Daft Musings

Presidential candidate Barack Obama recently said “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.” He’s been criticized for that comment, but I agree with him. As I’ve found, having to put up with gringo efforts at Spanish (like mine) encourages Latino immigrants to pull out and practice their English much better than speaking English does.

For several months now, the local day laborers, the night janitor in Peter’s office building, the strawberry man, and my neighbors and their friends have had their social skills tested by my Spanish, which came from an aborted series of lessons with Auralog, a library book called Spanish for Gringos (without the audio portion), and children’s television shows. Guess what?! Everyone realized their English, as limited as it may be, was worlds better than my Spanish, and they had nothing to be embarrassed about. Soon we were communicating just fine, and I learned some salsa dance steps to boot.

In fact, at times, their English may be even more understandable than mine. For instance, I can never get the pronounciation of nut names right. Is it k-SHOE, or CASH-oo; PEE-can, or P-kawn? No matter what I say, people don’t know what I’m talking about. A native Spanish speaker speaking English, however, will say “thees nut, it ees the nut from Brazeel,” or “thees nut, eet comes from Texas.” Charming and comprehensible, so why speak Spanish?

Most Americans (at least here in the West) have had some Spanish in high school, but won’t speak it, because they know it’s so awful. But honestly, fellow Americans, pull that near-forgotten knowledge out and spring it on some unsuspecting day laborer when he least expects it! Barack Obama is right: speak Spanish! That’ll teach the immigrants how important it is to speak English in America; it’s the only thing that will save their beautiful language from horrible abuse.

Last night, Peter and I went to San Francisco to see Stan Ridgway perform at the Great American Music Hall. It was one of the most enjoyable concerts I’ve seen in a long time, and the acoustics at the Great American Music Hall (which I’d never been in before) were great.

I haven’t really been in a going out to San Francisco mood ever since gas prices took a stratospheric jump, and I was even dragging my feet on this concert. I generally dislike having to see opening bands, and I remember many a show not even beginning until an hour after the scheduled show time. Peter reminded me I was still in a 90s frame of mind. I had to remind myself that this decade in music concerts in much better: the opening acts aren’t always an insult to the audience, and most shows start on time, instead of having the band you wanted to see finally appear 4 hours after the scheduled start.

The opening band (and there was only one) was Penelope Houston, whom I didn’t know, but whom Peter recognized vaguely as the lead singer from a seminal San Francisco punk band, The Avengers. By the time we arrived, she’d already gone on stage, and she surprised us both (pleasantly) with how amazingly good she was. She’s evolved into an alt-country singer with impressive musicianship both in herself and her band. And the lyrics were edgy, like these from one of my favorites among those I heard, Pale Green Girl. Penelope Houston’s playing a zither these days, and she kicks musical a**.

She was a good opener for Stan Ridgway, who opened with “Factory” and joked that he was going to bring us all those feel-good songs of the New Wave era. He followed that up with his film noir song “Peg and Pete and Me,” which is still going through my head. The show followed that vein throughout the night, with Stan Ridgway occasionally singing out “Walking on Sunshine” to remind us that there was never anything frothy about his songs. Unfortunately, though Peter’s been seeing Stan Ridgway since the late 80s, I’d only seen him once before when he played at Slim’s in 2006. I had to ask Peter if Ridgway had always been as quirky as he was on stage, and Peter said he’s pretty much been the same kind of guy, but his fans are getting a little more eccentric (us included, probably.) It seems to be a tradition for someone (or perhaps a tradition for a small group of fans) to send Stan vodka martinis. Does this only happen in San Francisco, or does he get vodka martinis all over the world? He received three drinks while he was performing, though he only had time to take a polite sip from each.

This show was set up with chairs and tables for the audience, which was a surprise, since I’m used to open venues in which I’m shoved about near the front of the stage. But the Great American Music Hall is a small venue, so even seated, the show had a pleasant, intimate feel, and the people who wanted to dance just gathered on either side of the stage. And as I said, the acoustics were great: I could hear both Stan Ridgway and Penelope Houston clearly, and I’m used to having to decipher lyrics through garbled sound.

So in all, the concert turned out to be even better than I expected: it was a nice crowd, an intimate feel, great acoustics, and even a worthy opening act.

When the San Francisco Symphony played at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in October, I thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime treat. So I was incredibly thrilled to find out they were putting on another free concert on Tuesday: and now it’s just foosteps away from our office.

In a way, the outdoor concerts are nicer for families than a symphony hall. If you come early enough, you can sit where you want, and if you just want to enjoy the music and not sit at all, you can hear it throughout the park. Like us, most people brought a picnic to enjoy with the music.

I enjoyed the conductor for this concert, James Gaffigan, because he was less restrained than the conductor at the last concert. I liked that because when music is played well, it’s passionate, and it should move you. In fact, it seems a little wrong to stick people in seats and expect them to sit quietly and hold their applause when they’re listening to music with such drama. My father would play maniac conductor to Schumann music and my cousin would dance to Mozart (at home, not in concert halls), and at most of the concerts Peter and I go to, the musicians are happy to see their fans dancing. But then, I’m an uncivilized, untutored music fan, and my end of the family’s no better. To wit, the audio system was playing Tchaikovsky before the show, and Kelly joined some boys and danced to it:

When the orchestra took the stage, we made her sit down and be quiet, and she complained about being bored, even though two of the pieces were from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Number 4.

My favorite of all the selections was the opening piece, the overture to La forza del destino by Joe Green, the Opera Machine, a.k.a Giuseppi Verdi. it’s just the sort of cheesy melodrama completely devoid of subtlety that I love in my classical music. It made me want to get on a horse and do a swordfight. But then it was over. Next the symphony took us in a different direction with Dvorak’s Allegro con fuoco from Symphony Number 9. And last, as I mentioned before, there were two selections from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Number 4: really pretty pieces (duh, Tchaikovsky) that highlighted the different sections of the symphony. Peter enjoyed this feature especially. I think the bassoonist rocked it, but ok, I’m just being crude and uncultured again, I guess (though he did rock it).

As before, it was highly appreciated and well received by the culture vultures of San Jose: the symphony received standing ovations after every piece. Here is the conductor and the violin section of the symphony taking one of their bows in front of the crowd:

Peter had discovered that his camera was missing its card, but also that a new video camera he’d just bought was in his backpack. So, mostly to check the camera’s audio quality, he recorded some of the concert (there weren’t any signs forbidding it). As it turns out, video taping the concert was not allowed, so afterwards, someone from the symphony politely but firmly made sure Peter erased the tapings. I just gushed on about how delighted I’d been to see the symphony again. I entered the drawing to win free concert tickets, but I think my odds of winning are slim, given all the other fans who dearly wanted them, too. So I hope we’ll be lucky to see the orchestra in the park again sometime in San Jose.

My friend and college roommate Nancy emailed me her list of seven songs she’s into right now. For some reason (even though she likes to write), she doesn’t have a website of her own. Here’s her list:

“Down to Earth” by Peter Gabriel (from the soundtrack to “Wall-E.”)

“1492,” “Hanging Tree,” “When I Dream of Michaelangelo,” and “You Can’t Count on Me,” by Counting Crows, from “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings”
“Living Well is the Best Revenge” and “Until the Day is Done” by REM, from “Accelerate.”

She added “I know that’s seven, but if I can cheat and add an eighth, ‘The Stowaway,’ by Murray Gold, performed by Yamit Mamo, from the season three soundtrack of Doctor Who.”

And yes, guys, now you know there is a str8, single, slender attractive blonde out there who likes Doctor Who. Why she’s still single, Peter and I only speculate. Peter thinks maybe her favorite Doctor Who is the lame one (whichever one that is), thus creating a Doctor Who incompatibility problem with less esoteric Doctor Who fans. Or maybe there are no male Doctor Who fans in all of New England, because they’ve all flown to Great Britain in search of the elusive female Doctor Who fan. Or maybe Nancy doesn’t like male Doctor Who fans… I don’t know! And her list just reminded me of this conundrum.

I do go on and on about how jazzed we are to have our offices downtown now. We end up seeing a lot more of downtown San Jose, and there’s always more fun to be had.

The weekend before, we’d gone downtown to see the fireworks and thanks to our office building, were able to drive in half an hour before the fireworks show and enjoy our parking downtown. Afterwards, we had the comfort of being able to stash our stuff in our office and stroll to Pizza My Heart, enjoy a snack, and wait out the massive jam of people trying to leave. On our way out, Peter bought group discount tickets (and advance tickets for The Dark Knight) at the Camera 12 Cinemas, because now he and his staff can walk to see new comic book movies together.

And then for this week, Peter snagged discount tickets to the Thursday night show at the San Jose Rep, The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s All the Great Books (Abridged.) We left Kelly with a sitter, but took Neil, since his education is, after all, based on the great books. Walking over to the rep, we walked through the Pete Escovedo concert in the plaza. Neil had no idea who he was, and Peter just made it worse my telling him he’s Sheila E.’s dad. If they’re not in Guitar Hero or on one of my alt-rock stations, Neil’s never heard of them. I told him Pete Escovedo is a legendary salsa musician.

But we had come to see a play, not a concert. Needless to say, All the Great Books (Abridged) was funny, erudite, and even better if you were familiar with the books. As far as I’m concerned, their synopsis of Ulysses was probably better than you’d get in a lit class–and took a lot less time. There was some improv, and at one point, the actors rolled with a tangent so long they had trouble getting back to the script. I was worried about how much Neil would enjoy the play, but he loved it. In fact, he asked to see the books on the “class syllabus” and I pulled all the classics we had from our shelves. As a result, when he left for scout camp yesterday, he’d read half way through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The next day Friday, Neil, Kelly and I took light rail downtown for one of our regular “Day in San Jose” excursions. As it turned out, Peter never made it to his own office there, because he was too busy waiting in the interminable line for the new iPhone. I had a huge pile of books to return, so the kids and I went to the downtown library first, where I met up with my friend Michael. I dragged Michael along with us to the farmer’s market, where we each bought lunch, and I bought several pounds of seedless grapes to turn into raisins. Michael had to go back to work, but as it turns out, another friend showed up. Loretta had come by for the farmer’s market, too, so we hung out. Then I dressed Kelly in her bathing suit, and she splashed around in the fountains at Plaza de Cesar Chavez. Kelly wanted to see the Tech, so we fetched Neil (who’d just been reading in the office) and closed it down. Peter finally had an iPhone in hand (at the mall near our house) at 5 pm, so we took light rail home. He arrived home minutes after we did, and told us of the tale of horror, which involved several iPhones not being able to accept his cellphone plan, and an enviro-Nazi argument about how “green” the “green” iPhone cozies were. Really, if you care that much, just go live on a subsistence farm already, will you? That said, the iPhone is pretty cool. Neil doesn’t have a cell phone, but he was bonding with the iPhone so avidly, if he had one, he’d want the iPhone.

Tomorrow Kelly and I are going to see the San Francisco Symphony perform in the Circle of Palms. So San Jose’s giving us a pretty good summer close to home.

When I went to Germany in February, Peter and I discovered Skype. It’s so much fun that it inspired Peter to buy us (as well as his parents) high-quality web cams, and upgrade my computer so it could handle said webcams. Like other technologies we’ve embraced, it’s so revolutionary that it by far surpasses other forms of communication. When Peter wanted to add some Amazon gift certificates he’d just received at home into his Amazon account while he was at work, I just had to hold them up to the camera so he could read them, instead of me having to carefully read them out. The grandparents laughed to see Neil still in his pajamas at noon; without Skype they never would have known. And yes, while using Skype we are beginning to be increasingly aware that we are broadcasting ourselves so there’s certain things we can’t do which we could get away with on a phone. And did I mention that with Skype we can make videocalls around the world for free?

Recently, I discovered that the state-of-the-art webcam Peter sent me came with a set of video effects. This is the sort of thing non-geeks are terrified to witness. I pasted a video crown on my head. Peter found an avatar option and turned himself into a cartoon monster:

I laughed and laughed, and turned on the horror movie effect:

Peter tried being a totem pole Tikiman instead:

Yes, his lips and eyes really move when he talks! Well maybe I offended the Indians with my blog entry about the Stanford powwow, because now I found myself with an arrow through my head:

It didn’t hurt. Peter became a deep sea diver:

I showed him he could talk to the hand:

That is really my mouth and my left and right eyes superimposed on my hand. Peter decided to go incognito:

Later I had to call him back to show him my nose job:

Look at my piggy nose! I have a piggy nose! We went on and on like that in geeky glee. Peter even downloaded more effects, avatars, and accessories online. I laughed myself to tears.

Unfortunately, the avatars and accessories only work when a single person is in front of the camera, and unless Peter and I are talking directly to each other, our Skype calls are usually a group broadcast, complete with dancing children, pointless gymnastics, and endless attempts to fix the lighting. So get Skype, it’s fun! Well, at least for us. And if you don’t want to see a laughing woman with a piggy nose, you can always turn off the video reception on your end–we won’t know!

This morning, I got up early to go to the DMV office downtown in order to pick up my new vanity license plates:

Peter and I ordered it after Wizard World LA reminded us about how we feel about the big city down south. And I’ll be driving it through LA in, um, just about a week from now.

Thanks to James Hudnall for discovering “Gorbachov: The Music Video.” If this isn’t everything I’ve ever wanted in a music video…..

Socialist realist imagery! Zombie Stalins! Super Conan the Barbarian Gorbachov! Russian folk music interlude! Conspicuous consumer glee! Tacky sexual innuendo! It’d be even better if the Russian singers were singing it in Russian, but at least this way you can enjoy it, too:

GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.

Here’s the band’s MySpace page.

Joel just tagged me to list 7 songs I’m into right now, or actually 7 songs I’m listening to now, whether I like them or not. I haven’t been listening to music as much as I usually do, since a) I’m driving a lot less, and b) I’m busy homeschooling Neil. But I could still come up with 7 songs which are definitely on my current playlist.

1) “Let’s All Dance to Joy Division” by the Wombats. I’m so happy this song has finally hit American radio. Come on, everyone, let’s all dance to Joy Division! Whoo, they’re so fun!

2) Symphonie Fantastique, Fifth Movement by Hector Berlioz. I swear, I am not being some classic music snob by this choice. My music appreciation teacher turned me on to this symphony in the first place, and now I’m revisiting it, thanks to the Fundamentals of Music Course I’m making Neil listen to. From thecol legno bouncing of bows on violins to mimic the sounds of dancing skeletons in a graveyard and the distorted Dies Arie as sung by ghosts, it’s a goth fest. And it has all the over-sentimental drama I love in my favorite classical composers. Turns out Neil loves it too. In short, la Symphonie Fantastique rocks.

3) “Do the Panic” by Phantom Planet. I can’t explain why I like this band, but I just have since their first album. This, like other of their best songs, is insipid, yet deep, with that inexplicable Californian cool. As soon as I heard it, I had to download it.

4) “Santa Monica” by Everclear. It’s a summer song. It’s about going to the beach to escape your woes! It’s Everclear. What more do I need to say?

5) “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. I was at a party yesterday and some sixteen year olds were singing the song amongst themselves. I said, “I know that song. OMG, it’s so totally 80s!” And then we all looked at each other and were totally mortified.

6) “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay. I loathe Coldplay. Specifically, I loathe Chris Martin, because he is so incredibly P.C. and pathetically sincere. But it caught my attention with “the king is dead, long live the king,” and the whole (maybe) tie-in to medieval history. So I love hearing it, but I still reserve the right to hate Coldplay.

7) “No Handlebars” by The Flobots. I thought of it as a Spring song, because it was in heavy rotation then. But now that Neil and Kelly are singing “I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handlebars” as we’re walking to the bus (or light rail) stop, it’s definitely a summer song. Ironic, though, that they’re singing about biking as they’re walking. Wishful singing?

Peter and I briefly toyed with describing the next few years of Neil’s education as “a classical education at home” or “going to a very exclusive private school.” We just wanted to separate ourselves from the unfortunate conception of homeschooling as forcing our child to be cloistered away from all society with only a Bible as text, with homemade clothes and a bad haircut. Certainly, we got enough flak from some people indicating that’s what they thought we were going to be doing to Neil for the next few years, and we were (and are) both sick and tired of having to explain that no, Neil would be taught with a neo-classical curriculum, primarily because he’s so academically precocious most public and private school systems can’t serve him correctly. And yes, it’s ok that I don’t have a teacher’s degree; I’m registered with the State of California Department of Education as a private school, which is supportive of homeschooling. Until and unless they tell me otherwise, what I’m doing is legal.

As it turns out, anyone and everyone could see through our euphemism, and no matter what we called it, their conception of homeschooling remained intact. They either thought it was a ruse for anti-social Bible-thumpers (or something even more nefarious); or recognized it as an option for the very bright and/or individualistic. And as it turned out, at least around here, their opinion about homeschooling runs almost exactly on generational lines.

Those of our parents’ age and slightly younger think homeschooling is an out for freaks and weirdos, and no one in their right mind could opt for it. On the other hand, you have to realize they (and probably even most of their older children) went to different schools, with different values, and different curriculum. Back in the day, there wasn’t much support or even information about homeschooling, and as a result almost the only people who opted for it were people who were on the fringe, and connected to a non-mainstream community. I respect these early homeschoolers, because it certainly took a lot of courage to be pioneers, but back in the 60s and 70s, the California public school curriculum was closer than today’s to my own curriculum, and it was still acceptable to pull out the brightest children and put them into separate, more-accelerated classes.

On the other hand, my own peers are surprisingly knowledgeable about homeschooling and its various facets, even though most of them have opted into (and are happy with) the public schools or the private school of their choice. As I found out, many of them have had personal encounters with homeschooling, either in the form of people in their community who homeschool, or even having been homeschooled for a brief period in their own education. They are hip to the news stories about homeschoolers who win national competition after national competition, be in the National Spelling Bee, The Geometry Bee, Math Counts, the Odyssey Connection and so on. If they knew Neil, they understood my reasons for homeschooling instantly. For them, homeschooling was one of several reasonable educational option they considered, and, even though they opted against it personally, it wasn’t odd. And I can understand their choice to stick with an educational institution, too. After all, when classroom education is good, it can be very, very good, especially for a child who needs peer motivation and challenge.

So even as I find acceptance among many more people than I expected, it continues to be frustrating with people who think homeschooling is for weirdos only. Peter envisions the day when even more people will homeschool. Once there are more of us, especially with students like Neil (smart and social), the mainstream perception will change, and we won’t have to explain our methods and reasons for homeschooling to those who don’t understand and don’t want to accept it.