Rock autobiography book reviews

As rockers age they like to publish their autobiographies.  Here are nine, in order of best to worst

1. Rod Stewart (Rod: the autobiography).  He’s funny!   Rod does not take himself seriously and is a great story teller.  He does not bore you with a long description of his childhood.  I’m not a huge fan of his post Faces music but it was easy to like him.  To appreciate the book you should know who The Faces were and have heard of Jeff Beck and Maggie May.  No need to have an in depth knowledge of Rod’s material from the 80s, 90s or beyond.   He has excellent aside chapters on topics such as model trains and football.  He’s set it up so these are easy to skip.

2. Mike Love (Good vibrations, my life as a Beach Boy).  I like listening to the Beach Boys but am not a huge fan.  Nonetheless, this was a very entertaining book.  They’ve had lots of drama with rather different versions in other media.  Mike Love co-wrote many of their top hits with Brian Wilson but Wilson’s father Murray surreptitiously took control of their publishing rights.  For many songs, Love was not listed as co-author and received no royalties.   Meanwhile, Brian may or may not have been complicit.  He kept assuring Love he’d get songwriting credit and apparently knew what his father was up to.  However, by the late sixties Brian Wilson was so out of it after heavy drug use that he may not have had any idea what was going on.  The Beach Boys get into Transcendental Mediation and Love gets invited by Maharishi Yogi to his ashram in Rishikesh, India.  He’s also invited rock stars like The Beatles and Donovan hoping they’ll become instructors.  A good time is had by all.  Then there is the tale of Dennis Wilson and Charles Manson.  This is spooky.   Manson is trying to get into the music business; The Beach Boys have him in the studio, don’t do anything for him except record one of his songs and claim it as their own.  Manson and his entourage of babes make themselves at home in Dennis’s house.  Eventually, Dennis moves out and rents another house.  Later, their collaborator Terry Melcher moves in.  He is the son of Doris Day.  When she finds out he’s living in the house Dennis rented and Manson is on the prowl she gets him out of there.  Then the house is let to Roman Polanksi.  The Manson Family comes calling, looking for Dennis(?), for Melcher(?), but are happy to butcher Polanski’s family instead.  Yowsa!  I’m glad Manson is dead or I’d be having nightmares.  Finally, there is the saga of the very involved lawsuit by Mike Love against Brian Wilson to get publishing rights.  He wins and can claim damages to about $100 million.  He has Brian give him $5 million.  Although he’s the ultimate California flake, into horoscopes and other wacky things, we can’t help but love Love.

3. David Clayton Thomas (Blood, Sweat and Tears). Of all the autobiographies I’ve posted reviews for here, this is the only one that brought me to tears.  Some people think that if they did something as an adult that made them famous then everyone will be interested in their perfectly ordinary childhood. The worst offender here is Keith Richards. Clayton Thomas spends a lot of his book on his childhood and teen years but it may well be the best part of the story. His father was a mentally damaged World War Two vet and alcoholic (or just a very nasty asshole) and he made life very unpleasant for David, who even changed his last name to escape his father’s shadow. His tale of juvenile delinquency, reform school, and prison is riveting and terribly sad. You can get a summary in his song “Burwash” from his 2019 album Say Somethin’. After prison, he got over a tough  beginning, eventually graduating from street performance on Yonge Street in Toronto to playing the bars; then the Yorkville coffee houses and finally to Greenwich Village in New York. It wasn’t easy and Clayton Thomas was a hard working guy. The ride to the top of the charts with Blood, Sweat and Tears is glossed over rather quickly. The rest of the book is anticlimactic, as he spends three decades on the has been circuit rehashing his early songs in  increasingly crummy venues. When he finally throws off the shackle of those BS&T hits and emerges as a solo performer, it gives the book an uplifting finale.

4. Roger Daltrey (Thanks a lot, Mr. Kibblewhite).  Daltrey does not dwell especially on The Who.  He seems to be a very decent, hard working guy.  He’s quite modest and often quite funny.

5. Pete Townshend (Who I am).  Pete is the “thinking man” of rock and is pretty serious about things, especially sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and religion.  To enjoy his book you have to realise this is not a history of  The Who.   Various Who folk appear in the book, of course, but this is about Pete.  I’m a big fan of The Who and Pete’s solo work so this was an important book for me.  If you don’t know much about the music then this book probably won’t do much for you.

6. Dave Davies (Kink).  Dave comes across as a very sympathetic character, constantly tormented by his evil older brother Ray.  Well, he can tell the story however he likes.  This book is best for ardent Kinks fans.

7. Keith Richards (Life). He’s got some great stories to tell, starting with the prologue.  But, and this is a big but, he goes on and on in boring detail about his uninteresting childhood.   Best to skip these pages.  He should have read Rod’s book first.   So, some dull stuff to wade through but no one has been where Keith Richards has been.  Also, very helpful if you’re thinking of getting into drugs.

8. Neil Peart (Roadshow: Landscape With Drums).  Neil is the best drummer in the best band (Rush!) going today but his writing is a bit on the boring side.  He comes across as a bit of a wiener.  For example, he decides to travel to Rush gigs by motorcycle.  Okay, fine.  He also decides to visit U.S. National Parks along the way to get their special passport stamped.  Okay, fine.  But, he doesn’t even bother going into the parks.  He just rides up to the gate, gets his passport stamped and rides off.  At the Everglades NP they tell him it’s actually pretty cool inside but he won’t go in.   Good anecdote:  He’s in Switzerland and goes into a shop and says he needs a lock for his bicycle.  The shopkeeper tells him he doesn’t need a lock in Switzerland.  Neil says he’s riding into Italy the next day.  The shopkeeper says, “No lock can help you there.”

9. Eric Clapton (Clapton: the autobiography).  Clapton is my favourite guitarist.  That doesn’t mean he can write a good book.  The problem here is he preaches.  He did this much drugs and did this much drinking back in the bad old 70s and 80s but now he’s clean.  Hallelujah.  Boring.

Report critical of gangs for lack of racial integration

A new study released by the Canadian Centre for Racial Integration is very critical about the racial makeup of Canadian gangs.  Many gangs were mentioned in the report but it was particularly harsh on the Hells Angels.  The report noted that membership of the Hells Angels was over  90% “fat, white males with long hair”.  Orientals, blacks, and particularly women, were poorly represented.  Especially troubling was the complete lack of First Nations in this premier biker gang.  The Angels Chief Recruiting Officer is Ross Laperriere: “We’ve been, like, fucking trying to get some Indians but those fuckers never want to get into biking or drugs.   I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”  The Federal government has long had a program to encourage diversification in gangs but few of the outlaw groups have been taking part.  Incentives include discounts on Employment Insurance premiums and up to $5 per hour salary subsidies.  Laperriere was critical of the federal program, “Who gives a shit?  We moved more than $140 million worth of coke last year.  What’s five bucks an hour to hire some Chink or housewife?  Why don’t the feds do something useful for us like give us drug import licences or get out of jail passes?”

Also troubling was the dearth of female Hells Angels.  The gang claims 25% of its members are female but the authors of the Report say that nearly all of these women are merely “Associates” of male gang members.  This accounting dispute makes the gang ineligible for Employment Equity funding.  Eligible gangs can put in claims for dues reductions to encourage women to become full members.  The Ministry for Criminals, which commissioned the report, says that this federal program has been seriously under utilized.

While the Hells Angels have long had difficulties in their relationship with the federal government, the Quebec provincial government may soon cause them more trouble. The Quebec language commission is insisting the gang change their name to French, les Anges de l’enfer.  So far, the gang has refused to comply.

Another group singled out in the report was the Red Star drug trafficking gang in Surrey, whose membership is 100% Vietnamese.  Under a 1998 agreement between Victoria and Ottawa, gang jurisdiction in British Columbia is under provincial control.  The B.C. Government has put sanctions on the gang until it opens its membership to the community at large.  Sanita Utlange is the Minister responsible and says, “According to Ministry of Labour guidelines, the Red Star gang is a racist organisation.  Under its founding charter, all gang members must be of Vietnamese descent.  The organisation also conducts all of its business in Vietnamese.  This is considered discriminatory policy.”   While in the Ministry bad books the gang forfeits government subsidies usually available to small organisations to aid with bookkeeping.  Perhaps more important, the Red Star has lost its nonprofit status.  Income last year from it’s heroin importation business and assassination service netted the gang over 500 million dollars.  That will now be taxed at the provincial corporate rate of 11%.  Spokesperson for the gang Luang Nguyen says, “It’s just a tax grab.”

Another group singled out in the Report was Polska Polka, a Polish dance club that was ordered three years ago to have 50% non-Polish speaking members.  Currently, over 80% of members have Polish as a first or second language.

Helping in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan

Super Typhoon Haiyan, possibly the worst storm of its kind in history, ravaged the Philippines. Here’s how you can help future victims.  In traditional terms this was not a devastating hurricane since only about 1000  people died.  However, it struck land with the highest wind speed ever recorded, 305km/hr.

1. Walk, don’t fly.

2. Air condition to no lower than 25C.

3. Heat to no higher than 18C.

4. Figure out what “C” means.  Get with the program.

5. Stop idling!

6. Get out your bicycle.

7. Trade your SUV or pickup for a smaller, hybrid, vehicle.

8. Eat less beef, pork, chicken and more beans and tofu.

9. Insulate your house.

10. Use a clothes line instead of a clothes dryer.  Use a towel instead of a hair dryer.

11. Move closer to your work.

12. Stop driving your kids everywhere.

13. Instead of spending your money helping victims, spend it on prevention.

Five myths about fat people

1. Fat people are jolly.

2. Fat people are lazy.

3. Fat people eat too much.

4. Fat people don’t exercise enough.

5. Fat people are fat.

Crossing the border

    Carway, Alberta to Piegan, Montana.  September 6, 2013

Approaching the border, Sharon and Erik are a bit worried.  They’re going to be visiting the University of Arizona for six months.  Usually, you need some sort of working permit visa but the U.S. Port Authority web page said Canadians didn’t need any paperwork so they don’t have any.  Ten years ago they worked in the U.S. and then you really did need a visa.

Guard: Citizenship?

Erik: Canadian.

Sharon: [Very quickly] We’re going to be visiting the University of Arizona in Tucson until April.  We have invitation letters from the University and home ownership papers to prove we’ll be coming back to Canada.  According to the web page, Canadians don’t need visas for visiting a U.S. university.  But, about 10 years ago we did have J1 visas when I was working at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee—

Erik: And I was at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign—.

Sharon: I’m a physics professor at the University of Alberta, specializing in neutron stars–.

Guard: [Very slowly] Er, um, why do you have B.C. plates if you’re from Alberta?

Erik: We’re married but I live in Chilliwack.  I’m a mathematician.

Sharon: I spend a lot of time writing C code.

Erik: I study distributional integrals.

Guard: Whoa!  Do you have any tobacco or liquor?

Sharon and Erik: No!

Guard: Fruits or vegetables?

Erik: I have some tomatoes.

Guard: You’ve been through here before, eh?

Erik: No!  It’s my first time.  They’re from our yard.

Guard: You can’t bring tomatoes into the United States.

Erik: Oh, I knew about citrus fruit but not about tomatoes.

Guard: There’s a $300 fine for bringing fruit into the United States.  When you cross the next time, check the web site.  Can you chop them up and put them in a salad?

Sharon and Erik: Er, no, I don’t think so.

Guard: Drop them in that bin.

Erik: Do we need to get our passports stamped?  Is there any paperwork we need to do about living in Tucson for half a year?  Do we need visas?

Guard: Drop the tomatoes in the bin and then you can go.

What the well-dressed teenager will be wearing

For the full story, lovingly typeset in Latex, please see  nat5

Welcome everybody!  Er…attention please.  HELLO! PLEASE BE QUIET!!  I’ve got
this microphone as loud as it will go.   Don’t make me hit you with
another round of Prozac mist.  There, lights off.  DARKNESS.
That’ll shut you up.
Thank you for giving me your attention.  And stop smooching.  Okay, lights
on.  Hi.  I’m Gavin Peabody
and I am President of the NAT.  Since I’m 19 years old this is definitely
the last time I’ll be addressing you.  After that, I’ll be on the other
side… No need to boo yet.

Let’s welcome the new folks.  Who here is 13 years old?  Let’s see some
hands. Or, better yet, please stand up if you’re 13.  Come on.  I know
you’re gangly, embarrassed, awkward and pimply but everyone here is like that.
So, this is your first NAT meeting.  Great.  Welcome aboard.  Is anyone
else here for their first meeting?  That’s great.  Come on everyone, let’s
welcome all the newbies with a big hand.

This is, of course, the
Annual General Meeting of the National Association of Teenagers.  Besides
holding a presidential election, which will happen at the end of the meeting,
the most important item of business is to figure out what is going to be
cool next year.  Oooh, yeah.

Mathematical pantyhose

Mathematical pantyhose
Erik Talvila    October 21, 2013  For the full story, beautifully typeset in Latex, see     mathpanty4

This is another of the memoir instalments of applied mathematician Ernst Gundar.  Dr Gundar was Professor of Applied Mathematics at Clark’s Nutcracker University (CNU) until his retirement in 1999.  During this time he frequently consulted for businesses that required the skills of a mathematician.

For five years during the late 1980s the Dean of Research at CNU was Morty Saltzman.  I was never a big fan of Dr Saltzman but he did give the University a much higher research and development presence.  He strived to promote the idea that a public university owed something to society.  This generally meant motivating the faculty to do things for the public good.  As Dean of Research he was particularly interested in consulting for local industry.  His office frequently referred industrial representatives to me for some cheap advice.  The Research Office handled all the paper work and billed their clients some trivial amount.  Naturally, I didn’t see any of this money.  However, consulting was a good line item on my annual report.

One Monday morning, in the spring of 1986, I was just settling in to work at my office at CNU.  I’d been away at a conference the previous week and was anxious to clean up the backlog of mail and memos that had accumulated on my desk so that I could get down to the real business of the day.  There was a polite cough at my open office door.  I swivelled my chair around to have a look.

“Yes,” I said.

“Hello, Professor Gundar?”  I nodded.

“I’m Ralph Oberwetter.”  The name didn’t mean anything to me.  “From the Oberwetter Hosiery Company.”

“I don’t need any socks right now.”

“I believe we have an appointment.”

Blank stare on my part.  “Er, come in.”

The Research Office habitually sent people to me for consultation without informing me first.  I didn’t like that but it’s best not to get on the wrong side of a Dean.  Perhaps there was a memo in the unsorted pile of mail on my desk.

“Have a seat.”
“Dean Saltzman said you may be able to help us with our designs for a new product.”

I’d have to have a word with Saltzman about that later.  I was up to my neck in unfinished projects and didn’t have time to take on anything new. Meanwhile,  I couldn’t fault the customer for ending up in my office.  The work that people brought to me was quite interesting and often led to other research on my part.  So I put Saltzman out of my mind and resigned myself to hearing what Oberwetter had to say.  I stood up from my desk, shook his hand, took a pad of paper and a pencil, and led him out to a meeting room where we usually entertained guests.  There was no one else there.  I settled him down with a coffee.

“What can I do for you?”  He was about 50 years old, short and slightly round, with a healthy bald spot.
“We manufacture socks, stockings and pantyhose.”

“Uh huh,” I said, toying with my pencil.

“Currently, we have very successful lines of Tummy Control, Thigh Regulator, and Rump Retainer pantyhose.”  He stopped to adjust his bow tie.  “Now we want to develop pantyhose with bladder control.”
“Bladder control?” I put my pencil down and stared at him.
“That’s right. As you are most likely aware, pantyhose are worn almost exclusively by women.”
“Er.”
He leaned forward for a confidential whisper.  “We sell plenty of pairs to football players, hydro linemen, police and others who require a thin, warm layer under their uniforms in winter.  However,” he said, straightening up, “most of our clients are women.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that women frequently go to the washroom.”
“I thought it was to powder their nose.”
“That’s the cover story.  In reality they tinkle.  At frequent intervals.  In fact, more frequently than many of them would like.”
“Uh huh.”

“We’d like to create a pantyhose that will allow them to hold their bladder longer.”

“You mean waterproof.”

“No, no.  Good gracious.  The fabric must breathe.  In fact, our Obertex 361 fabric is one of the most breathable on the market. If a woman were to wear air tight hosiery and she were to, er, pass wind, it could create quite a problem.”
“You’d get a fart balloon.”

“Precisely.”

“You could always collect the gas and then release it later, say on one of these frequent trips to the toilet you were telling me about.”

“Possibly. But what we have noticed in our research is that women urinate long before their bladder is actually full.  If we could remove the sensation that the bladder was full then they could go much longer between—.”
“Between tinkles.”
“Correct.”  At this point he brought out some drawings.  “Perhaps if the nerves on this side of the bladder were compressed it would lessen the feeling that urination was necessary.  You see, there is pressure on the bladder wall from inside due to the presence of the, er, fluid.  If this was neutralized from outside with equal force provided by an elastic pantyhose of the correct size and shape, that might dampen, so to speak, the desire to urinate.  This would provide a sort of hydroseptic equilibrium.  We have a few prototypes…”  He reached into his bag and pulled out some nylons.  “You see this panel here.  Feel it stretch.  It’s quite elastic.” He pushed it towards me but I recoiled.  Ghostly legs dangled from a seamed crotch.  Somehow, I didn’t want to touch these things.
“Look, what do you want me to do?”

“Well, you know about fluid mechanics, pressure and so on.”  I nodded.  “We’d like you to produce a mathematical model of the bladder wall and then help us design pantyhose so that they effectively balance the urine pressure.”

“Why don’t you make up ten different prototypes using different types of elastic material, say Obertex 100 up to Obertex 1000. Then hire a bunch of women and football players to test them out.  You could even give them free coffee and Gatorade.”

“Oh, no.  That wouldn’t work.  It’s much more complex than you think.  Our Thigh Regulator is made of 14 different types of fabric, with many convoluted, overlapping pieces.  For the Bladder Tamer, with different styles and sizes, and types of fabric, and overlapping layers of various elastic panels, we would need to make several hundred test pairs and then have perhaps 100 women test each type. With thousands of experimental pairs in circulation we could never keep it a secret.  Ours is a highly competitive profession, sir. With your help and a better mathematical model we could greatly reduce the number of prototypes needed for our tests.”

I agreed to look into it.  He gave me a few more details and I sent him on his way with a half-hearted promise to talk with him again in three weeks.  After he had gone I walked down to see Morty Saltzman.  I caught him as he was stepping out of his office.  I planted myself in his doorway so he couldn’t escape. “I’ve just met with the
pantyhose guy.”

“Oberwetter.”
“He wants me to design pantyhose for him.  Why did you send him to me?”

“Everyone else who knows about fluid dynamics was busy.”

“Everyone else was here to say no.  I was away last week so you dumped him on me.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to help him.  Look, I’ve got to…”  He eyed the doorway but I stood my ground.

“Morty, that’s nuts and you know it.  Why don’t you send him to the Home Economics Department?  Surely they have someone who specializes in clothing design.”

“That’s under a different Dean.  Look,” he said as he patted me on the shoulder,  “his firm has donated to our Outreach Scholarship Fund every year since the early 1970s.  Humour him if you must but please don’t irritate him.”

I let him go and returned to my office.

*****

Three weeks later, I had Oberwetter back in the meeting room.  By now classes had ended for the summer break and I’d gotten on top of most of the things I was involved in.  It was standard procedure to do a preliminary study to see if a client’s project was feasible.  If so, terms would be hammered out in the Research Office.  We’d set up a rough schedule, see what resources we had, and find out what we’d need to purchase.  A Research Coordinator would be appointed and they’d find undergraduates and graduate students to work on it.  Some other faculty members might be coerced into joining.  Students would get course credit or maybe a Master’s thesis out of it.  If things went well it might lead to publications and other research.  Everyone ends up happy.  I’d been on several of these projects and generally they were highly rewarding.  However, if the results of the preliminary study were not good, the client was sent packing.

“Well, Professor Gundar, what did you find out?”
“Mr Oberwetter, I’ve got two short demonstrations.  I’ll do the first one myself.  The Dean will be along in a few minutes to help us with the second one.”  I pointed to various things on the table.  “Over here I have some foam rubber chunks and some golf balls.  I loosely fill this cloth bag with them and pull the draw string tight.  We now have a cylindrical bag filled with foam and golf balls.  It’s about the size of a chubby woman’s torso.  Now I take this elastic girdle tube.  It was designed to be worn around the abdomen after stomach surgery.”  Oberwetter nodded.  “Kindly hold your arms out so I can stretch the fabric over your hands.  Good.  There is plenty of room inside for me to insert the bag of golf balls and foam.  Now release the girdle onto the bag.”  He pulled his hands out and the surgical girdle compressed the bag nicely.  “We go from a flabby midriff to something quite shapely.”
“But this is like our Tummy Control pantyhose.”
“Exactly.  Think of the foam as the fatty tissue around the hips and abdomen.  Fat is easily compressed. Under reasonable pressure, it can be shrunk by about ten percent.  The oddly shaped pieces of foam leave lots of air pockets.  The girdle squeezes out the air.  This is like the interstitial spaces between the loosely packed organs in the body cavity.  The golf balls model the bone and incompressible organs.”  I pulled the bag out of the girdle and emptied everything onto the table.
“But we wanted…”
“Yes, for the Bladder Buster, or whatever you were going to call it, things are quite different.  Notice the cushions we’re sitting on. They’re made of a firm but compressible foam, covered in fabric.”  Oberwetter seemed puzzled but looked down at the cushion between his legs.  “Notice that we have no difficulty compressing—.”  At this moment, Morty Saltzman appeared in the doorway. “Ah, here’s the Dean to help us out with our second demonstration.”
We both stood up as he entered the room. Oberwetter and the Dean shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.  Saltzman then got interested in the bits of foam and elastic and golf balls lying on the table.  He began to bubble on about how we must be making progress.  Oberwetter and I sat down in our chairs and I gently pushed the remaining vacant seat towards Saltzman.  Still babbling, he backed into his chair, which was some distance from the table.  Suddenly, there was a loud SQUOOSH noise and a jet of fluid squirted out from between Saltzman’s legs.  When he jumped up we could see that his trousers were thoroughly soaked around the crotch.  I darted forward and picked up a lank, dripping rubber bag from the seat of his chair.
“Thank you, Dr Saltzman, for helping us with our demonstration.  When I fill a whoopee cushion with water and loosely seal the valve, I obtain a reasonable model of the human bladder.”  Saltzman looked down at his wet pants.  “In this case filled with water. One difference between foam and water is that foam, like fat, is quite compressible whereas water, like you-know-what, is essentially incompressible.  Hence, squeezing the water-filled whoopee cushion bag produced great stress on the valve, even though the material of the bag is quite elastic, like the walls of the human bladder.”  The Dean smiled weakly at Oberwetter.  He glared at me and, still dripping, slunk out of the room.

I held out my hand to Oberwetter.  “Sorry we weren’t able to help you.”
“Oh, you’ve saved us a lot of trouble.  It’s expensive designing new products.  And that would have been—.”
“Money down the drain.”  Oberwetter chatted amiably as I escorted him out of the building.  After cleaning up the foam and other paraphernalia I hurried back to my office to pack.  This was the start of the summer term.  In a few hours I’d be flying off to Germany to collaborate on research with some old friends.  I was also bringing the golf balls.

                                                                                                              *****

A word about CNU.  Clark’s Nutcracker University was founded in 1851 by escaped Methodists.  It is known for its extensive research in sound engineering in the early part of the 20th century and scientific computing beginning in the 1950s.  The Univer- sity is named after the Clark’s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) which frequently nests in the pine forests surrounding the campus.

Folk Festivals and Mathematics Conferences

mathfolkconferences2  When I travel to a mathematics conference I try to tie it in with some interesting event in the same area.  Last summer
I was happy to be invited to the 13th Summer Meeting on Kurtovski Semi-alpha Modulators at Xville University.  The Xville Folk Music Festival ran just before the conference so it was natural to include it in my itinerary.

I’m not sure if you’ve been to one of these summer music festivals.  The audience sits on tarps and blankets on the grass in front of a makeshift stage.  Performers are given around 50 minutes for their show.  Then there’s ten
minutes for the sound crew to get the stage ready for the next group.

The first act was Reeman and the Whalers.  They were terrible.  They began with Part 13 of some song cycle on whaling they’d been working on for years. You had to know the previous songs to have any idea who the characters were or
what the story was about.  It would have been really helpful if they had taken a few minutes and given a plot synopsis of the earlier songs so we uninitiated could follow the current song.  There were also a lot of words I didn’t know; technical words about 19th century whaling ships (bulwarks?) and Latin names of whale anatomy.  I knew what “baleen” was but “spermaceti”? Again, it would have been nice if they could have told us what these meant, either before or after their performance. When it was over the clapping was merely polite.

The next act was dreadful.  It was a solo singer songwriter with acoustic guitar.  She had a projection system that showed the words to her songs on a screen behind her.  It was a good idea.  We could follow the lyrics and sing along if we liked.  But, it was an impossibly complicated tune to sing along to.  For some reason she kept turning her back to us and singing to the backdrop, as if she was reading the words off it.  You couldn’t hear a thing. My guess is she didn’t know the words to her own song.  That’s fairly inept.  To top it off, she went way over time.  You could see the Stage Manager in the wings signalling her when she had five minutes left, when she was supposed to get off stage and
then frantically jumping up and down trying to get her attention when she was ten minutes over time.  It was funny but sad at the same time.

There was a half hour break, now reduced to 15 minutes, before the next singer.  I just had time to grab a coffee and muffin and say hi to some old friends who I hadn’t seen for a few years.  When I was back at my seat I asked the people on either side of me what they thought of the event so far.  They all said they liked it but no one could tell me what
the whaling songs were about.

After the break was “Steady Eddy”.  I’ve seen him a number of times at these festivals.  He always does the same one song, occasionally with a new chorus or some other minor change.  I guess it’s an okay song,  but come on, the guy is supposed to be a professional song writer.  Surely he could come up with something new.  It was pretty boring hearing it again. The lyrics in the third verse are really awkward and don’t fit the music.  He always stumbles over this part.  All it would take to fix the song is a minor change in the words but he never bothers.  A lot of people were sleeping on their tarps or diddling with smart phones or laptops.  I thought it was rude to Eddy not to pay attention but then they’d probably heard him fumble through this song many times before.

It took a long time to set up the next act.  They had some electronic samples they were supposed to have sent in to the organizers long before the date of the festival.  Instead, they just gave their file to the sound guy as they were getting on stage.  It was in some weird format no one could figure out.  Once they finally got started, it was a disaster. It was clear the sound effects they had in their file were in the wrong order.  They could have checked things out and practised before coming to the festival.  One sample was supposed to be light birdsong but instead they got something that sounded like a steam train. It ruined the whole atmosphere of their piece.  The guy next to me leaned over and whispered that exactly the same thing had happened the week before at a music festival in Zedville.  When it was over, the audience clapped in a purely mechanical way.

Lunch was in the cafeteria of a nearby school.  It was a rather tame affair. We sat at long Formica tables. The food was okay but nothing exciting.  People talked quietly with their neighbours.  After the rather dull morning everyone was pretty subdued.  I didn’t feel like going to the afternoon sessions.  I was feeling a bit jet lagged so after lunch I went and slept for most of the afternoon.  I met some people I know and we went out and had a nice dinner.

As it turned out, there were some genuinely great performances at the festival over the next few days by some truly talented musicians.  But on the whole I have to say there were far too many duds like on that first morning.

After three days at the music festival I was more than ready to go to the semi-alpha modulators conference. It was a little more chaotic but a lot more fun.  In the lecture hall at Xville University before the first talks began the whole room was buzzing with excitement and everyone was talking with everyone else.  Several people in the audience
were eagerly telling me that Professor So-and-So gave great talks and they had heard her speak at such-and-such conferences. Some of the mathematicians seemed to have really devoted followers who had heard them at conferences all over the world.  I was rather flattered when several people grouped around me, telling me they’d read
all my papers, would I be presenting my proof of the Double K Conjecture, what was I talking about at this conference, etc., etc. At first the attention made me a bit nervous but then I reasoned that I’d prepared my talk really well so
things should be fine.  My talk was on the second day and was going to start with some fun results that everyone would be able to understand. For me, it’s a bit boring to keep repeating, but the Double K Conjecture is the one thing that I’m at all famous for so of course I’d spend some time on it.  People always enjoyed seeing the proof again. I’d worked out some really cool graphics to help with one part. Then I’d try to slip some new stuff in at the end.

Finally it was time to start. Instead of long-winded introductions by Deans who had nothing to do with the subject, the main organizer just got on stage and said “Let the fun begin”.  Rather than have everyone prove their results separately, they had what they called a “workshop”.  They collected five mathematicians who all worked in the same subfield.  The first group worked in semi-stable beta modulators. Three of them were pretty well-known and the other two looked like they were grad students or post docs.  These five were on the podium at the same time.  The moderator had everyone do a short proof.  Since they only had a few minutes they had to do something concise that we could all grasp quickly.  I can tell you, I got a lot more out of these morsels than I would have gotten out of a single 50 minute meandering talk. The two youngsters were pretty excited to be sharing the stage with these other famous mathematicians and they rose to the challenge and really put on good performances.  After each of the five had done their own proof, they took turns leading the group in a new proof.  The leader would say something like, “This one is based on the Holdoff inequality.  It’s pretty simple since the measure space is a quasi-modulator.  You can come in with other inequalities if you like.” They’d start the proof but others on stage pitched in at appropriate places with
their own few lines of proof, maybe a bit of Jonker’s inequality or something like that.  It worked really well.  They all seemed charged by having to think on their feet rather than just reading some existing slides.  In the end, the proof had a few rough spots  but it was exhilarating to see mathematics in the making.  Each of the five proofs they did as a group had the unmistakable stamp of the originator but there were flourishes and motifs that made it different from anything that person could have done on their own.  The audience loved it.  Our continued cheering and clapping
even persuaded the monitor of the session to allow an encore.

The whole morning was taken up with these workshops.  Most of them were really good.  The vibe in the lecture hall was fantastic.  The audience was so excited to be seeing their heroes putting on these great performances and that fed back onto the performers who were totally turned on and gave these amazing proofs.  For lunch there was organic bean sprout salad and a Mexican tofu casserole.  Very delicious.  You could get different fresh squeezed juices at the juice bar.  The lunch break was two hours long so I had time to go to the exhibit hall.  I bought a Navajo rug.  Professor Waring from Yville State University raises her own organic sheep and makes vegetable dyes from plants she picks in the Mojave Dessert.  It’s a really cool rug.  I also got some rope sandals and a set of crystals.  After that I joined a meditation group.

In the afternoon, some of the more famous mathematicians put on their own talks.  I’m not sure if it was the continued vibe from the morning or the peyote I had but the afternoon talks were absolutely sky bird fantastic.  We wrapped up the talks around five o’clock.  The organizers had brewed their own beer and had some fabulous home made wine.  That made the poster session a real blast.  We had dinner at a fire pit on the back campus.  Some people had guitars and wooden flutes.  I don’t totally remember but I think there was a lot of dancing.  I slept in my Navajo rug near the fire, curled up with a grad student from Qville.

The next morning when everyone came into the lecture hall they were all laughing, joking and hugging each other.  After that incredible first day we felt like one big happy commune.  I was the first speaker.  I started off with some really easy examples of modulators that I figured everyone would understand.  That worked well.  Someone in the audience called out, “We’re diggin’ it!,” so I figured they liked what I was doing.  Then I gave a short version of the Double K Conjecture, leaving out the technical bits.  There was spontaneous cheering.  One of the women threw her bra onto the stage.  As I reached for my glass of elderberry wine, I thought; man, these math conferences are groovy.