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This Might Be the Most Hated Man in Silicon Valley
You can get away with a lot in the ego-lacquered corridors of tech—but if people think you stole their money, they're going to try to tear you apart. TechCrunch's Ryan Lawler is on the trail of alleged startup crook Jon Mills, who friends say blew tons of cash in Vegas. Their cash.
Jon Mills loves entertaining people. He loves impressing them with gaudy things (drinks!) in gaudy places (Vegas!) paid with gaudy scrip (startup cash!). If the deluded conscience of every single software venture is to change the world for the better, Mills was its id: he wanted to dazzle the world, not perfect it.
Which isn't to say he's a sleaze—or a mere sleaze. As acquaintance told me, "Jon's a really fucking smart guy. He also happens to be a sociopath." It worked for a long while—Jon Mills is the (now ousted) man behind Motionloft, a "realtime analytics" startup that's generally considered a decent idea for a business, in that it helps other businesses and could be a viable corporation. In a pit of pseudo-businesses, Motionloft was a decent anomaly. But as TechCrunch explains, Jon Mills went from guy-with-a-decent-tech-business to desperate grifter:
Mills was a first-time entrepreneur, but he had received backing from high-profile investors like Mark Cuban, and according to the Motionloft website, the company had secured clients like CVS, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Cushman & Wakefield.
When Mills started asking friends if they wanted to invest in his company, a few of them jumped at the opportunity.
And it all unravels quickly from there:
They say Mills cashed checks that altogether were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, promising them a small percentage of the company. Later, when he told them an acquisition was imminent, they felt confident they had made the right decision.
The problem is that these same friends say the cashed checks didn't go toward funding a business, but toward funding Jon Mills, who already had an outrageous reputation for conspicuous money-melting. With Shah Dickson, his then-girlfriend who worked as a nightclub bottle waitress, Mills spent and spent to keep up an image of silicon plenty—perhaps absorbed via tacky osmosis through a longtime friendship with Sean Parker. One friend told me of a drug-stoked trip to Coachella, where Mills flew in strippers from Spearmint Rhino to entertain his friends. When it was time to throw Dickson a birthday party, he hired talent microbe Mickey Avalon to gyrate and slur in a private room.
[There was a video here]
As Mills racked up checks from duped friends, his spending kept pace, says TechCrunch:
It all came to a head in late November 2013 when Mills invited about a dozen friends to join him and his then-girlfriend in Las Vegas for a weekend to celebrate her birthday and the acquisition, which Mills said had finally closed.
It was the third such trip that Mills had taken people on over the course of several weeks, and it was the most excessive of the bunch.
This was financed mostly with money friend-and-family investors say was theirs, fueled by bogus promises of imminent riches. The easy money pitch is an easy one to deliver, and during today's software boom times, an easy one to swallow: TechCrunch's Lawler furnished these texts, apparently from Mills to a friend who was totally about to see a return on that investment!
But the bullish act didn't last once Mills' checks started to bounce:
Justin Sullivan is the CEO of Private FLITE, the private jet service Mills used to charter the flights in November. He told me that Mills promised several days in a row he would pay for those flights by wire and later told Sullivan he would FedEx a check. Neither came.
Sullivan's subtle website, JonMillsFraud.com, is an angry catalog of alleged theft, calling Mills a "check-kiting, jet-setting scoundrel," and offering up some evidence of shady dealings:
Large, bounced checks.
Evasive texts from Mills, considered the standard runaround.
Since TechCrunch first started poking around Mills, he's sicced crisis attorney Marty Singer on sources, one of whom retracted their story under what looks like very obvious coercion. These people are, for the most part, probably fucked—since Jon Mills' ejection from Motionloft, investor Mark Cuban has regained control of the company and tells TechCrunch it's back on the straight and narrow. If Mills ripped off his buddies, they might have little recourse. And given the microscopic attention span of Silicon Valley, where failure is encouraged and you can always start over, and over, and over, Jon Mills might already be planning his next Vegas bender.
To contact the author of this post, write to email@example.com


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Posts: 16539
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:15 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
[01] Preflight Checks
Okay people, unless we get an eighth player very shortly we will make do with seven.
As our PCs are eating a pre-dawn breakfast and muttering their various misgivings about the mission (and the company!) the referee rolls for hit points.
Survival is chancy enough for 1st level characters without awful hit points, so I'm going to throw three dice for each of you and keep the most favourable. If you happen to throw three 1s we'll have to presume it's the Dice Gods talking.
Arcus (F1) HD 1+3: (3d6=5,2,1) 8 hit points
Biratlan (F1) HD 1+2: (3d6=6,5,5) 8 hit points
Magnus (F1) HD 1+3: (3d6=6,4,2) 9 hit points
Potts (T1) HD 1: (3d6=4,2,1) 4 hit points
Sullivus (M1) HD 1: (3d6=4,3,3) 4 hit points
Tumbly (F1) HD 1+2: (3d6=5,2,2) 7 hit points
Vergas (C1) HD 1: (3d6=6,5,1) 6 hit points
You will be incapacitated at 0 hit points and slain at -1 or fewer hit points.
Poitr (Normal Man) HD 1: (1d6=3) 3 hit points
Hirelings: Georges; torch[/f]

subset: commoncrawl


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Update: Popular Blockbuster Character poll
Over a week in the poll to vote for the most popular Blockbuster movie character this upcoming Halloween and it seems to have a really close race going on between Jack Sparrow and Harry Potter!
Last week most popular searches on CostumZee are showing a slight advantage for Harry over Jack…who will win!!!
We'll run the poll until early October, so don't wait and vote today! Thanks all!


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... Long Haul Truckin', that is. Chris finally scored his current idea of a Dream Bike, the Surly Long Haul Trucker. Likewise, I am also truckin' right along, with a non-stop bike-only commuting week looking all but inevitable.
It seems like everyone's getting on board with the Trucker, or at least The Clemonator is the second one I've seen this year who succumbed to its charms. The first was Doug.
With a motto of "Fatties Fit Fine" -- in reference to wide, fat tires as much as clydesdale riders, I'm assuming -- who can resist? The cantilever brakes can take some beefy 29er Mountain bike tires, and the stays and fork have adequate clearance for them as well. This came equipped with 700x37 Continental Contacts. The wide tires, high spoke count and all-steel frameset combine to form a really smooth ride, according to Chris.
All kinds of refinement has gone into the Surly LHT. For starters, there are THREE sets of fork braze-ons (fore and aft of the axle, and midway down the outside of the fork), two sets of seatstay braze-ons (one boss threaded all the way through providing two mounting holes, and plenty of other finesse items, including a bracket on the NDS Chainstay that holds a pair of extra spokes for those middle-of-nowhere roadside mishaps.
It was a quick ride in this morning with a total of four convoy riders. I don't think I've ever had 5 days in a row riding with more than one other person. This week has been awesome.
This is a crappy photo, but the motion blur really does emphasize the experience.
Hybridzilla did pretty well today, even with her gimpy shifter. The grip shift's ratcheting mechanism is all kinds of messed up. It's basically a friction shifter without any friction to hold it into a gear.
Here are some pics from last night. This is the original uncropped photo that I used in yesterday's evening post.
Bikes at the drug testing lab across the street from where I live. These bike racks are ALWAYS empty. This is a first.
Not bike related at all. I just like it. Dora is batting at the gerbils through their glass cage. She's really cute.
The guy at the trek store told me about "The Dime Trick" to remove spline and ISIS cranks. The bottom bracket is hollow on this bike, so my crank puller doesn't have anything to press against. The end result is that I had a mushroomed dime stuck in the hollow bottom bracket and my cranks were STILL stuck on the bike. I eventually devised a solution to remove them.
Random Tunage:
Milky - Be My World
Notorious B.I.G. Ft. Puff Daddy - Mo Money Mo Problems
Friday, May 16, 2008
KC Bike Week 2008 Day 5: Keep on Truckin'
... Long Haul Truckin', that is. Chris finally scored his current idea of a Dream Bike, the Surly Long Haul Trucker. Likewise, I am also truckin' right along, with a non-stop bike-only commuting week looking all but inevitable.
5 comments:
- Sairen said...
Looking ahead a little...is there any talk of a bike caravan (bikeavan?) from Johnson County up to the Blvd Brewery for the wrap-up party on Sunday? I'd be excited about that, but never having gone downtown on a bike, I'd be a little leery about doing it on my own. Howzabout it?
- May 16, 2008 9:33 AM
- Noah said...
I can't. My birthday is coming up and my family is throwing me a nice, outdoor B-Day bash at a local park after my ride-to-church-day fun. You might want to post to the KC Bike Commuters mailing list. Maybe you can rally the troops for a Sunday Convoy.
- May 16, 2008 9:43 AM
- Chuong Doan said...
You get some wicked angles with your cyclocam dude.
- May 16, 2008 5:50 PM
- GhostRider said...
Well, what was the trick to remove the mushroomed dime and crankarms? Don't be a tease like that?
- May 18, 2008 11:40 AM
- Noah said...
Simple. Stick a metal rod in through the other end and thwack it with a hammer a few times to pop the mushroomed dime out. Wonder if I still have that dime?
- May 18, 2008 11:15 PM
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Steve Morse is well-known within the genealogy community for creating all sorts of software tools that (in most cases) extract information from the Web and display it in understandable terms. His easy-to-use routines have become sort of a Swiss Army Knife for genealogists and others. To see some of the earlier articles about Steve's great collection of tools, look at the list at http://bit.ly/2JUqoqz.
Here is the latest announcement from Steve concerning still another addition to his toolbox:
Since 2016 I have had a tool on my One-Step website for doing searches in the New York State Voter records. I just added a companion tool to search the New Jersey Voter records. Both tools are in the VITAL records section of my One-Step website. The direct links to these tools are:
New Jersey: http://stevemorse.org/njvoters/njvoters.html
New York: http://stevemorse.org/nysvoters/nysvoters.html
Besides containing juicy information on your neighbors, like their party affiliation and whether they voted in the most recent election, the voter records also contain useful genealogical information such as dates of birth. And they contain addresses, making it useful as a people-locator tool.


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World Dairy Expo is pleased to announce the official judges for the 2013 dairy cattle show. The individuals who will be responsible for evaluating over 2,300 head of the finest dairy cattle in North America during the five-day event will be:
· International Ayrshire Show – Paul Trapp, Taylor, Wis.
· International Brown Swiss Show – Richard Hill, Cattaraugus, N.Y.
· International Guernsey Show – Gary Estes, Rogersfield, Mo.
· International Holstein Show – Justin Burdette, Mercersburg, Pa.
· International Junior Holstein Show – Pat Conroy, Angola, Ind.
· International Jersey Show – Callum McKinven, Canton de Hatley, Canada
· International Milking Shorthorn Show – Lynn Harbaugh, Marion, Wis.
· International Red & White Show – Michael Heath, Westminster, Md.
The associate judges for each breed will be announced soon. A total of sixteen respected dairy cattle judges are slated for the event.
Source: World Dairy Expo


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Shot Put-Porter from Lucas is a given. Overall a down event this year in this regional.
Discus-Too close to call -Schroeder from Grove, Boes from Pandora, Porter from Lucas and Utrup from Grove all have the ability to win this one. Overall a very weak field for a Regional meet as are most regionals in all divisions this year. Some D 11 meets are almost a joke. WE NEED QUALIFYING STANDARDS IN TRACK, IMO.
Pole Vault-Keller from Liberty Benton and Wolfe from Grove are the top two vaulters in the state in D 111 and will battle it out again this week. A very youthful event. ONLY 3 seniors competing. Weather could play havok with the results. Along with the High Jump this is the premier state level event at this regional. All four qualifiers should place high at the state meet.
High Jump-Reardon from St. Joe already owns the STATE record-a lock. Like the Pole Vault a very quality event this year, all four state qualifiers should place well at state, especially since a couple of the good ones are no longer competing at other regional meets.
Long Jump- Sleigh from Archbold and Shaw from Toledo Christian should go one-two here
4 x 800 relay- Bluffton and Mohawk should both go under 8:10 this week
110 Hurdles- Luginbuhl from Bluffton and Shaw from Toledo Christian go 1-2. Another very youthful event only 4 seniors in what is traditionally a senior dominated event.
100-Strup from Tinora- no one close to him at this meet
4 x 200- Archbold wins with Colonel Crawford and Tinora a step or two back
1600-Trusty from Mohawk and Fisher from Delta should both go under 4:23 Wise from Hopewell a distant 3rd
4 x 100 - With Strup anchoring Tinora should win this one, Colonel Crawford a close second with Toledo Christian and Archbold right there
400-Tobin from Fairview takes home the gold in this one with Rader from Cory Rawson a couple of steps back
300 Hurdles-Young from Archbold Shaw from Toledo Christian and Luginbuhl from Bluffton go 1-2-3
800-Herron from Bluffton in the upset of the meet
200 - Strup from Tinora easily- a sweep for the Ayersville District
3200-Trusty and Fisher again battle it out here with someone going 9:40 or better if the weather cooperates
4 x 400-Bluffton and Archbold go 1-2
Overall meet winner will be Archbold followed by Bluffton
Edited by raisethebar, 25 May 2011 - 12:46 PM.


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New boutique hostels, quirky nightlife and a medley of world cuisines are making Santiago stand out among the crowd of popular Latin American capitals.
After spending a long time in the shadows of its more illustrious South American neighbours like Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, Santiago is finally coming into its own. The Chilean capital's economy continues to expand – as evidenced by the new 300m Gran Torre Santiago, the tallest building in Latin America – fuelling a burgeoning eating, drinking and nightlife scene. The city also has a selection of great hotels and some idiosyncratic and thought-provoking attractions.
New boutique hotels (and indeed "boutique hostels") are springing up all the time in Santiago, and there are options for every budget. If you're short on pesos, head to Happy House in the bohemian neighbourhood of Barrio Brasil, a classy hostel in an atmospheric turn-of-the-century townhouse. At the other end of the scale, despite the presence of glamorous outposts of global chains like The W and the Ritz-Carlton, the more intimate and no less luxurious Aubrey gets our vote. Located in lively Bellavista, it combines stellar service with effortlessly stylish rooms.
Eating out
Santiago's eating out scene has really taken off in recent years and you can find a surprisingly diverse range of cuisines, including Peruvian, Mexican, Cuban, Indian, Japanese, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, French and Italian, as well as – of course - Chilean. Highlights include: Kintaro in the historic centre, where Chile's superlative seafood is turned into exquisite sushi and sashimi; and Ciudad Vieja, also in Bellavista, which has turned sandwich-making into an art form (the home-brewed beer is a perfect accompaniment).
Sometimes, however, the classics are the best. Travelling gastronome Anthony Bourdain said the best food he ate in Chile was at the traditional El Hoyo, near the Estación Central. Hearty pork dishes are the specialty here, as is the deadly Terremoto (Earthquake), a potent blend of white wine, pisco and pineapple ice cream.
Drinking and nightlife
The bohemian neighbourhoods of Barrio Brasil and Barrio Yungay are popular night spots at the moment, though – rather more surprisingly – the historic centre is also home to some gems. It is here that you'll find The Clinic, a quirky joint run by the satirical magazine of the same name (imagine a bar run by Private Eye and you're on the right track).
Over in Bellavista, Santiago's traditional nightlife district, Etniko transforms itself from a swish pan-Asian restaurant during the evening into a hip, blue neon-lit bar-club later on - the sake-based cocktails are particularly good. (Although it may look closed, you just have to ring the doorbell to enter).
Santiago's striking location – the city is situated on a plain at the base of the Andes – is best admired from the summit of Cerro San Cristóbal, an 806m-high hill covered with parks, botanical gardens and – perfect for the summer months – outdoor swimming pools.
Due to reopen at the end of 2013 following a major revamp, the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino has one of Latin America's finest collections of pre-Columbian art, with a collection spanning 10,000 years.
This September marks the 40th anniversary of the violent Pinochet coup that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende, so a visit to the moving Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos is a must. Housed in an impressive glass building, this modern museum is dedicated to the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship, during which over 3000 people died or "disappeared".
Another echo of the Pinochet years, though lighter in tone, is the former home of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, a prominent Allende supporter. Known as La Chascona ("The Tangled-Haired Woman", a tribute to the thick red hair of Neruda's wife, Matilde), the painstakingly restored house is an evocative tribute to Neruda – highlights include a library of around 9000 books and a portrait of Matilde by Diego Rivera. (Two other of Neruda's homes have also been turned into museums, one in Valparaíso, the other in Isla Negra.)
Day and overnight trips
And if you tire of city life, the vineyards of the Casablanca Valley, world class ski runs at Portillo and Valle Nevado, and Pacific beaches of the Litoral Central are all within easy striking distance of Santiago.
Shafik Meghji is the co-author of The Rough Guide to Chile. He blogs at www.unmappedroutes.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @ShafikMeghji.


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I think Glean Alley was where London Bridge Station is today. Coming from London Bridge it would have been on the right passed Joiner Street and before Hays wharf which is on the left. There was a street called Cotton Wharf (on the left) and I think it would have been nearly opposite that. Glean Alley (Tooley Street), Richard Clarke halfpenny. Don't know too much about these coins, maybe someone else does.
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Electrical line hit, transformer blows at Mt. Lebanon High School
Stretch of Cochran Road briefly closed in Mt. Lebanon
A stretch of Cochran Road was closed for a short time Monday evening after reports of a possible explosion and fire near Mt. Lebanon High School.
"It was crazy. I hope everyone's OK, though," Mount Lebanon student Terran Schmidt said.
Lebanon Fire Battalion Chief Nick Sohyda told WTAE Channel 4 Action News an excavator hit a utility line, causing a transformer to blow.
"It appears there was an electrical issue and a problem with the transformer inside the building," Sohyda said. "When the electrical line arched, one or two of the manhole covers on the school district property might have popped up a little bit."
Construction workers were working on renovations to the school's Fine Arts Theatre, officials said.
There was no serious damage to the school or the surrounding area.
The Mt. Lebanon School District issued the following statement: "On August 13, 2012, at approximately 5:15 p.m., an electrical line was struck during excavation outside the Fine Arts Theatre at Mt. Lebanon High School as part of the high school construction project. It resulted in damage to a transformer inside the high school building. No one was injured inside or outside of the school. The Mt. Lebanon Fire Department responded, along with departments from surrounding communities. As a result, a power outage has occurred and is limited to select buildings on the high school campus. Updates will be posted on the District website at www.mtlsd.org."
Do you have photos or video of breaking news? Share them with u local by emailing to email@example.com.


text:
JT: No, we approached the Chicago Housing Authority. They own the land and the building. It's a large project, and expanding all of the time. When I say we, first and foremost I'm working with my partner, Efrat Appel. She is a social worker and editor. We developed the idea and at a certain point went to look for connections in the neighborhood. We met Cabrini Connections, Marwen and After School Matters. Then there are numbers of SAIC students who work in student work groups to collaborate on the projects. It's important to me that the exchange is not "come help me on this project and I will give you credit,†but is on the level of something more educational and important. And really none of this would've been possible without the support of Richard Gray Gallery who helped me approach the CHA and who made the project financially possible.
DG: Then I guess the proper question would be what made you want to work with Cabrini Green as a site?
JT: My work at times has a political or social aspect. There was a time when I was living in Israel with the political situation, with its racism, with Jews against Arabs or even Jews against Jews with a different color of skin. And in coming to Chicago, it's here as well.
I also think that the notion of working with housing projects came about through working with Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was a very different collaboration with my students from SAIC. We lit it up from inside. By working on the campus of IIT and exploring with the students not only the architecture but what was happening around we began to feel that the absence of the Robert Taylor Homes was very strong. It had only been a few years since they had been torn down. Because we were working on lighting the building we changed the class time to from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
DG: [laughing]
JT: Well … you know … the students liked it in the end. Taking students from IIT to the Red Line at 5 a.m. safely just wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. I haven't lived here before so it wasn't like I noticed. But at IIT we were interviewing students, faculty and neighbors so it was clear that it had had a huge impact on the local community.
Another impetus was a commission for a private collection in the former Montgomery Ward building that I worked on. While learning about the building I found out that it was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also built the World Trade Center, and who in 1954 designed the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. They were torn down after just 16 years. Architecture critic and writer Charles Jencks later pointed to that moment as the end of Modern architecture. The first time that we were tearing down this Modern dream.
The Montgomery Ward building itself had to go through this makeover to become what it is today, from offices to condos. So the notion of demolition and destruction together with 9/11 and was all sitting right across the street practically from the row houses. So that brought me closer to Cabrini.
But I guess the possibility of relating to a historical moment was very clear. Cabrini is the last [high rise housing project] to go down and this is the last building to go down.
DG: How do you see your intervention acting to elucidate or animate that historical moment?
JT: It was very clear to me from the beginning that projection (which is the tool that I'm usually working with) projecting on, imposing an image, wouldn't work here. To project on a building is to come from the outside. And realizing the potential of the emptiness that needs to be filled; it needs to be filled from the inside.
Therefore we went to the neighborhood, to the kids. People who should have the opportunity to raise his or her voice about this issue, to get a different attention. Cabrini Green got a specific kind of attention. Everyone was writing about Cabrini but only when somebody was killed. Nobody was paying attention when the other things were happening. So this is a way to give to the next generation, to the kids who came from there, a way to express, to be heard, to be seen and to be empowered.
So we started to work with partners in the community like Cabrini Connections, a tutor-mentor program and with Marwen Foundation that is also in the neighborhood, but serving kids from around the city. Several of the kids from Cabrini Connections actually lived in the apartments in the last building. Other kids, from Marwen were also mostly from low income housing, but not only. For the kids who don't know Cabrini, the approach was obviously different, it was more learning about the history.
DG: What is the nature of the kids' contribution?
JT: I was thinking about how to help give voice to someone in a public space and also in my other work about the relationship between light and sound. If we can translate the message, or whatever the kids want to say, to light.
The workshops that we hold with the kids includes some information about public art, what it can do and about light and sound art as a means of gathering attention. Then we begin to talk about general issues about home and housing. At a certain point we introduce slam poetry, a form that is from Chicago and at a certain point the kids themselves start to write. When they are done with their poems they perform them. Their performances will then be translated into a modulated light display.
DG: So each individual kid's voice will light a room in the last building?
JT: We record the audio of the performance and program it into the control chips for the LED's. We thought when we began that we might only be able to get 30-40 kids, but we've had such a great response that we've recorded nearly 100 kids. We're trying to get to 134, because their are 134 apartments in the building. I felt that during the workshops that there was something really important happening with the kids that were not only from public housing. We felt that we could extend this dialogue to include area kids that weren't as directly effected.
There is another layer to this educational aspect, in that I look to the example of Moholy-Nagy. He's close to me not just in working with light, but a lot in education. This is also something that came to me when I was working on Crown Hall. Both Moholy-Nagy and Mies van der Rohe came to Chicago at more or less the same time, from the same place for basically the same purpose, but they were completely different, not only as artists, but as educators and thinkers. Mies was like 'That is how you do things, cause that's how I do it.' Whereas Moholy-Nagy was much more collaborative, with faculty working with students on a project, trying to bring the students into the community from the very beginning. These aspects of his example are important. And that was also part of the idea at Crown Hall, was to do this very Moholy-Nagy workshop inside of a Mies structure. And there the idea that I brought was very simple. Just to light up the inside of the building, the rest was figured out in collaboration. I see myself as an artist / teacher, teacher / artist.
Here the idea is simple, just to light up the inside of the building with voices, but still as the project grows their is more and more opportunities for students and creative experience. Sound students made the sound equipment, and make the recordings. Faculty and students from the Art and Technology Department are constructing the LED kits.
The demolition starts the day after the installation of the lights and will last between 4 to 6 weeks, so every day there will be less and less lights, as they are demolished with the building. The electronics will be salvaged from the wreckage during the recycling process of the debris. The thing is we don't really know what it will look like! A mock-up won't help me.
DG: Is that at all scary?
JT: It is! While I am working only with white light, I do expect that the effect will have color, reflecting off of the painted walls in the apartments, being more clearly visible because the windows have been removed prior to demolition.
JT: Someone was trying to make it nice, to make it a home.
DG: In the building is the audio also available?
JT: No, it's just the blinking because you wouldn't be able to hear it from the street anyway. The audio will be available online as a web component with an interactive digital model of the building. You'll be able to click each apartment and hear all 134 poems performed. The poems will also be published.
There is also a gallery component at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Cabrini has always been close to the Gold Coast, close yet so far away. I mean it's a 9 minute walk from Cabrini to the MCA. But the gap between these two is huge. I thought it would be interesting to bring it live to the MCA. Another group of students from SAIC are working on making a live feed of the installation available 24/ 7 for the 4-6 weeks in the MCA.
DG: This is a colossal project!
JT: I was just thinking about that. Its obviously growing over my head and I'm really glad that it's happening in two weeks so it can't grow any more!
- The Reality of Rejection - August 9, 2018
- The Kingdom of Kitai at Ulterior Gallery - October 16, 2017
- What We Want Is You. - July 28, 2017


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Among the services offered by QJCC are ESL classes, women's workshops, a food pantry, support for domestic violence victims, and employment training.
"We service all the needs of Queens residents who are hurting. And any time there's a need for advocacy, Queens Jewish Community Council is there," said Cynthia Zalisky, executive director of QJCC.
Zalisky cited as an example the organization's intention to rally against the MTA's proposed service cuts, which will disproportionately affect students and seniors.
In addition to the social services that are available to all, QJCC is also devoted to supporting the Jewish presence in Queens. It works with schools and synagogues on cultural events and delivers over 800 kosher Meals-on-Wheels to seniors every week.
Of course, everyone is welcome to partake of the organization's services regardless of what religion they practice.
"Anyone who comes to our door is helped. If we can't help them, they'll at least get a referral," said Zalisky.
And it does seem like more and more people are reaching out for assistance. Zalisky noted that QJCC has seen a jump in the number of aid requests from the now-unemployed middle class, a group that has never needed QJCC's help before.
According to Zalisky, QJCC serves about 10,000 clients per year. Over the last 18 months, however, the number of people requesting assistance has increased by 30 percent.
"We're all walking on eggshells now. Funding for the next year is the major concern," said Zalisky. "We're hoping we'll be able to weather this economic storm."
Most funding comes from local elected officials like Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, who Zalisky credits with providing critical support to QJCC at this time. Despite a reduction in the amount of available resources, Zalisky said the organization won't stop its work as long as there are people in need, though prioritizing its services may become necessary.
"In these trying times, we're very happy to be able to help people sustain themselves and get back on their feet," said Zalisky. "The happy faces make it worthwhile."


text:
Every once and awhile I like to pause and show you the "real" around here. Sometimes I show you in pictures, but today I also want to tell you how very much I don't have it all together. :)
I've mentioned a few times that our house rarely looks perfect. OK, let's make that never. Well, OK, maybe about five minutes before a party, but that's it. So that would amount to about 15 minutes a year.
Fifteen minutes a year, it looks pretty darn fantastic. ;)
But the other 525,585 thousand minutes it's just…normal. I've shown you our normal:
Uhhh…you don't have a toilet seat sitting in your bedroom?
I was sitting in the office working on bills today, and this was my view:
Not awful, cause there's a cute Bub smiling at me. ;) Just normal. This is actually pretty clean, really. The floor is cleared enough for us to walk through the family room.
What you can't really see are the cluttered countertops, the island covered in shopping bags I haven't emptied, two in-between projects on the windowsill (where else would I keep them?), the coffee table covered with toys and a pizza box. You can't see the damaged spot on the floor, the messed up drywall on the ceiling from a leak in an upstairs bathroom.
I wanted to write this today because I neverevereverNEVER want anyone who visits this blog to leave feeling inadequate – that breaks my heart. But I certainly understand it -- even I read blogs and feel that green monster raising it's ugly head. I wonder if the house is always that clean, the toys are always put away. How she does it all, with more kids, a bigger house, a full time job. And I'm lucky to keep one room completely clean for a day.
I'm here to inspire. I want to show you how you can transform your home and make it your haven. But I want to be real about it at the same time. Of course, I chuck the stuff out of pictures – and that's just because I figure most of the time, you want to see pretty, not cluttery.
But beyond the not-always-perfect-house, I wanted to let you all know that there are so, so, SO many days where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water – trying to do it all. Keeping the house picked up, let alone clean. Dealing with five animals – a fish, three cats and a puppy. Being a good Mom, an attentive wife, a supportive friend. And trying to post as much as possible here on my beloved blog, which has become my business. (Best. job. ever.)
At least once a week, I feel like an bad friend because I haven't returned an email or a text or a phone call fast enough. There are days I walk into our house and just feel completely overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. Some days I wonder how it's possible, as a stay-at-home Mom, I can't keep our home and lives perfectly perfect all the time.
And then I'll realize, yet again…dear LORD, it's normal. As much as I want to do more projects and post more than I do, I choose not to. I don't do it all – I don't want to do it all. I crave a better balance in my life, but I'm guessing, hoping, praying this is normal? All mom's feel that way at times, right?
But when I say I wouldn't have it any other way, I truly mean it. Our
sometimes messy home means I have a sweet four-year-old running around. It means I take time away from cleaning to work on a DIY project – my passion. It means I get to blog and share and write and (hopefully) inspire…as I am doing right now, with my feet propped up next to the pizza box on the coffee table. ;)
So I guess I just wanted to take a minute to say, I don't do it all, and sometimes I feel like I really stink at what I do do. :) But I love my life, all of it's imperfections and messes. I'm just so completely happy to be doing what I'm doing. With the people I'm doing it with – including you all.
I wanted to let you know that. I never want you to think I'm capable of doing any more than you can do. I just show you the pretty more often than not, because for the most part, I like to see pretty on blogs and magazines and TV. I've got enough of the real at home. ;)
But I will keep showing you the messes here and there, cause it's the truth. We've got the pretty and not-so-pretty around here, just like every home. :)
And I luuuurve it!!


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Instrument of the Devil
Rachel Barton PineDavid SchraderJohn Bruce YehJohn Mark RozendaalPatrick Sinozich
The longer Cedille Selects track excerpts are designed to provide a representative overview of the recording (not applicable to all albums)
Album Description Download Full CD Booklet
On Instrument of the Devil, gifted young violinist Rachel Barton Pine displays her technical prowess and the instrument's emotional range in an unusual, virtuosic program that, in her words, offers listeners something other than "the usual potpourri of encores."
This CD explores the mythic and frequent literary associations of the violin with death the Devil, inspired in part by pianist Earl Wild's recording of Liszt's music on diabolical themes (The Demonic Liszt), Miss Barton says. An essay by musicologist Todd E. Sullivan of Indiana State University traces the origins of the violin's otherworldly associations back to ancient Greek religious cults, who identified musical instruments with deities and their ethical attributes. By the 1500s, violins were linked with dancing, an activity denounced by religious conservatives. Tales of demonically endowed fiddle players first emerged during the 17th century -- an image that endures in today's pop culture.
Critic Reviews
American Record Guide (www.americanrecordguide.com)
"What scares me most about this demonic-themed recording is Rachel Barton's almost inhuman violin playing… Her playing is both exciting and immaculate… Don't miss this recording."
Audiophile Audition (audaud.com)
"Rachel Barton is such a commanding presence that I never budged from my listening couch for the 78 minutes duration of this CD… Barton elicits a rich, burnished tone that eloquently and thrillingly portrays the violin as devil… This disc is simply one of the finest violin recordings I've heard in the last five years."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (www.stltoday.com)
"More than a gimmick album, it allows Barton to display her stunning technique in a variety of fiendishly difficult works, including what may be the fastest version of Bazzini's "Round of the Goblins" on CD."
"Dynamite virtuoso performances of music written as much for show off purposes as any other. Barton truly does seem possessed."
The Strad (www.thestrad.com)
"This fine collection of some of the thorniest virtuoso violin works with 'devilish' connections is by any standards a formidable undertaking… [Rachel Barton's] fearless assaults on the Liszt-Milstein Mephisto Waltz and Berlioz-Barton-Sinozich Dream of a Witches' Sabbath (a blistering transcription of the Symphonie Fantastique's finale) really take some believing… It's the kind of disc that as Barton's career develops will surely become something of a collector's item."
Customer Reviews
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Program Notes
Notes by Todd E. Sullivan
-from a poem by Henry Cazalis, alias Jean Lehor
Associations between the violin and death or the devil reside deep in the modern Western consciousness. Traditional, popular, and classical music cultures have reinforced this viewpoint many times over. The identity of the "Devil as fiddler" has evolved in stages over the past two millennia or longer as numerous religious beliefs, folk legends, and literary tales merged to produce a central myth.
Roots of this myth trace back to ancient Greek religious cults. Instruments were commonly associated with specific deities and their ethical attributes. The reed-pipe aulos, for instance, belonged to the decadent cult of Dionysius (Bacchus in Roman mythology). Aristotle pronounced the aulos "not an instrument that expresses moral character; it is too exciting." The lyre and kithara were connected with Apollo, the god of music, healing, archery, and the sun. Accordingly, string instruments were thought to possess enormous restorative powers.
This correlation between musical instruments and moral states appealed to early Christians. Medieval society invoked music to rationalize the constant intrusions of warfare, plague, and death. In literature and folk lore, the sound of pipes frequently accompanied Death on his gruesome rounds. During the Middle Ages, string instruments enjoyed quite different affiliations. Ecclesiastical artists commonly selected the soft-toned vielle, rebec, or lira for symbolic representations of goodness and the divine. Saintly figures, angels, and cherubim often held these mellow-sounding instruments in hand. Thus, the ancient Apollonian stereotype was retained for centuries in Western Europe.
The mid-sixteenth-century emergence of a new family of strings, including the violin, changed everything. The violin's popularity grew with enormous swiftness, primarily because of its loud tone and secure tuning. It soon became the preferred accompaniment for dances, weddings, and other outdoor entertainments. Philibert Jambe de Fer added in his Epitome Musical (1556) that the violin "is also easier to carry, a very necessary thing while leading wedding processions or mummeries [comic entertainments by masked actors or musicians]."
The earliest artistic renderings of the violin date from the 1570s. In these, peasant performers accompany group dancing, an activity denounced in the afterglow of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. Many writers blamed the Devil for the very existence of dance. The Devil, as the agent of Death and creator of dance, became inextricably linked to the violin during the Renaissance period. According to musicologist Rita Steblin, the visual and literary arts differed in their portrayals of this fiendish musicmaker. Paintings such as Pieter Brueghel's "The Triumph of Death" (c.1562) and Hendrik Goltzius's "Couple Playing, with Death Behind" (17th century) perpetuated the skeletal image of Death. Written documents tended to characterize Death as the Devil himself.
Tales of demonically endowed fiddle players first emerged during the seventeenth century. The Englishman Anthony Wood described in his diary (July 24, 1658) an awe-inspiring performance by German violin virtuoso Thomas Baltzar. A respected music professor in attendance "did after his humoursome way, stoop downe to Baltzar's feet to see whether he had a huff [hoof] on, that is to say, to see whether he was a devil or not, because he acted beyond the parts of Man." The eighteenth-century Italian violinist Giuseppe Tartini raised the degree of diabolical intervention with his claims of a dreamy pact with the Devil.
Tales of supernatural contracts between musicians and the Devil proliferated during the nineteenth century, fueled by the immensely popular story of the scholar Faust and his calamitous pact with Mephistopheles. Many people believed the only explanation for Nicolo Paganini's unparalleled violin technique was a Faustian alliance with the Devil. The Italian violinist parlayed this demonic mystique into a phenomenally lucrative concert career. Furthermore, the superhuman virtuoso image - long hair, angular features, sly grin, and slender figure - originated with Paganini.
Condemnation of the violin as an instrument of the Devil spread during the nineteenth century to other parts of Europe and North America. Churches in Sweden and Norway outlawed the violin and created a substitute string instrument, the psalmodikon, to accompany hymn singing. Scandinavian settlers transported this "bowed zither" to the Upper Midwest region of the United States. Calvinist adherents in the British Isles denounced the violin because of its evil associations with dance. Such prejudices also traveled with some Scots-Irish immigrants to the U.S. Numerous British folk ballads and fiddle tunes, transplanted to Appalachia and other parts of the country, make reference to the Devil.
The relationship between the Devil and string music has resurfaced in recent popular music. Bluesmen believed that if a guitarist reached the crossroads at midnight, he would receive supernatural virtuosic abilities in exchange for his soul. Early blues-inspired rock artists - among them the Rolling Stones, Cream, and Led Zeppelin - perpetuated this mystical aspect. Heavy metal artists consciously adopted Paganini's nineteenth-century virtuoso image in their powerful stage presence, styles of hair and clothing, and musical pyrotechnics. The electric guitar provides a modern high-voltage equivalent to the violin. No contemporary song better illustrates the persistence of the "Devil as fiddler" than the 1979 country-rock hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. The Devil encounters a young man "who plays the fiddle hot" and challenges him to a musical duel, the outcome of which is unexpected: After centuries of bargaining, humankind has finally produced a musician whose natural skills surpass the Devil's.
Four symphonic poems lie buried within the enormous orchestral catalogue of French composer, organist, and pianist Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921). The first, second, and fourth drew their inspi- ration from the mythological accounts of Omphale, Phaeton, and Hercules. The third, however, corresponded to a contemporary poem by Henri Cazalis (alias lean Lahor). These verses, quoted above, tell of a frenzied demonic dance that takes place after the stroke of midnight - the witching hour. Saint-Saens completed his Danse macabre in 1875 and published the score a year later. He also made several arrangements, including for violin and piano and for two pianos.
Some orchestral players rebelled against the literal representation in Danse macabre and only reluctantly participated in the premiere at a February 3, 1875 program of the Concert National under Edouard Colonne. The critic Adolphe Julien complained that the piece "has everything but a musical idea, good or bad." He continued by describing it as either "an aberration or a hoax." Audiences, on the other hand, took enormous glee in the fiendish orchestral score. The bells toll midnight on All Hallow's Eve. Death, playing an oddly mistuned violin, summons skeletons (depicted in the orchestral version by the rattling "bones" of a xylophone) from their graves to dance a macabre waltz- an ominous parody of the Dies irae chant from the Mass for the Dead. These spectral figures dance until the rooster crows dawn, then they return to their tombs until the next year.
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was born in Pirano, Istria (then part of the republic of Venice, now located in Slovenia). His family encouraged him to enter the priesthood, but Tartini opted for a career in law and an avocation as a fencer. His marriage in 1710 resulted in further conflict with church authorities, and he fled to a monastery at Assisi where he resolved to become a professional violinist. Tartini spent the majority of his career as principal violinist and leader of the orchestra at St. Anthony's Basilica in Padua, except for short periods in Venice and Prague. In addition to his sonatas and concertos, he wrote and published several influential treatises on violin and bowing technique and on theoretical and acoustical aspects of music.
The Sonata in G Minor, known as the Devil's Trill, is shrouded in mystery. During a visit to Padua, the French astronomer Joseph Jerome de Lalande heard Tartini relate his Faustian story:
"One night in 1713, [Tartini] dreamed that he had made a contract with the Devil, who happened to be in his service. Whatever Tartini wanted was granted to him, and all his wishes were anticipated by his new servant, who gave him a violin to see if he could play anything harmonious. But what was Tartini's surprise when he heard [himself play] a sonata so original and lovely and performed with such perfection and meaning that he could never have imagined anything like it! He experienced such amazement, admiration, and delight that he was breathless. His strong emotion woke him, and he immediately seized his violin in the hope that he would be able to remember at least part of what he heard, but in vain. The piece that Tartini composed then is indeed the best of all that he has ever done, and he calls it The Devil's Sonata. But the former one that amazed him was so much better than his own that he would have broken his violin and given up music forever if only he could have had it."
Tartini's programmatic writing is not limited to this work; other sonatas are named Didone abbandonata (Dido Abandoned), The Emperor, and The Dear Shade. Many have questioned the date of Tartini's fiendish dream and the resulting Devil's Sonata, suggesting alternate dates between 1720 and 1740. A gentle siciliano sets a tranquil scene before the demonic encounter. The subsequent movement, performed in the "appropriate tempo of the Tartini school," provides a lively preamble to the dramatic finale. Tartini composed an unusual final movement in which slow segments, entitled "The Dream of the Master," alternate with faster portions containing the celebrated "Devil's Trill."
Many modern violinists perform from Fritz Kreisler's edition. Kreisler eliminated double-stops in the siciliano, included his own harmonies (different from the sometimes jarring chords indicated by Tartini's bass line in the accompaniment), and added a cadenza before the end of the final movement. Rachel Barton performs from the first edition, published by jean Baptiste Cartier in his L'Art du Violonou Collection Choisie clans les Sonatas des Ecoles Italienne, Francaise et Allemande, an anthology issued in Paris in December 1798.
The Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt (1811-86) emulated Nicolo Paganini's transcendant virtuosity and stage demeanor and, like Paganini, Liszt was believed to have given his soul to the Devil in exchange for his exceptional musical abilities. Amy Fay, one of Liszt's American students, characterized him in diabolic terms: "His mouth turns up at the corners, which gives him a most crafty and Mephistophelean expression when he smiles, and his whole appearance and manner have a sort of Jesuitical elegance and ease. . . He is all spirit, but half the time at least, a mocking spirit." Even after taking minor orders in the Catholic Church, Liszt was described as "Mephistopheles disguised as an abbe."
His compositions exhibit a similar affinity for the Faustian model. In addition to his Faust Symphony, based on Goethe's account, Liszt composed Two Episodes from Lenau's Faust for orchestra. Compositions for the piano inspired by the Faust legend include the Mephisto Polka, a transcription of a waltz from Gounod's Faust, and four Mephisto Waltzes. Liszt's first Mephisto Waltz, written in Weimar around 1860, outlines events in the Faust legend. Faust and Mephistopheles enter a village inn as wedding festivities are underway. Mephistopheles snatches the violin away from one of the peasants and tunes it string-by-string before playing his frenzied dance. The music slows for a captivating new theme as Faust tries to seduce one of the maidens. Again, the Devil's dance rouses the revelers. The nightingale pipes a tune, and Faust slips off into the woods with his young mistress. Nathan Milstein (1904-92), the celebrated Russian-born violinist, transformed Liszt's first Mephisto Waltz into a monstrously challenging piece for solo violin.
Very early in his career, the Italian violinist Antonio Bazzini (1818-97) garnered extraordinary praise from Robert Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1843):
"As a player, he ranks among the greatest of the day. I cannot recall one who excels him in remarkable execution, in grace and fullness of tone, and especially in clearness and lasting power. He exceeds the majority in the original freshness, youthfulness, and soundness of his performance; and when I realize to myself the heartless, soulless, blase nature of many- especially Belgian- virtuosos, he seems to me a manly, blooming youth among worn-out greybeards; while a yet more brilliant future smiles before him, although he now stands on such a shining height."
A native of Brescia, Bazzini acquired phenomenal technical skill as a youth. His prodigious abilities attracted the attention of his countryman, Nicolo Paganini. Bazzini made numerous recital tours, beginning in 1840, that traversed Europe. He lived in Germany from 1841 to 1845, and Paris between 185 2 and 1863. The year of his Paris debut (1852), between acts of an opera at the Theatre-Italien, Bazzini composed his character piece Round of the Goblins (Fantastic Scherzo), Opus 25 for violin and piano. Bazzini joined the composition faculty of the Milan Conservatory in 1873 and became its director nine years later. His students included a distinguished group of opera composers: Alfredo Catalani, Pietro Mascagni, Nicolo Massa, and Giacomo Puccini.
The Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who appeared as Ophelia in a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Paris, bewitched the young French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-69): "The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent, nay her dramatic genius, was equaled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted." The love-struck musician did not meet Smithson before she returned to England in 1829. Nonetheless, his idealized memory of her developed into obsessive infatuation. When rumors of a tryst between Smithson and her manager circulated in Paris, Berlioz flew into a jealous rage. The imagined betrayal provided a scenario for a programmatic symphony formulating in his mind: the Fantastic Symphony (Episode from the Life of an Artist), Opus 14. Its story involves an artist who falls in love with a flawless, ravishing woman. Clearly, Berlioz portrayed himself as the artist. The woman's identity was equally obvious to Smithson, who attended a performance of the Fantastic Symphony and its sequel (the melodrama Lelio, or the Return to Life) on December 9, 1832. Berlioz finally encountered the flattered actress the next morning, and the two married within a year, unhappily as it turned out.
Several revolutionary aspects of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony provoked attacks from Parisian conservatives. The orchestra was extremely large and diversified. In addition, Berlioz had devised an innovative means of recalling the Beloved throughout the Fantastic Symphony by means of a distinctive melody, called the idee fixe, which appears in each movement. The character of the theme is transformed as the artist's vision of the Beloved changes. The returning melody adds cyclic unity. Berlioz expanded the standard four-movement symphonic structure to five movements, each with a descriptive title drawn from his published program notes.
The symphony climaxes with the drug-induced "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath." Evil figures of every imaginable type surround the young artist. His Beloved's theme appears disfigured and lacking "its character of nobility and shyness." Funeral bells toll, followed by the Diesirae chant. The witches begin their round dance, which later combines with the Diesirae.
Following the nineteenth-century tradition of chamber transcriptions of symphonic scores, Rachel Barton and Patrick Sinozich arranged this movement for violin and piano. Miss Barton and Mr. Sinozich consulted both Berlioz's full score and Liszt's solo-piano transcription (provided courtesy of the Liszt Society of London) while deciding collaboratively on the distribution of thematic material and adaptation of orchestral sonorities.
El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) was born of mystical gypsy blood. Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) had returned to Madrid in 1914 following a seven-year residency in Paris. The musician soon received an invitation from dramatist Martinez Sierra to collaborate on "one song and one dance" for the great Andalusian flamenco dancer, Pastora Imperio, the most celebrated member of a family of gypsy entertainers. Sierra and Falla absorbed gypsy folk songs and tales from Rosario la Mejorana, Imperio's mother. This modest commission quickly expanded into a full-scale "gitaneria," a gypsy ballet with songs in two scenes. Falla responded with uncharacteristic speed, completing the score between November 1914 and April 1915.
The ballet portrayed an unfamiliar facet of Andalusia, the gypsy communities dwelling in the Sacro Monte caves near Granada. The beautiful, hot-blooded gypsy girl Candelas has fallen in love with Carmelo. Their rendezvous comes to a terrifying end when the ghost of Candelas's former lover provokes the jittery "Dance of Terror." Falla imitates an old gypsy dance known as the baile de la tarantula, closely related to the Italian tarantella. Polish violinist Pawel Kochanski (1887-1934), also familiar as the arranger of Falla's Suite populaire espagnole, transcribed the "Dance of Terror" and other El amor brujo excerpts for violin and piano.
The premiere production of El amor brujo, given at Madrid's Teatro Lara on April 15, 1915, featured members of Imperio's family: her brother, a sister-in-law, and her daughter, Maria del Albaicin. Unfortunately, the piece disappointed critics and ticket-holders alike. Falla later revised his score as a concert suite (1916) and a pure ballet without singing. The latter achieved considerable success at its premiere in Paris's Trianon-Lyrique on May 22, 1927, on a program containing another supernaturally inspired piece, Stravinsky's L'histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale).
"Ernst was the greatest violinist I have ever heard. He towered above all others." This endorsement by Joseph Joachim (the violinist identified with Johannes Brahms's solo violin works) was superlative praise during the age of virtuosos. Some listeners claimed Ernst's technique surpassed even Paganini's. A native son of Moravia, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1814-65) entered the Vienna Conservatory at eleven for studies in violin with Joseph Boehm and composition with Ignaz Xaver, Ritter von Seyfried. After attending one of Paganini's performances in Vienna, Ernst devoted himself to attaining equal heights of virtuosity. His astounding technique shone through every original set of variations, poetic movement, and concerto for violin. Ernst composed the Grand Caprice on Schubert's Der Erlkonig, Opus 26 in Hamburg in 1854. Each aspect of Schubert's demonic song (based on a text by Goethe)- galloping triplets, frantic cries for help, the alluring, deadly entreaties of the Erl-King, and the father's desperate attempts to comfort his dying son- is transferred to the unaccompanied violin, producing one of the most difficult works ever written for the instrument.
One of the most popular melodies of the early-nineteenth century came from the ballet Die Zauberschwestern im Beneventer Walde (The Magic Sisters in the Beneventan Woods), produced in 1802 in Vienna. Franz Xaver Sussmayr (known for his completion of Mozart's unfinished Requiem) wrote the score, and Salvatore Vigano created the choreography. Vigano staged numerous acclaimed ballets for the Hoftheater, including Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus, in the early part of the century. He revised the Sussmayr collaboration as Le nozze di Benevento for an 1813 performance at La Scala in Milan. Audience and critical reactions were mixed: some praised Vigano's innovative production, while others decried the "hodgepodge of diabolical and grotesque inventions." The ballet made a lasting impression on at least one attendee, the violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840), who soon composed a set of variations on Sussmayr's music for the entrance of the witches. (Beginning violinists today will recognize this tune from Shinichi Suzuki's Book 2. Some teachers have their students dance a "witches dance" while playing this piece.) Paganini entitled his variations Le streghe (The Witches), opus 8, although one English-language publication called them Paganini's Dream.
A grand, majestic introduction for violin and piano acquaints the listener with tempo changes built into Sussmayr's theme and the virtuosity of the ensuing variations. Three central variations and an intermediate section marked "Minore" display Paganini's whole bag of virtuoso tricks: multiple stops in Variation I; rapid crossings over multiple strings, pizzicatos, and harmonics in Variation II; chromatic runs in octaves in the Minore; and runs up and down the G string alternated with multiple harmonics in Variation III. After all this, the Finale presents a blazing display of violin pyrotechnics, including runs, arpeggios, and harmonics played high on the instrument's G-string.
Technical difficulties inherent in Le streghe combined with the enchanted subject matter helped foster the growing association between Paganini and the Devil. A Viennese gentleman envisioned a demon hovering over the violinist as he performed this music. Paganini published a letter, with the help of Francois-Joseph Fetis, in the Revue musicale (183 1) describing this "ridiculous" event: "One individual, who appeared to me of a sallow complexion, melancholy air, and bright eye, affirmed that he . . . had distinctly seen, while I was playing the variations, the Devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow. My resemblance to [the Devil] was a proof of my origin. He was clothed in red, had horns on his head, and carried his tail between his legs." Paganini attempted to dissociate himself from the demonic image, going so far as to publish a loving, God-filled letter from his mother in a Prague newspaper (1828) as evidence against rumors that he was the Devil's son.
Nature did little to assist these efforts. The violinist suffered from constant ill health that left him lanky, drawn, and pale. Paganini began taking a popular elixir that apparently caused depression and stage fright. His dispassionate stage presence grew more startling when Paganini had his bottom teeth removed - perhaps another unfortunate result of his "medical" treatment - leaving his mouth in a permanent devilish smirk.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) discovered two folk stories about the encounters of a Soldier with the Devil while leafing through a published folk collection that Alexander Afanasiev compiled during the brutality of the Russo-Turkish wars. Stravinsky mentioned these tales to novelist C.F. Ramuz, who immediately recognized their theatrical potential. Collaboratively, they conceived L'histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale), a stage narration with incidental music for chamber ensemble. The first performance took place at the Theatre Municipal in Lausanne, Switzerland on September 28, 1918.
The normally "objective" composer experienced a haunting vision while writing this piece. Stravinsky imagined "a young gypsy sitting by the edge of the road. She had a child on her lap for whose entertainment she was playing a violin . . . The child was very enthusiastic about the music and applauded it with his little hands." The fiddle became an essential element in the final storyline, though nothing of the gypsy or her child survived.
On his way home after the war, a Soldier encounters the Devil dressed as an old man. The Soldier exchanges his fiddle (a metaphor for his soul) for a magic book. The Devil invites him to spend three days with him. Once arrived in his home village, the Soldier realizes he's been gone three years, not three days. The military man attempts to buy back his fiddle, but finds that he can produce no sound from it. The Soldier throws away the instrument and destroys the magic book. Later, he wins a card game with the Devil, now disguised as a virtuoso violinist, and recovers the fiddle. The Soldier's music revives a sleeping Princess, winning her hand in marriage, The Devil next appears as himself. The Soldier fiddles him into unconsciousness ("The Devil's Dance") then drags away his body. After their marriage, the Soldier and the Princess return to the village, where the Devil again enchants the young man and steals his fiddle a final time.
With L'histoire du soldat, Stravinsky cut final ties with his "Russian period" style. He opted instead for several popular "Western" musical types- march, tango, waltz, ragtime, and pasodoble - in addition to the more solemn Protestant chorale and, of course, the Diesirae. Stravinsky made two arrangements of his Soldier's Tale music: a five-movement suite for violin, clarinet, and piano (1919) and an eight-movement orchestral suite (1920). "The Devil's Dance" performed on this recording comes from the trio version.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's epic telling of the Faust legend bewitched nineteenth-century France. Its clash between sacred and profane, pure love and unbridled lust, eternal condemnation and redemption inflamed poets, visual artists, and composers (Schubert, Berlioz, and Liszt, among many others) of the Romantic age. This tale captivated Charles Gounod (1818-93) during his year of study at the French Academy in Rome after he received the Grand Prix de Rome in 1839. Nineteen years later, Gounod initiated a collaboration with impresario Leon Carvalho at the small Theatre-Lyrique, after the Opera de Paris rejected his proposed Faust opera. The source of Jules Barbier's libretto was an 1850 "boulevard" play, Faust et Marguerite, by Michel Carre (also one of Carvalho's resident authors). Like many French adaptations of Faust- either in novel, play, or visual form- Carre chose to spotlight the character of Marguerite (Gretchen in Goethe's version). The opera takes place in a sixteenth-century German village. Doctor Faust bemoans his meaningless existence and enters into a fiendish contract with Mephistopheles. Gounod's Faust opened on march 19, 1859, and enjoyed a respectable run of fifty-nine performances.
Gounod's themes enjoyed widespread dissemination through sheet music publications and instrumental fantasies or potpourris. (Opera was considered a form of popular entertainment during the nineteenth century, and virtuoso performers frequently included operatic fantasies on their solo programs.) At least three violinist-composers created Faust fantasies: Henryk Wieniawski, Henri Vieuxtemps, and Pablo Sarasate (1844-1908). Sarasate began, in traditional fashion, with his own fantastic introduction. The operatic excerpts observe the following sequence (based on the five-act edition): Marguerite's Prayer from Act IV ("Seigneur, accueillez la priere," Mephistopheles's Song of the Golden Calf from Act II ("Le veau d'or est toujours debout"), Faust and Marguerite's duet from Act III ("0 nuit d'amour"), a brief extract from Faust's Act III cavatina ("Salut! demeure chaste et pure"), and part of the Act II waltz with chorus sung by the youthful Siebel ("C'est par ici").
The son of a Spanish military bandmaster, Sarasate began his musical studies at the age of five. Sarasate gave his first public performance on the violin at age eight. With the financial backing of Queen Isabella, he went to Paris in 1856 to con tinue studies at the Conservatoire. He won first prize in violin and solfege the following year and a first prize in harmony in 1859. One of the great violin virtuosos of his day, Sarasate made his first tour of Europe in 1859. Later tours took him to England and North and South America.
Todd E. Sullivan is Assistant Professor of Music (musicology) at Indiana State University and is program annotator for the Ravinia Festival.
CANSLER, LOMAN D. "The Fiddle and Religion." Missouri Folklore Society journal 13-14 (1991-92): 31-43.
MICHEL, JOHANNES. "Tanz und Teufel: Zu ausgewalten Musikdarstellunden mittelalterlicher Sakralkunst am Oberrhdin." In Musik am Oberrhein. Kassel: Bosse, 1993. Pp 13-29.
SCHMIDT-GARRE, HELMUT. "Der Teufel in der Musik." Melos Vol. 1, No. 3 (1975): 174-83.
STEBLIN, RITA. "Death as a Fiddler: The Study of a Convention in European Art, Literature, and Music." Basler Jahrbuch fur Historische Musikpraxis 14 (1990): 271-322.
WALSER, ROB. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hannover, NH: University Press of New England, 1993.
WALTER, MICHAEL. "Der Teufel und die Kunstmusik: Zur Musik der Karolingerzeit." Das andere Wahrnehmen: Beitrage zur europaischen Geschichte: August Nitschke zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet. Edited by Martin Kintzinger, Wolfgang Sturner, and Johannes Zahlten. Cologne: Bohlau, 1991. Pp. 63-74.
WOLFE, CHARLES. The Devil's Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling. Nashville, TN: Country Music Foundation Press; Vanderbilt University Press, 1997.
Album Details
Total Time: 78:30
Recorded: March-July, 1998 at WFMT Chicago
Producers: James Ginsburg & Sibbi Bernhardsson
Engineer: Bill Maylone
Production Assistant: David Dieckmann
Cover Photography: Nesha & Kumiko Fotodesign
Design: Cheryl A Boncuore
Notes: Todd E. Sullivan
© 1998 Cedille Records/Cedille Chicago


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Sign up or login into your existing account and click here to join the Only Pro Evolutions private league. Alternatively, you can register by using the following League PIN:
8151665There will be prizes (at least an OPE/PES T-Shirt) handed out at the end of the season. But in order to claim a prize, you must confirm your team name by posting it below. Simply put: if you win the league but don't confirm your team name, you will not receive a prize.


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CAST Soundbite: Aaron Ames
Faculty: Aaron Ames
Our research addresses fundamental issues that represent roadblocks in critical technologies towards engineering our physical environment. The members of our faculty lead dynamic research groups that are funded from diverse sources. The research is often interdisciplinary and projects range from focused individual focused to large centers of collaboration.
Faculty: Aaron Ames
Faculty: José E. Andrade
Faculty: Austin Minnich
High-density epidural spinal stimulation, uses sheet-like arrays of numerous electrodes to stimulate neurons. The goal of the system, is to stimulate the native standing and stepping control circuitry in the lower spinal cord so as to coordinate sensory-motor activity and partially replace the missing signals from the brain to the nerves. Using a combination of experimentation, computational models of the array and spinal cord, and machine-learning algorithms, Burdick and his colleagues are trying to optimize the stimulation pattern to achieve the best effects, and to improve the design of the electrode array.
Faculty: Joel W. Burdick
A recent research interest for Professor Rosakis is Hypervelocity Impact. Hypervelocity impact is a rising concern in spacecraft missions where man-made debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) and meteoroids are capable of compromising or depleting the structural integrity of spacecraft. To address these concerns, the goal of current research is to experimentally investigate the underlying mechanisms responsible for deformation and damage evolution during hypervelocity impact utilizing Caltech/JPL's Small Particle Hypervelocity Impact Range (SPHIR) facility. By combining high speed photography, optical techniques, including Coherent Gradient Sensing (CGS) interferometry, the dynamic perforation behavior involving crater morphology, debris and ejecta formation and solid/fluid/plasma transitions and interactions have been examined.
Faculty: Rosakis
We are working to develop a new class of feedback circuits that makes use of synthetic biological components to implement rapid response to input signals in a more robust and modular fashion. Our approach is to make use of biological processes that operate on timescales of seconds to minutes, primarily through feedback mechanisms using allosteric and covalent modifications that affect protein function. We are exploring the use of the modularity of protein domains to design circuit elements that can be reused more easily than existing components, and we will test our circuits across a variety of cellular contexts to assess robustness as a fundamental property of the design.
Faculty: Richard M. Murray
Substantial research challenges exist in the design and verification of large-scale, complex, distributed sensing, actuation and control systems. Three topics of particular interest are the design in information flows, cooperative behavior between distributed agents, and verification of distributed, asynchronous control systems. Each of these topics relates to a difficult aspect in the proper operation of large-scale distributed system in which the temporal scales of the underlying dynamics of the systems, the rate of communications between agents, and the latency in computation and multi-threaded execution cannot be separated. The additional need to be able to rapidly design, implement and commission such systems requires new techniques in modeling, analysis, design and verification.
To approach the interlinked challenges of information flow, cooperative behavior and verification, we plan to combine tools and recent advances from control theory, networked systems and computer science. The primary tools that we expect to build on are graph theory, partial order theory, temporal logic, graph grammars, formal methods and optimization-based control. This combination of tools allows us to model and analyze complex, protocol-based control systems by using temporal logic to specify desired behavior, graph theory (in particular the graph Laplacian and other associated matrices) to model and design the information flow, graph grammars to design cooperative behavior, lattice theory and Lyapunov theory to understand convergence properties via invariant sets, and model-checking and receding horizon control to design systems whose asynchronous execution sequences satisfy a given specification. Previous results in each of these areas has demonstrated the efficacy of modeling and analysis of distributed, asynchronous sensing, actuation and control systems; future work will focus on advances required to support large-scale systems and modularity.
Faculty: Richard M. Murray
Our lab is interested in computational mechanics with applications to granular and porous materials. We develop basic computational tools that allow us to model and predict the behavior of these ubiquitous materials with significant impact on engineering science and industry. Current applications of our research include: mars rover explorations, landslide modeling, liquefaction modeling, CO₂ geologic sequestration. Though our emphasis is in computational procedures, we perform basic experiments and collaborate with top experimentalists around the world to make our models useful and predictive.
Faculty: José Andrade
The combustion of hydrogen and high hydrogen content (HHC) fuels in real burners is controlled by complex interactions between chemical kinetics, molecular transport, and turbulence. Modeling and predicting the combustion of hydrogen remains challenging. More specifically, current state-of-the-art models are not capable of capturing satisfactorily the unique combustion characteristics of fuel-lean hydrogen/air or HHC-fuels/air mixtures under high pressures. Under fuel-lean conditions, the Lewis number of the reacting mixture is significantly less than one, promoting thus the development of thermo-diffusional instabilities. These instabilities might lead ultimately to unstable combustion, flashback, blow-off, and noise.
Faculty: Guillaume Blanquart
Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities appear when a heavy fluid is placed on top of a light fluid. The light fluid rises as a result of buoyancy forces, and in many cases, the flow transitions rapidly to turbulence. Due to their intrinsic nature, Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities are found in a large diversity of engineering applications and natural phenomena (inertial confinement fusion, furnaces, accidental fires, heat transfer within stars, supernova formation, underwater hot vents, oil spill…). A lot of work has been done on the initial and long term growth of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. However, little is known about the structure of the turbulence inside buoyant mixing layers. A perfect example is the observed anisotropy of scales in direct contradiction with the well-established Kolmogorov theory and which remains currently unexplained by any theoretical models.
Faculty: Guillaume Blanquart
Isolated hot surfaces surrounded by a flammable mixture, such as a pipe carrying hot gas in a flammable leakage zone in an aircraft or the overheating of a failing electrical or mechanical device, are potential ignition sources. To study these phenomena, a new experimental procedure has been setup in which a hot glow-plug is surrounded by a flammable hydrocarbon/air mixture. Heated gases rise up due to buoyancy and a thermal plume is established. At the right location in the plume, the mixture ignites and a laminar flame starts to propagate through the vessel. During the investigation of the dependence of hot surface ignition temperature on various parameters, such as pressure, equivalence ratio, and surface size, it was observed that periodic flames (puffing) develop at higher equivalence ratios. Puffing behavior has been encountered already in non-premixed (diffusion) flames such as fires. The present results may be the first evidence of a puffing premixed flame. Preliminary results suggest that the puffing behavior in these premixed flames is a direct outcome of the interaction between buoyancy forces and vorticity generation near the flame front.
Faculty: Guillaume Blanquart
Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS) only provides few seconds to a minute of early warning, which is not enough for human decision-making in many engineering applications. Automated Decision-making System (ADS) is developed to make fast and rational decision based on the most updated EEWS information. The decision is based on a probabilistic estimation of economic loss using PEER performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) methodology. Action Function (AF) is defined such that mitigation action is taken when expected value of AF is greater than zero. Concept of surrogate model is used to speed up calculation process in order to achieve real-time decision-making. Time constraint is also considered to make sure the chosen mitigation action can be completed within limited warning time.
Faculty: James L. Beck
In the late eighties, Rosakis introduced the concept of "Laboratory Earthquakes" and since then his research interests have mainly focused on the mechanics of seismology, the physics of dynamic shear rupture and frictional sliding and on laboratory seismology. The goal of this body of work is to create, in a controlled and repeatable environment, surrogate laboratory earthquake scenarios mimicking various dynamic shear rupture process occurring in natural earthquake events. Such, highly instrumented, experiments are used to observe new physical phenomena and to also create benchmark comparisons with existing analysis and field observations. The experiments use high-speed photography, full-field photoelasticity, and laser velocimetry as diagnostics. The fault systems are simulated using two photoelastic plates held together in frictional contact. The far field tectonic loading is simulated by pre-compression while the triggering of dynamic rupture (spontaneous nucleation) is achieved by suddenly dropping the normal stress in a small region along the interface. The frictional interface (fault) forms various angles with the compression axis to provide the shear driving force necessary for continued rupturing. Rosakis and his co-workers, investigate the characteristics of rupture, such as rupture speed, rupture mode, associated ground motion under various conditions such as tectonic load, interface complexity and roughness. Both homogeneous and bimaterial interfaces (abutted by various elastic and damaged media) are investigated. Rosakis and his coworkers have been credited with the experimental discovery of the "intersonic" or "supershear rupture" phenomenon. Indeed they have investigated this new phenomenon in various engineering and geophysical settings involving shear dominated rupture in the presence of weak interfaces or faults. Their experimental discoveries of supershear rupture has refocused the attention of the geophysics community to the study of supershear earthquakes.
Faculty: Rosakis
Defects play a critical role in determining the macroscopic properties of solids. Dislocations mediate plasticity, vacancies mediate creep, and grain boundaries affect dislocations and vacancy migration. However, defects present a particularly daunting challenge since the (quantum) chemistry of the core, the atomistic halo and macroscopic (elastic) fields are intimately coupled. Density Functional Theory (DFT) describes the quantum mechanics, but is much too complex to directly use at the macroscopic scales. This has motivated a number of approaches for multiscale modeling, but they often use specific and ad hoc assumptions about the interactions. Bhattacharya and Ortiz groups have pursed an approach where they solve the equations of DFT on macroscopic domains by exploiting the structure of the solution to systematically eliminate degrees of freedom. Keys ideas include a reformulation of DFT in terms of local variables, efficient methods of solution and a nested discretization that resolves all details near the core but only samples representative points away from it. This has been used to study vacancy binding in Aluminum and surface energies of Magnesium, and current work addresses dislocations in metals and domain walls in ferroelectric materials.
Faculty: Kaushik Bhattacharya
The Bhattacharya group studies a wide range of active materials including shape-memory alloys, ferroelectrics, electro-active materials and liquid crystal elastomers. The materials have unusual properties that couple mechanical, electrical, magnetic and thermal phenomena. A key issue that is addresses is understanding the link between microstructure and macroscopic properties, and then using this understanding (i) to develop ideas for improved materials, (ii) to propose novel applications and (iii) to build high-fidelity macroscopic models.
Faculty: Kaushik Bhattacharya
Fundamental problems involving the interaction of shock waves with drops and bubbles arise in numerous applications. In underwater explosions, the blast wave can interact with underwater structures to form cavitation bubbles whose violent collapse generates secondary shock waves. Similar processes occur in medical procedures involving shock and ultrasonic waves, such as lithotripsy (pulverization of kidney stones with shock waves) and historipsy (tissue fractionation for treatment of cancer), and in two-phase flow in turbomachinery. We are developing robust and accurate numerical simulations of the interactions of shock waves with a disperse phase, and using the simulations to characterize the stresses occurring in nearby solid and fluid structures. The methodology has so far been applied to study the collapse of cavitation bubbles near a kidney stone in lithotripsy, and the deformation of a target during a high-speed droplet impact. We are also modeling the growth and collapse of cavitation bubbles in micro-vessels as a model for the tissue injury that occurs in lithotripsy.
Faculty: Tim Colonius
Together with colleagues at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Princeton and Northeastern Universities, we are developing integrated closed-loop flow and flight control for stabilization and regulation of separated flows occurring on unmanned and micro air vehicle (UAV/MAV) wings. Inspired by the remarkable performance of birds and insects, increased lift associated with the controlled flows will lead to dramatic improvements in maneuverability, gust resistance, and a wider flight envelope. We are also studying how energy can be effectively extracted from wind gradients, in order to minimize power requirements and thereby reduce the weight of MAV. Our approach utilizes model-based, real-time control of unsteady mass injection along the wing's leading edge in order to dynamically alter the aerodynamic forces and moments, potentially eliminating traditional control surfaces whose inertia and structural limitations preclude real-time disturbance rejection algorithms. The methodology, so far demonstrated on model wings in laboratory and simulation environments, also delivers high-lift flow states that would be otherwise unstable without sensing and actuation. Specific laboratory demonstrations include the ability to dynamically cancel lift fluctuations associated with gusting flows on a time scale approaching the fast, intrinsic fluid-dynamic time scales associated with small-scale wings. A significant aspect of the work is the development of general model reduction theory and algorithms suitable for robust flow control that can be applied to a wide variety of flow control problems.
Faculty: Tim Colonius
Since the 1950s, significant reductions in aircraft noise have been made by increasing the bypass ratio of the turbofan engine. However, the bypass ratio is reaching a practical upper bound, and significant further reductions in jet noise will require more subtle interactions with the turbulent flow field and better understanding of the mechanisms of sound generation. To date, only passive devices such as serrated nozzles have proven robust and effective enough for deployment on commercial aircraft, but recent advances in simulation and modeling promise new insights into mechanisms that can be exploited in active and, perhaps ultimately, closed-loop control. We are performing large-scale computations of turbulent jets and their radiated noise in order to provide detailed databases through which reduced-order modeling and control concepts can be evaluated. These simulations utilize new methods that permit better scalability for parallel simulations on very large numbers of processors. We are also developing reduced-order models based on Parabolized Stability Equations (PSE) and utilizing data from advanced diagnostic techniques such as large microphone arrays in order to isolate specific turbulent structures responsible for the loudest noise.
Faculty: Tim Colonius
Booming sand dunes have intrigued travelers since Marco Polo and puzzled scientists for long. Some dunes emit a persistent, low-frequency sound during a slumping event or a natural avalanche on the leeward face of the dune. The sound can last for several minutes and is audible from miles away. The resulting acoustic emission is characterized by a dominant audible frequency (70 - 105 Hz) and several higher harmonics. Seismic refraction experiments by Caltech ME proved the existence of a multi-layer internal structure in the dune that acts as a waveguide for the acoustic energy. Constructive interference between the reflecting waves enables the amplification and sets the frequency of each boom. Continuing work focuses on additional geophysical measurements and finite difference simulations supporting the waveguide model for booming sand dunes.
Watch the NOVA special "Booming Sands" »
Faculty: Melany L. Hunt


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Mechanical keyboards are the miniguns of gaming gear: Heavy, ostentatiously clacky, and downright murderous. They're commensurately uncommon and expensive. Razer's Black Widow is the latest, a surprisingly spare piece of kit from Razer, considering its typical aggro-gamer mode of existence. (What's a mechanical keyboard, you ask? Read this.)
The weight and build of the keyboard and the rat-tat-tat of keys firing makes you feel like you're using an actual weapon in combat. At the same time, the Cherry Blue MX switches (again, consult Overlock.net's mechanical keyboard guide for more detail on mechanical keyboard parts) deliver a smooth but tactile experience that doesn't require a nuclear strike to clear the key, since it activates halfway through the press. So you can stay light on your toes-er, fingers. USB and headphone/mic ports on the side are seriously handy. Individual LED backlighting on the Ultimate model is handy in the dark, as well as the feature that neuters the Windows Start key.
Normally, I don't care if my typing sounds like machine-gun fire. But there may be times it's too loud. Backlighting and extra ports only on the $130 Ultimate model. No wrist rest. The alternate function key is tiny and poorly positioned, so it's occasionally annoying to adjust volume. Five distinct macro keys maybe too few for some people. Limited anti-ghosting. Glossy finish gets gross fast.
$130 for Black Widow Ultimate; $80 for Black Widow


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I have lost the password of sum picture file that I encrypted with a programme Called Security Plus. Ver 4.33 This is a Win 98/Xp base programme . ( File exe sp$ )
Would someone be able to crack this for me or can you advise how to do this and advise programmes need to complete this.


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