Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"I think that, when we read philosophy, we often forget that philosophers live in particular times and those times affect the thoughts and ideas of those philosophers. In one sense, the job of the philosopher is to explain the times to the people of the times. Of course, they tend to do it in the form of timeless principles, which are really not, in reality, timeless." -- fidhle, 2004-07-27 [Note: a few specific examples of what he's talking about are listed in the entry from which this was quoted.]

Thank you, mister rock'n'roll disc jockey, for randomly choosing to play the acoustic version of "Personal Jesus" on the radio this morning while I was reading chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel According To St. John. That was a nice touch, and as much as I like the electric version which I'm more familiar with, I think the acoustic version was a better fit to my morning.

(I didn't get around to my one little Easter ritual (well, other than wishings the folks I see a happy Easter) yesterday. That's to just pick a bit from one of the Gospels to reread, and spend a little time quietly contemplating the meaning of the holiday and remembering to give thanks. So I decided that this morning would work ... and that song came on the radio while I was reading about the disciples' reactions to the ressurection. The line, "reach out, touch faith" didn't quite line up with when I read the bit about doubting Thomas -- that would've been almost too perfect, no?)

I've had a minimal drum kit (kick/snare/hat/crash) set up on the third floor for a few weeks, after not having played drums for quite a while. I keep looking at that room and thinking I should rearrange it a bit to be easier to get around in when I'm actually using it to make music with another person, and this afternoon I allowed myself that distraction from a few other things I should be doing instead but lack the concentration to dive into properly. And I decided to pull out more of the kit -- partly to get it out of the way downstairs, but mostly just because it had been so long since I'd put it together. And also because I was wondering how much of it I could still set up without the stuff that got stolen a couple Darkovers ago. (Both stick bags were in the van when it was burgled[*], and some small parts lived in a stick bag because that was the most convenient place for them even though it meant sometimes carrying them to places where I didn't need them).

Okay, I couldn't hang all the cymbals that I used to because the stacker was in one of the stolen bags (as was the splash cymbal, I think). That I knew. I wasn't sure I still had all the pieces needed to put a cymbal on the stand that I used to put the stacker on -- the parts that came with the stand had been attached to the stacker -- but I found a bottom metal piece and a nylon spacer thingie and wingnuts and more felt washers than I remembered having, so as long as it's okay to leave off the top metal washer, I can hang a ride cymbal. So far so good ... Then I found my good clutch, but couldn't remember which hi-hat stand it fits on. And startled myself with the thought, "How did I wind up having multiple hi-hat stands to keep track of, when I'm only sortakinda a drummer?" (I think I have three, but I need to search under boxes in the living room to find out for sure.) Then again, I've got a fair bit of bronze in the really heavy round bag (less than I'd like, but...), and I had quite the assortment of sticks before the theft, so it fits the pattern. (Hey, ever notice that nobody seems to play a low-hat any more? I don't think I've even seen one in a catalog, only in old photos.) Then I went to set up the Roto-Toms, and noticed two things: first, that it's been so long since I sat behind the full kit that I can't remember where everything has to go for me to reach it all comfortably, so I'll need a bunch of trial-and-error time to work out a configuration; and second, that I no longer have a drum key, which is needed to adjust the height of the Roto-Tom stand. Whoops. Add that to the shopping list ...

Then I got dizzy from making too many trips between the first floor and the third floor carrying stuff, and decided to inflict my thought processes on y'all for a few minutes. It was the "which hi-hat stand does the good clutch fit on" that threw me into a "write this down" headspace. I still want to arrange amplifiers and guitar stands and chairs. But once I feel rested I should probably switch to other parts of my to-do list.

All of this reminded me that when I was in a music store recently to buy drumsticks, I looked at the stick bags. Of the pair that got stolen, one was part of a package deal on eBay and the other (IIRC) was a freebie with a music store logo on it that I got when buying a cymbal or something. So I was a bit surprised and disappointed when I saw how much it costs to buy a stick bag. I think I'll find a way to do without that particular convenience until another free one comes my way.

And wow, I am like chock full o' typos today. What's wrong with my fingers?

[*] Can I use that word when it was a vehicle, not a building, that was broken into?

One more bit about the music room, just in case it winds up amusing hobbitblue: Running a mandolin through a wah pedal sounds rather interesting, verging on the silly. Though the highest notes of "Rights Of Man" didn't leave the pedal a lot of overtones to work with, so the effect was considerably diminished on the notes that could've used it most dramatically. But in the low- and middle-range of the mandolin, I guess there's an especially rich mix of frequencies for the pedal to go nuts with.

(I'm betting that different models of wah pedal have different high-frequency limits, so a different pedal might be able to do something with those high notes ... but maybe not, if it would mean losing the effect on the low end. Hmm. Back-burner research project. It might be fun to take the mandolin into a few music stores to try out all the different wah pedals I can find. Hmm. I wonder whether anybody makes a digital super-wah with tweakable parameters and presets for most of the popular analog wahs. Turn a knob and it goes from being a bass-wah to a mandolin-wah, push a button and it turns into a T-wah ... it would make sense to include on a rack-mount multi-effects unit with a multi-function pedal, but I've never looked closely at any multi-effects boxes except the one madbodger loaned me (which I need to go through all the settings on again to see whether it can do a particular effect I've been hearing in my head that I want to use). Y'know, there are times I really wish I had EE-fu.)

And in the "I should have remembered that" category -- hey, it's been quite a while since I stuck a battery in that pedal -- trying to use a wah pedal while sitting in too low a chair is not good. Gotta use a taller chair or stand up.

I still need to get the electric mandolin refretted so I can play G# again. (If I try to play G# at the 6th fret on the 3rd course, one string plays G# and the other plays a rather buzzy A. Very much not-good.)