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Harry Partch Had No Balls
StoreTags: balls, lackthereof, intonation
Author: Roshi on June 13 2007 Viewed 3474 times. 17 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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While reading some more about the composer Lou Harrison, I came across this page where people submitted stories/remembrances about him: link
To set the story:
Lou Harrison was a gay composer well known for his adventurousness in music, having stuck thumbtacks in piano hammers long before it was fashionable and building an "American Gamelan" out of auto parts with his long-time partner Bill Colvig. More about him here: link
Harry Partch was one of the first composers to work with microtonal scales, and among other things, invented a 43-tone scale, and numerous instruments. More info here: link
Anyhow, I found the following anecdote very amusing. Mostly because it illustrates how eccentric and funny Lou Harrison was.
In 1995, Lou and Bill came to visit me in Joshua Tree. I picked them up at the Palm Springs airport in my small truck, and Lou volunteered to sit in the back. On a thin cushion, al fresco. Upon arrival at my house, Bill promptly did his impersonation of a man with narcolepsy, and fell asleep in a chair by the kitchen table. Lou asked if I would drive him around, and show him Joshua Tree the town. "Bill can sleep the whole goddamn day for all I care" said Lou, with some exasperation. We jumped in the truck and took off driving, with no real goal or destination.
Driving around, we talked about all the usual stuff we always talked about. Pretty much everything except music. We rarely talked about music. About an hour into the drive, he did ask me how my composing went. I told him about this dancer I was writing for up in Berkeley. It paid very little, but I was doing my best I said. I told him about the structure being mostly whole notes, sung quietly, in a 3 voice part. He said, " I have a poorly compensated commission of my own right now, I think I as well will just write a lot of whole notes". We both laughed awhile on that one, and then that moment eased into a comfortable silence between us for some minutes. We were headed north, going downhill on a dirt road, the setting sun nearly searing my unprotected eyes. We were a stone's throw from the property he would later purchase.
From that silence, Lou turned to me rather calmly, his eyes squinting into the sun. Matter of factly he broke the silence. "Harry Partch had no balls".
Oh great, Harry Partch had no balls. Thanks for sharing Lou.
I was a bit in shock, Harry after all being one of my heroes and all. Lou went on to explain how when Harry was a kid, he contracted mumps or measles or something like that, and that because of the family's rural homestead, a doctor was just too far away. So the testes apparently wasted away or something to that effect.
Thanks for sharing Lou.
Indeed. Thanks for sharing. That's one of the things that made Lou so great, so awesome as a person. He would share with almost anyone until the cows came home. Share a meal, a conversation, a lifetime's learning and experiences. Lou gave to me so many books on so many subjects I've lost count. All of them signed with a little note. He'd think of someone when he would discover an article or book, and he'd mail it to them right away. Meeting Lou when I did, opened up so many doors and through him I met so many amazing people. He's basically the 1st harmonic of an amazingly varied and unspeakably beautiful scale. From which, all other harmonics relate to Lou, and resonate with him. Lou, you were the 1. | |
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06/14/07
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Roshi
Stockhausen had 3
06/14/07
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Roshi
Actually, now I'm just making shit up
06/14/07
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mlbot
Wait, doesn't astroid-- according to the em411 folklore-- have abnormally large nads?
does that make him a musical genius, or a musical midget?
06/14/07
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Roshi
The correlation between testicle size and creativity has never been proven.
Moob size, however, that's another picture.
06/14/07
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astroid
my testicles are the size of dead squirrel heads
06/14/07
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mlbot
Maybe they are a pair of dead squirrel heads...
squirrels are known to eat nuts, after all
06/14/07
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Roshi
I don't want to hear about anyone's Harry Partch
06/15/07
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nagrom
A friend of mine when I was young claimed to have weighed his balls out to 1 pound each. He was very serious about it.
06/15/07
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Roshi
I feel sorry for his tailor.
06/15/07
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astroid
the only reasonable measure for balls is volume displacement
06/15/07
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Roshi
Thank you, archimedes
06/15/07
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mlbot
it doesn't work for just testicles
link
06/15/07
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mlbot
"Attractive breasts are symetrically situated on the anterolateral chest wall and have soft but defined junctures with the chest, upper abdomen and the axillae. The breast profile is a gentle downward vertical flow from the clavicle to the nipple-areola and a mildly convex from the nipple-areaola to the infra-mammary crease.[1] ...... One hundred and four breasts were included in this work. Fifty six breasts (53.8%) were of the cone-shaped variety, while the other 48 (46.2%) were of the rounded form. [Table - 1] shows that their age ranged from 18 to 25 years with a mean age of 20.5±1.7 years.."
LOL Science at work.
06/15/07
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djugel
Off topic ... but I just learned that I about 3 degrees away from meeting one of my fav's. John C. Reilly!!
06/15/07
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Roshi
John C. Reilly kicks ass.
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