write today, and it didn’t leave me with much energy in reserve. A lot is coming up in the next weeks, from all fronts; it’s all I can do to not let anxiety take over. I’ll get through it, provided I take things in small, manageable pieces, and maintain my sense of humor.

In that spirit, I present my favorite joke-of-the-moment. This joke requires actual physical presence, so don’t bother e-mailing it to your accountant.

Person 1: Knock Knock.

Person 2: Who’s There?

Person 1: Interrupting Starfish.

Person 2: Interrupting St — (at this point, Person 1 spreads the palm of one hand wide, so as to resemble a starfish, and places it over the face of Person 2)

Leaving Oregon was cathartic (for me, I’m sure Varia has a different opinion); when we got on the plane to Boston, we were quite literally leaving it all behind. We took only what we could carry, and had one box sent to us after we found a place to live. I left my collection of books and recordings, my composition portfolio, and my horns; items which I spent the majority of my life never being more than a few feet from. By chance, I also happened to leave in the case of a horn the university’s copy of a the Paul Hindemith horn quartet, which caused me no small amount of grief six months later.

It’s been nearly four years. I’ve grown used to a peculiar way of antiphonal thinking over the past few years; I look to read or hear something, and then I recall it’s in Oregon. Chopin? Oregon. Mozart? Oregon. Perotin? Oregon. If only I could I reach into this box, turn to that page, then I should know what I wish to know. There is a piece of music that would match this mood exactly, if only I could get to it.

We are returning; this weekend, we are going back. David Ozab is getting married, and we will be there. Then we are going to start the process of bringing the life we left behind into the life we have cultivated since, a box at a time.

A very curious — and useful — object came into my possession yesterday. Click on the picture to see what it does.

I have received a very special letter today from George Bush! An invitation to a fancy dinner party!

How considerate! Nice Dennis Hastert wrote me too, telling me all about it. He even included a convenient, time-saving form for me to fill out:

Silly Bush and Hastert! I am a registered Democrat, and don’t want to pay to have dinner with you chaps! The $150 commemorative Bush photo set was tempting, I admit.

Donald Norman’s Emotional Design is an entertaining exploration of the ways human emotion interacts with things, and why designing things with emotion in mind is important. This seems like common sense to me, but the preponderance of objects that at their best inspire tepid acceptance and at worst unbridled rage shatters my happy fantasy world.

This isn’t just about designing something physically attractive, though that’s important. It’s also about creating a product that works well enough to inspire confidence, and ultimately a product that makes the user feel better about themselves. About making something that people want to use, because it feels good.

Addressed briefly is a pet peeve of mine — the complete disaster that is industrial sound design. With all the beeping, honking, appliances in my house, I can count on one finger the one company that took the time to create a decent sound. Apple’s boot sound is fantastic; it gently informs me that my computer is starting up; it’s warm, soothing, and inviting, and it almost makes me want to reboot my computer just so I can hear it. Can audio be designed to inform and alert in a way that doesn’t make hackles rise and the flight-or-fight instinct kick in? Norman thinks so, and I do too.

The latter portion of the book concerns designing emotion into robots. It’s a quantum step forward from designing objects to incite emotion in a user; opportunities for creating better things abound, and the challenges it poses makes the programmer in me salivate.

The digressive predictions on the future application of these emotive robots, however, induces a strong sense of loathing generally reserved for the works of theatrical composers with names that rhyme with “Boyd Neber.” I can only hope that the future of robots doesn’t belong to Norman; the vision of a dozen or more robots skittering around my home taking pride in not breaking coffee mugs is enough to make me want to jump in the nearest available tar pit.

Seriously. A robot designed specifically for putting plates on the dinner table: the future equivalent of the wall-mounted singing fish.

At the outset it’s essential for you, dear reader, to understand that I am a language dilettante. Language courses as an undergraduate were an enjoyable way to pass the time; while I can say that I’ve learned the basics of many languages, I can’t say I truly know any of them. Be assured that I am not some sort of polyglot ninja scholar with an inferiority complex, as nice as that would be.

Over the past weeks I’ve been brushing up on my Latin, with hopes of getting up to where I was in the past and hopefully moving on into reading-with-dictionary territory in the not too distant future. I’m taking it slow, spending time on the grammar. Not having to simultaneously learn the similar yet disparate grammar of Ancient Greek at the same time make this easier.

Since I don’t have the awesome power of the DePauw Classics Department to put up with me this time around, I’ve fallen back to trusty old Wheelock. Many of the examples come straight out of the corpus (that’s Latin!) of ancient texts, so even in the first chapter one sees simplified phrases of Cicero, Seneca, and Horace. This is no bad thing; I get a minor twinge of pleasure when I find myself translating something like “To err is human.” The sentences have authority.

What a change from other, not dead, languages! Thinking back to some of the introductory textbooks I’ve had the pleasure of studying, most had sentences such as: “Mr. Tanaka grasps the umbrella”; “Hans asks the way to the train station”; “Tanya buys books from a Moscow bookshop.” These are not sentences of authority. Give them a bit of weight and you are setting things in stone like this:

Funny thing, authority. It’s just a way of interpreting things, but it makes all the difference. The ageless aphorisms of the Cicero Civics Crew, stripped of authority, become just plain bizarre. Hans is eating a schnitzel. Mr. Tanaka is considering the sociopolitical ramifications of cats in boxes. Cicero is preserving the ancient homeland by means of philosophy and the strength of the Roman people. And then a schnitzel.

I had lunch with a friend from my old job, who is soon moving on to bigger and better things. Of the old crew of friends I made when I first started there three years ago, he was the last one remaining.

On the way home I stumbled across a live performance of Hindustani Music at South Station, sarod and tabla. I took a seat and enjoyed the last 30 minutes of the performance, which consisted of a rather complex raga.

Window shopping at a bookstore, the appearance of a novel named, seriously, Bling, caused no small amount of mirth.

Overhearing two men on the T vigorously contesting the proper equation to represent some sort of node (”no, no, it’s e to the alpha times half n…”) reminded me again of how much I like living in Boston.

I had intended to write last night, but at some point a mojito was thrust into my hand and The Return of the King was put on, and before I knew it, the King had returned and it was well past my bedtime.

Another pile of books arrived on the front porch, this lot being three books on design. One of the hats I wear in my programming work these days is that of an interface designer, and it’s a hat I quite enjoy wearing. It’s a very interesting subject, not dissimilar from many aspects of musical composition.

Mark Bernstein has posted some interesting commentary on trends in software development. I prefer the artisan metaphor; it aligns with the reality of how most of the programmers I respect work. It certainly doesn’t apply to all development environments, but it’s quite clear that the engineering paradigm isn’t working brilliantly either.

It was a beautiful day. We spent the afternoon out and about, taking stops at the dangerous computer shop and the equally dangerous art supplies store.

I would be remiss to not wish a very happy birthday to danuv.

A copy of Music For Elevators arrived today, featuring the voice of Anthony Stewart Head, better known as Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with music by electronic wizard George Sarah.

This is free verse poetry set to music. When the occasional rhyme is made, it has impact. The music is rich, borrowing heavily from pop idioms but never sinking into the banal. The lyrics’ lack of any sort of traditional form is mirrored in the setting; it’s refreshing to be able to experience the unfolding of the song without knowing every twist and turn ahead.

The songs bypass the traditional obsession with the romantic love (and the contemporary obsession with bling) and instead deal with more serious topics like parenting, personal responsibility, and loneliness. Many have an almost rhetorical quality — the image of a singing Cicero comes to mind at times: “To measure up to all he’s expected to achieve / A man must to more than he is capable of / Man is what he believes.”

We made the yearly trip to Hogwarts this afternoon. I was mightily impressed; Prisoner of Azkaban is far and away the best of the lot. Spectacular camera work, and John William’s score managed to impress me on a few occasions, something I can’t remember happening for a long time.

ON the way home, we saw that the mediocre Chinese restaurant across the street from our place is being converted into a new Chinese/Japanese place. I’m trying very hard not to get my hopes up.

The orb has been shutting off randomly, or so I thought. After it had happened a few times I started to trace it, and found that it only shut off after someone had selected the deep red, which happens to be color ID 0. Corrective measures have been taken, and all is well in Orb-land.

This week’s musical obsession is Frou Frou, a group with one of the most unfortunate websites I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. They split the line between Bjork and the Cranberries; clever, solid, pop that doesn’t fade after a few listenings.