With the new Mel Gibson "Passion" movie, there's been all this furor (or must it be furore) over antisemitism and "Jewish guilt over the crucifixion." I'm reluctant to comment on something so topical and controversial, but after presenting my case to a few acquaintances I feel safe that it is at least not totally asinine.

What I can't understand is why anyone would actually feel guity for the crucifixion, or why a Christian would be angry at anyone for it. If you were there for it, I could understand feeling guilty afterward, but now, the crucifixion has become practically the basis for the whole religion! Can you imagine what Christianity would be if it hadn't happened? A friend suggested sermons like "Jesus would have died for your sins, if given the opportunity" or perhaps "Jesus died of natural causes at a ripe old age...for your sins!" Certainly that one event not taking place wouldn't change (in the Christians' idea of God's eyes) the fundamental sinfulness of humans, so I don't think a Christian would believe that we'd all be living in the garden of Eden. Would Jesus have had the chance to convince the whole world of who he was while alive? Beyond here it gets difficult to contemplate, especially with my paucity of Biblical knowledge, and the ridiculousness of it all. But if anyone has ideas of how it might have turned out, or explanations of the anger and guilt that still supposedly exist, I welcome them. The idea of the crucifixion never happening might also make a good humorous story, perhaps a Dan Bern song.

Of course for the purposes of this entry I am ignoring the meaninglessness of Jesus, or anyone else who happens to be both God and God's son, "dying."

This week I've developed with newfound regularity the habit of waking up to my alarm, thinking about what I should do (i.e. my morning routine), then falling back asleep and dreaming through the whole routine. This leaves me quite confused when I wake up again. Usually the dreams intersperse the routine with other typical dream material. One night this week, it was a concert featuring conducting by Evgeny Kissen, a famous pianist, and rapping by Speed Levitch. After his performance, Speed came over and talked to me. Since I had last seen him he had grown to a monstrous height, at least seven feet. As he towered over me Speed showed me his collection of hats and visors by pulling them out of nowhere one at a time and putting them on. I was going through my morning routine this whole time.

The next night, I was trying to photograph two goats who were lying next to one another in a cute pose that looked sort of drunken, and they happened to be in front of two giant bottles of some alcoholic beverage. I was using my digital camera. When I tried to press the button, I couldn't find where it was, and when I finally found it, there was a bad noise that definitely did not indicate a picture being taken. Meanwhile one of the goats had taken a giant bottle of alcohol in its mouth and was taking swigs from it, adding to my frustration that the camera wasn't working. Someone nearby suggested that my film was stuck. Somehow this didn't seem like a contradiction, so I opened the back and sure enough I hadn't wound the film forward enough. I did and closed it back up. Of course the goats had gone away.

* * *

Today was one of those days that makes one feel as if comments about how strange and wacky things are in other countries are quite meaningless, because often things just as strange are found here. It was "employee appreciation day' for the hospital, which meant a special free lunch for us. But apparently employees need something more than just that to feel appreciated, because they had hired people to make it a theme party, the theme decidedly being a mix of about 70 percent 1960s and 30 percent 1970s. There were people dressed up as Austin Powers and a Fembot, lots of "groovy" wall hangings and furniture, lava lamps, and a DJ playing disco music. The Austin Powers guy had some serious work to do on his accent, but he had the mannerisms down. The Fembot assaulted us with psychedelically colored handkerchiefs, and berated us for not having breastpockets to put them in. Inside there was a lot of shouting to keep moving through the food line. Then in the middle of that a guy walked up to one of my coworkers and presented him with a survey about whether or not he liked the party's "Seventies theme" and how appreciated he felt. On the way out I was again accosted by the Fembot, who was actually at least 55 years old, and told to put my crazy handkerchief around my head. Well I sure feel appreciated.

Spent this weekend recording up at Z's house, somewhere in New York that is not the city. This means new recordings fairly soon, the first that are not being produced for a video game in about 10 months. This is the first time I've enjoyed the combination of being able to use real drums, a good-sounding room to record in, and being able to take my time with the process. In high school I had the first and third. In most of college I had the second and third. During the two all-nighters in my dorm's music practise room when I recorded "Sleepynotes," I had the first and second. Since college ended I've had only the third, and that just wouldn't do anymore. Having someone else there to provide a break from my own mind and musical tendencies (and several songs of his own) is something I've mostly done without before. Very excited about the results of these sessions, although what exactly will happen to the songs once they are done is uncertain as always. To make the transition to something like a real band, we need what has always eluded me--a drummer who can really play our songs properly, and is not myself.

We took a break from recording to spend an evening with a couple who seemed to show the only signs of life in the area, and how lively they were. The way they talked recalled the dialogue of a certain kind of movie--fast-paced, constantly telling bits and pieces of stories with no context nor explanation given to the audience. Somewhere in there, there was a bit I understood about a student who, asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, wrote that he felt he couldn't possibly know yet, and received a failing grade on the assignment. When they recited their phone number and started with 5, I for a moment expected them to continue "5-5-5..." The movielike atmosphere was only enhanced when we went to a bizarre hotel and cabaret, then left after two songs when we were asked to pay the $15 admission despite the lack of seating available and our drink orders. On the way out, we stocked up on the foyer's supply of candies that looked like peppermints but were actually fruit-flavoured, a wonderful surprise.

* * *

I finally finished my Ring Modulator pedal. I had planned a series of photos showing the construction, but they got erased in a not-properly-ejecting-the-device accident. Then I lost momentum and stopped working on it for a few weeks. Amazingly, it's actually still not finished--I await a closed-circuit stereo jack for the expression pedal that will control the frequency knob when plugged in, and a 3PDT switch to allow the presence of an LED without sacrificing true bypass. But, for visual purposes:

It is definitely the kind of pedal that one must build a song around, rather than apply as an enhancement to an existing song, due to its atonal and abrasive sounds. But for those purposes, it will do just fine.

Walking with several acquaintances on the upper west side, we suddenly have the idea of a team walking race to somewhere downtown. Then by some twist of conversation this turns into an art contest, in which each team (we divide the group into 2) must build dioramas of our 6 favorite features of Central Park, and we will then judge the team that produced the best quality models. I have no idea how we're going to do this in one day, but who am I to rain on the collective parade, and so off we go to wander the park picking out our 6 favorite things.

The features of the park I had thought I remembered fondly seemed suddenly absent, but there were many new things that we saw on our slightly hurried walk: statues of Archimedes and many others, a giant stone disc. I was scrambling to write each one in a notebook for consideration for our collection. We came to a nature museum with an open glass helical construction. Coming into it through a ramp a few stories up, we saw many 3-D models of different animals, with different kingdoms on each floor. One of my teammates remarked of a flounder model or some other fish that it was one of her favorites and should be one of our dioramas, but I scoffed, saying it was just one of hundreds of animal models in this museum and really nothing special. Then my teammates went walking away while I examined something and I lost track of them. Oh great, I thought, how are we ever going to get this done now? I left the museum on the bottom floor and noticed that at this entrance they were demanding a lot of identification for entry, as if people were trying to get on an airplane or obtain a driver license. I thought about informing them that this was rather pointless because we had been able to get in through the ramp without going through any security, but, I didn't want to rock the boat.

Wandering some more, I came to a very strange place that looked like an ancient hanging garden with lots of high stone walls covered with carvings and moss. A voice spoke of one of the great treasures of the Park, a great majestic animal: the flamingo. And sure enough, that's when I saw one. Walking some more, I came to an outlook over a huge open area containing what appeared to be extremely deep, swampy pools of water. In each pool there were a couple of giant flamingos standing upright with their feet on the bottom. They had to be about 30 to 40 feet tall, although it was difficult to tell the depth of the water. The giant ones would wade/stomp through the pool menacingly, then plunge their heads down to the bottom, where several tiny one or two-foot tall babies were sitting, apparently able to breathe. They would scurry out of the way every time the giants came down on them. I wondered if my memory of normal flamingo size had been so wrong, then spotted some that fit that description in another, much more shallow pool. They also seemed quite edgy and prone to chases. Well I had certainly found one of our dioramas. I pulled out my notebook to make some sketches. Just then I heard a distant rumbling, and looking behind me, realized my terrible mistake. Coming down the narrow path whence I had arrived was a pack of angry flamingos (the normal-sized kind) at full speed, with pink feathers flying and a terrible collective noise. How could I have been so foolish as to think they would not observe my presence? No time to consider that now, for all I can do is run. Around a corner, into a tunnel. Light ahead, but they are gaining fast, literally nipping at my heels. And then--

Today on a crowded subway train, I was standing and a woman in front of me was sitting, with one person in the seat directly on her left, another person on her right, and another two seats to her right. The person directly to her left was pretty skinny, and was sitting forward with most of his body not over the seat.

Then the person to her right got up. The person two seats to her right was a bit large, and taking up some of the now empty seat directly to the woman's right. The woman then quickly slid over to this newly empty but partly taken up seat, from the perfectly good one she had next to someone not even taking up their entire seat.

Two forces are at work here: one, giving her the right to slide around like that. Sitting is not good enough for people anymore. They have to be sitting in the best possible seat that's accessible by sliding from their current seat, as if they're in a one-dimensional version of those sliding board puzzles with one empty square. But why does she have the right to do this? Because there are two classes: the sitting, and the standing. As she is already sitting, she has first rights to any seat that becomes available (as long as she can get to it quickly enough). As a current stander, I only have the right to the seats that no sitter wants. Fortunately the social climb from stander to sitter is a quick one, even though it actually involves a physical descent.

Then there's two: given the right, why did she choose to move to a seemingly suboptimal seat? The most common slide is to a seat at the end of a row, so that one only has a neighbor on one side. But the seat she slid to was one away from that seat. It's possible that she want to be as close to the end as possible, in case she later got the opportunity to slide further. But on an express train heading into midtown during the morning rush hour, I find this much foresight unlikely. I think it's a case of grass-is-always-greener. People are getting so anxious to be in the optimal seat that they're taking any slide that becomes possible, like the desperate solver of those board puzzles who no longer trusts their own judgment, and simply moves the pieces around as much as possible in the hopes of stumbling toward a resolution.

When the woman made this seemingly bizarre move, the person she had been next to gave her a bit of a look, like 'what, do I smell bad?' He understood.