Seasongs Greetings From Sound Out Loud... (feat. a Beatles Christmas)

Just because I'm jewish doesn't mean I cant celebrate the birth of our true lord and savior.  Well at least thats what my this guy yelling on the street told me.  I am tempted to believe him, I mean why shouldn't I?  Should the opportunity Christmas provides be that exclusive? Shouldn't succumbing to the pressures of social obligation and consumerism in order to shamelessly curry favor among our closest friends and family be a global right?  An opportunity, a time of renewal when we can admit our wrongs with the veil of sincerity that only the "Holiday Spirit"could provide to even our most proud and childish actions of self preservation.  Like that time you made fun of your Aunt Gladys's goiter at Thanksgiving in order to ensure that the whole family knew that YOU, had the best joke about the abnormal protuberance on her neck.  Now only a month later one has the perfect opportunity for a most appropriate apology, while maintaining your untouchable reputation, and without the worry of having to sound like you mean it.  In fact it may be the perfect opportunity to include an inconspicuous slight, referring to her unusually large jowls or perhaps her gluten allergy.  A sample apology for this situation could go:

"Hey Aunt Gladys, I am so glad I could see you this year for Christmas.  I think the goiter is looking much better now actually, and that necklace makes it almost unnoticeable.   I really hope that we can forget about the comment I made over Thanksgiving.  I would hate it if the memory of my immaturity was to ruin this years Christmas, I even made special effort to find gluten free flour, so as not to repeat last years bloating incident. "

Yes, let the season do the talking.  No one wants to be blamed for "ruining the holidays" by holding grudges because of something frivolous or especially  something they are told is frivolous.  This is the lesson that people of all races, religions, and ethnicities from the whole world take to heart at Christmas time: forgetting all wrong doing  in order to come together and exalt mighty Jesus, despite the heinous problems of accuracy still plaguing current editions of his biography.  So while we go forth through this holiday season keep my advice in mind.  Go repair some burnt bridges, so as to burn them again.  This season, is a veritable playground for all the malevolent self-interested games you know you love to play.  But why should you create a scene in the middle of dinner and deal with everyones immediate scorn, when you can assert your unreasonable sense of entitlement not on but through Christmas, to New Years, and well into easter by learning some false sincerity, all while behaving in accordance to your obvious superior standing.

-Sound Out Loud


Seasons Greetings From The Beatles - The Beatles (1964)

Happy X-Mas(War is Over) - John Lennon


(For all Beatles Christmas Recordings Click Here!!)

Gourmet's Best Cookies: A sweet goodbye.

Watch Cookie Monster Muppets Sesame Street Letter C in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Since this last November, Gourmet magazine has shut its presses.  This tragedy in the world of food journalism is both a telling sign of the times and a chilling reminder of Bon Appetite's monolithic presence as the cold indifferent journalistic face of big-agro and big-food-services(well....maybe not so much).  Anyways, to relive this magazines historic journey and explore the ever evolving American palate, they have posted a journey through the best cookies of the past 70 years.  Because of my particular geography, I am deciding to single out the black and white cookie as a recipe to post.

MINI BLACK-AND-WHITE COOKIES

MAKESABOUT 5 DOZEN COOKIES

• ACTIVE TIME:1 HR
 
• START TO FINISH:1 1/2 HR

DECEMBER 2005

The unofficial cookie of New York City is shrunken down to dainty proportions just right for the holiday dessert tray. Using a pastry bag with a 1/2-inch tip, pipe rounds 2 inches apart.

This is just one of Gourmet’s Favorite Cookies: 1941-2008. Although we’ve retested the recipes, in the interest of authenticity we’ve left them unchanged: The instructions below are still exactly as they were originally printed.

FOR COOKIES

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg

FOR ICINGS

• 2 3/4 cup confectioners sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 to 6 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

• 
  

  SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: 

  a small offset spatula
  
  

MAKE COOKIES:

• Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 2 large baking sheets.
  
  
  
  
• Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together buttermilk and vanilla in a cup.
  
  
  
  
• Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then add egg, beating until combined well. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and buttermilk mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, and mixing just until smooth.
  
  
  
  
• Drop rounded teaspoons of batter 1 inch apart onto baking sheets. Bake, switching positions of sheets halfway through baking, until tops are puffed, edges are pale golden, and cookies spring back when touched, 6 to 8 minutes total. Transfer to a rack to cool.
  
  

MAKE ICING WHILE COOKIES COOL:

• Stir together confectioners sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl until smooth. If icing is not easily spreadable, add more water, 1/2 teaspoon at a time. Transfer half of icing to another bowl and stir in cocoa, adding more water, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, to thin to same consistency as vanilla icing. Cover surface with a dampened paper towel, then cover bowl with plastic wrap.
  
  
  
  

ICE COOKIES:

• With offset spatula, spread white icing over half of flat side of each cookie. Starting with cookies you iced first, spread chocolate icing over other half.
  
  
  COOKS’ NOTE: Once icing is dry, cookies keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 4 days.
  

An Audio Representation:

Black and White World - Elvis Costello

Avante Undergrad: the Undergraduate Composers Concert

So last night we had the undergraduate composers' concert in the Silver Building at NYU.  This is the highly anticipated recording of our concert that I made.  If anyone else in the class has recordings let me know if/where you post them online.
To those of you who weren't in attendance this recording is the culmination of my principals of composition course that I took this past semester.  It was a great night with a great array of different sounds and insights into the compositional process. Thanks a lot to prof. Kampela for being such a dedicated instructor and everyone in the class for providing your insight.  It was great seeing what we all did this semester, I wish you all the best with your music in the future!

Introduction

A Display of Mackerel - Adam Waller

To Whom it May Concern...

(or: To the Customer Service Dept. at Shoe Mania in Union Square) - Joshua Cahan

Fluid Foliage - Nana Kaneko

Sunrise Blinding - Melisa Magrath

But you have a song - Christine Malvasi

Flutequartet Paralysis - Chris Shim

A Transfigured Home - David Aragona

This is what I wrote about my piece:

First and foremost I would like to thank prof. Kampela for guiding us all along our way with our pieces.  Without his direction, insight and gentle critical hand my piece, to its detriment, would not have taken the form it did.  To Whom it May Concern... is about ideas and memory.  About the places we go in our mind that excite and intrigue us.  Whether writing a letter or composing a piece of music, turning conception into representation at any level requires fluency, logic, and the common decency of art.  But what occurs between an idea and its eventual representation; the carving, the molding, the frustration, inspiration, and resultant feelings involved are all part of the creative process.

The mysticism with which the creative process is represented, as being ascribed to genius or the result of an opportunity, I feel dilutes the emotional journey involved in art, science, or even something as mundane as writing a letter.  Roland Barthes speaks of Einstein as being popularly characterized by his simultaneously magical and mechanical brain.  This places the realm of creativity relegated to a gifted few at one end and tediously manufactured by drones. at the other.  Neither is true in my mind.  My conception of conception, so to speak, is closer to that of a feeling grounded by experience, delving into the essence of ones intuition. That making and recognizing beauty is an act of involving oneself in ones undertakings speaks to the very impulse of art, thought, and science. Which is what I attempt to represent and present with To Whom it May Concern... .

As a mind begins putting idea to paper, knowledge from all areas are drawn upon, compared, related, and prioritized.  Often we prepare, but if we are ruminating over the years or days we meander through our momentary recollections. If, through our efforts, we are lucky enough to land upon something exciting or intriguing (regardless of intellectual weight, revolutionary implication, or even individualism), pride bubbles through in that we can now hold on to a new facet that may have never appeared weren't it for the chance encounter of mind, effort, and experience within ourselves.  Confusion, anxiety, rays of hope, and (in the case of this piece) triumphant conclusion are all part of the story of art, science, faith, relationships, and study.  Day in day out.  Sense, common sense, and uncommon sense are all manifested through  passion and insight - always producing, jotting down, remembering, reconciling, relating and often times relenting, walking through a world with ones head blissfully above the clouds, but only if we listen...

                                               piano m.26