KGB Report by Kevin G. Barkes - Cleaning off the desktop

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Cleaning off the desktop
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Published Sunday, June 08, 2014 @ 8:45 AM EDT

Jun 08 2014

Cute. And it's real. Wonder if The Covert Comic is involved.?

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You don't see faith healers working in hospitals for the same reason you don't see psychics winning the lottery.
-Unattributed

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Daughter-in-law Angela introduces granddaughter Joelle to the wonders of Kennywood Park.

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You are not your big toe.

Much the same way you may notice pressure on your big toe and your toe may feel uncomfortable, you may notice distressing or uncomfortable thoughts, but that does not mean that you are distressed.

It may seem like strange advice, but do not believe everything you think. Thoughts impact how you feel, and, in turn, feelings impact your behavior. But, ultimately thoughts cannot make you do anything and do not define who you are. The better you can become at being aware of your thoughts and simply labeling them ("I'm having the thought…), the better you can recognize them for what they are- just thoughts.
-Clayton Cook

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At this point if Obama rescues a puppy from a burning building the puppy will be accused of having rabies.
-Andy Borowitz

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For the life of me I cannot fathom why we expect so much from teachers and provide them so little in return. In 1940, the average pay of a male teacher was actually 3.6 percent more than what other college-educated men earned. Today it is 60 percent lower. Women teachers now earn 16 percent less than other college-educated women. This bewilders me. … There was no Plato without Socrates, and no John Coltrane without Miles Davis.
-Bill Moyer

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73 percent of those enrolled in the country’s major public benefits programs are, in fact, from working families- just in jobs whose paychecks don’t cover life’s basic necessities. McDonald’s workers alone receive $1.2 billion in federal assistance per year.
-www.thenation.com

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I always thought the brass section's errors in James Horner's main theme to Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars were cost-related; studio musicians sight-reading, only enough time for two or three takes. Then I started listening to other versions, including the Prague Philharmonic's. (They're noted for their competent- if uninspired- covers of motion picture scores.) A train wreck. Actually, two train wrecks: a minor one at the beginning, and in the end title reprise, the brass section more or less gives up, unable to complete the unrelenting 8-bar, 192-note bridge to the main fanfare.

It turns out this was Horner's first motion picture score, and he apparently forgot that horn players actually need to breathe once in a while. Filmtracks.com said the piece "was simply too complex for the musicians to perform."

Horner borrowed a lot from this score in what many consider to best effort, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He'd learned his lesson, though. He reassigned most of the lung-busting stuff to the string section, and let the French horns come up for air every two bars or so.

The other day I stumbled across a site selling the piano sheet music for the Battle Beyond the Stars main theme. The description notes, "there are a couple of measures which feature out of reach notes which have been left in the transcription as they better support the piece, and can be omitted or included at the performer’s discretion."

Below is a link to the theme- with the unreachable notes- produced on a midi synthesizer. It's probably the only way you'll ever be able to hear it, as written, with no performance errors. And note how much Horner reuses many of these phrases in his later work.

Battle Beyond the Stars main theme, performed on a midi piano synthesizer.

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June is National Accordion Awareness Month. National Carpenter Ant Awareness Week starts June 22. Some problems tend to solve themselves.
-Zay Smith, "QT"