We are LIVING IN THE FUTURE.

Not only can we now print 3D objects, but someone is has figured out how to make glass objects out of sand using only solar energy. Not to mention getting a start on printing human organs from cultured cells.

Other reasons it is great to be living in the future: This person has put up nearly 200 choral, orchestral, and operatic works with the sheet music as the video part. It is WONDERFUL. Okay, the amount of Rutter* isn't wonderful, but everything else is.

Check out Whitacre's Water Night, which I have been wanting to see the sheet music for for some time. DUDE, at 3:58, there are five simultaneous notes in the soprano line alone, and three each in the other lines, for a grand total of fourteen pitches being sung at the same time, what is this MADNESS. It sounds awesome. :D

(Also: Pärt's setting of De Profundis. OH MY GOD. I am now a quivering mess on the floor. In a good way.)

Since this is turning into a music recs post anyway, have some more:

1. My Wailin' Jennys station on Pandora has seen fit, of late, to serenade me with a ton of James Taylor tracks. I am not going to complain about two of them, and they are Copperline and Carolina in My Mind. (I prefer the version of "Copperline" from the same live album as the second song, but c'est la vie.)

2. Full Sail, by Ryan Farish. A little more electronic than I've been going for lately, but very catchy.

3. More Whitacre: Go, Lovely Rose and Her Sacred Spirit Soars. I wouldn't mind just living in either one of these pieces.

4. To go back to the "living in the FUTURE!" theme for a moment: Virtual Choir 1.0 ("Lux Arumque") and Virtual Choir 2.0 ("Sleep"). It's described in the comments to the videos, but in brief: Eric Whitacre made a video of himself conducting the songs, and people all over the world watched it while filming themselves singing whatever part they sing. The magic of sound editing put them into an entire choir. That is so cool. ...If he does a 3.0, I kind of want to submit a video.


* Is it a law that everything the man composed has to sound so twee as to make me want to find the nearest cute stuffed animal and set it on fire?

Meeeeelting

Photographic evidence that it is entirely too hot here. (Weather.com says the heat index is at 111F. Gaaaaah.)

Apparently there was a huge sale on cherries, so now I have YET MORE. These are the darker Bings, and they make an attractive collage with the lighter claim-to-be-Bings-but-I-think-they're-Rainiers. (I am going to be eating cherries until they come out my EARS.)

Have two swamp hibiscus flowers: here and here. This flowers have bloomed about five and a half feet up on the six feet and some change stalks, so my angle was not so great. They're still nifty, though. Each flower is about as big as my head. They're definitely a tropical sort of plant.

And have a blooming crape myrtle. Our neighbors' are more impressive, but I haven't been out that way with a camera in a while.

*

Also, have a poll! (Dreamwidth folks, see the LJ version of this entry to vote.)

When you hum to yourself, what do you hum?
A. Tunes I've heard.
B. Tunes I make up.
C. I don't hum to myself. You're just strange.


Purely because I'm curious. (I'm option B, BTW, although I'm interpreting it loosely to mean "variations on a song I've heard" as well as completely new arrangements of notes. At any rate, I'm usually humming something, or at least I have a tune playing in my head.)

Meeeeelting

Photographic evidence that it is entirely too hot here. (Weather.com says the heat index is at 111F. Gaaaaah.)

Apparently there was a huge sale on cherries, so now I have YET MORE. These are the darker Bings, and they make an attractive collage with the lighter claim-to-be-Bings-but-I-think-they're-Rainiers. (I am going to be eating cherries until they come out my EARS.)

Have two swamp hibiscus flowers: here and here. This flowers have bloomed about five and a half feet up on the six feet and some change stalks, so my angle was not so great. They're still nifty, though. Each flower is about as big as my head. They're definitely a tropical sort of plant.

And have a blooming crape myrtle. Our neighbors' are more impressive, but I haven't been out that way with a camera in a while.

*

Also, have a poll! (Dreamwidth folks, see the LJ version of this entry to vote.)

[Poll #1760992]

Purely because I'm curious. (I'm option B, BTW, although I'm interpreting it loosely to mean "variations on a song I've heard" as well as completely new arrangements of notes. At any rate, I'm usually humming something, or at least I have a tune playing in my head.)