My Colo(u)r Blindness

I'm finally sorting out my weird version of colour-blindness.  There's a pretty good online test at http://www.opticien-lentilles.com/daltonien_beta/new_test_daltonien.php.  I can always tell two colours apart when they're both there for comparison, although I'm often not 100% sure of what to call them.  The colours of a traffic signal are all different to me, but just not different in the same way that they are to you.  (I suspect that a traffic-signal green looks the most "wrong" to me.)

My issues usually occur when I can't see both "close" (to me) colours at the same time.  Certain blues and purples look closer than they're supposed to, as do certain greens, yellows, and (for example) golds.  I also have a lot of trouble with magenta, pink, salmon, and additional colours with some red in them ("warm greys," etc.) and with whether or not something might be called brown, beige, etc.  So, it has to do with the amount of red able to be perceived in combination with green and blue.  Thus, I am dichromatic, but actually some combination of protanopia (long/red wavelengths affected) and deuteranopia (medium/green wavelengths affected).

In the thumbnail below, it's VERY difficult for me to see that there's an M there.  I have to have my screen really bright AND look from a really low angle, because whatever's in the letter is just not punching through the square and the grid.  At the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#Dichromacy, I can't see the 37 at all (a red problem), can just make out the 49 (barely, and really only because I was looking for it; a green problem), but I can see the 56 OK (blue, short wavelength).

Public Musicology - How to Get There

http://chronicle.com/article/Making-a-Public-PhD/130716


Highlights:
Yale University has a public humanities initiative. As one of its American Studies professors puts it: "Students have to invent their own jobs." Similarly, a Yale historian says: "Historians have to get out and reach the broader public...the ultimate audience. ... If academic historians don't get involved, we have no right to complain about what we see at public historical sites." A professor at another institution says: "I'm alarmed that there aren't more people with strong history backgrounds actually doing public history."


Followup:
"Public history" should certainly be expanded to include "public musicology" (public music history & culture, etc.). However, musicology presently exists almost exclusively within music departments, as one of a number of music sub-disciplines that focus mainly on "specialized knowledge" about classical music performance, music theory, and so on. Musicology thus almost never participates in such humanities' contexts as Yale's or even in what is arguably the ultimate public forum: the internet. However, it absolutely can and should!


The American Musicological Society's brand-new professional development guide (188 pages) spends only 2 pages (i.e., that aren't document samples) on the non-academic world, yet it exclusively seems to mean by that such supposedly "non-academic" work contexts as museums, libraries, and institutes. In addition, the document does not even bother to update the sample documents from the Harvard Arts & Sciences publication that it borrowed for this purpose. Not a single one of those resumes and cover letters has anything to do with music or music graduate degrees.

The Grammy Awards

I really want to like what Dave Grohl said last night at the 2012 Grammy Awards. However, I have to say that just because some people use Auto-Tune, etc. fairly cheesily doesn't mean that other people don't use technology in MUCH more interesting ways than what white, male rock bands (even Grammy-winning ones) supposedly do with their hearts and heads.

Anything I've heard by Foo Fighters is frankly not any better or worse than other mainstream, post-grunge hard rock music--such as by Nickelback (who, at least, weren't once the drummer of Nirvana). I'm sure that this sentiment is going to surprise people who think I sit around all day listening to Rush, but I'd much rather listen to almost anything by Laurie Anderson than almost anything by Foo Fighters. The Grammys are meaningless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfTXQ5BzI4

P.S. As for Adele (what I've heard anyhow, especially her distinctive voice), I actually like her. Apparently, so does Dave Grohl, although I suspect he may have just been sucking up in order to "play nice" among his likely, fellow award-winners.

"The Last Waltz" (the Band, etc.) - Classic Albums Live

I'm looking forward to the Classic Albums Live performance of the Band's 1976 farewell concert "The Last Waltz" at Kitchener, ON's Centre in the Square this evening. I wonder how authentic it will be, though: copious amounts of cocaine, "Joni Mitchell" not quite knowing what to sing in the verses of "Helpless" by "Neil Young" (himself at first unable to remember how the song goes), "Eric Clapton's" guitar strap breaking, "Robbie Robertson" pretending to contribute to the backing vocals (while otherwise MC'ing as though it was "his" band), whether "Garth Hudson" uses a Lowrey organ instead of a Hammond, not being able to see Stratford, ON native "Richard Manuel" (d. 1986) singing lead vocals behind all of the guest artists onstage, "Levon Helm" being relatively pissed off about the whole ordeal, and so on. I can see faking Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Diamond, and Van Morrison (hell, I can fake them!), but who on Earth will be able to fake Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan? The Classic Albums Live folks are out of Toronto, though, so the percentage of Canadians could actually be even higher than in the original!