Grab bag: Winning some, losing some

Finishing a messy filesystem merge with DeltaWalker

Almost six months ago, I managed to create a big mess 0n my outboard media drive with iTunes, when, while trying to consolidate all my music onto a new 1TB drive, I managed only a partial move and ended up with files strewn across the old drive and two different directory trees on the new drive. I’ve spent the time since in a lot of manual moving of files, since the Mac does not support merging two different directories with the same name.

I was able to clear up the top level confusion easily enough by doing a diff on directory listings from the top level directories, but that still left issues with subdirectories that had the same names but different contents. I thought I’d be doing the project forever. I tried a couple different tools to help. Path Finder was the nicest UI that I worked with, but it still only supported manual comparison and synchronization of the two directory trees.

I finally broke down and looked harder, and found an amazing tool, DeltaWalker, that seems as though it were designed for exactly the nightmare I faced. Point it at a pair of directories and it will highlight all the differences between them–missing subdirectories on one side or the other, or subdirectories whose contents are different in the two different locations. You can filter the output, too, so that you only have to see the differences that you care about (I didn’t need to know how many folders were in my target directory and not my source). And when you find files that have to come over, it’s a button click to make the move.

Once I found DeltaWalker, it took only about an hour to finish cleaning up the mess that I had started over six months before. It’s an awesome tool, and one I can’t believe I had never seen before.

Marking the calendar for 140

I got my official “save the date” mailer for the Virginia Glee Club’s 140th Anniversary celebration last night. I haven’t been to a reunion weekend since the 125th back in 1995, so am eagerly looking forward to attending.

Not least on the reasons that I want to return: the opportunity to sing under four great Club conductors. I haven’t seen John Liepold since 1996 or so, so am looking forward to renewing acquaintances. I only met Bruce Tammen once, at a Clubhouse party in the late 90s. I had a blast singing with Frank Albinder’s Glee Club this spring when the group came through on their Northeastern tour.

And I’m especially interested to sing with Donald Loach. While I came into the group at a time when there were still a lot of hurt feelings over the separation in 1989, the more I learn about his tenure as Club director (still the longest serving at 25 years), the more respect I have for him and what he was able to accomplish. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Grab bag: how much would you pay for Newsweek?

Whither the Concert on the Lawn?

Today’s Virginia Glee Club history moment is a look at the Concert on the Lawn. The Glee Club’s entry in the collegiate tradition of “step singing,” the Concert on the Lawn was inaugurated in 1936 as a community sing with an announcement in College Topics, featuring this trenchant quotation from conductor Harry Rogers Pratt:

Ability to sing is not a pre-requisite. Those who think they can sing are wanted especially. Tenors will be protected by Beta and Captain Mack. Baying, bellowing, and booing will be allowed. ‘Sweet Adeline’ will be sung as often as demand warrants.

The concert was a roaring success, with the review reporting:

With beer in front of them, beer in back of them, beer inside of them, “Pratt’s Boys” went to town last night and lifted the skies from the steps of the Rotunda.Some say the interlude was caused by a shortage of foaming brew, but whatever it was, either the Lure of the Lawn or the Radiance of the Rotunda, it was good!

Over the next sixty years, Club continued to mount free performances on the Lawn in spring afternoons, and surprises–whether community sing-alongs of Old MacDonald or four-voice performances of “Freebird”–abounded.

And then… the tradition died out. Reports are mixed on the cause: some say that a new Glee Club conductor feared his men couldn’t be properly heard in an outdoor venue (as if that were ever the point). Whatever the case, sometime in the late nineties was the last time there was a free Concert on the Lawn by the Glee Club. Here’s hoping that we will see another one sometime soon.

Grab bag: two phase commits and magic trackpads

Grab bag: revivals afoot

New mixes: your scary 80s 7 and 8

We call this “unclogging the pipes.” I have probably 20 mixes in various partial states of repair, and it’s high time I start publishing them so that I can make room for the real stuff.

So here are two—maybe, dare I hope, my last two—80s mixes. As always, the first one is the stuff I’m ashamed (and secretly happy) to remember, while the second one is stuff I would have been proud to listen to had I known about it while I was growing up.

Your Scary 80s 7

  1. Be near Me – ABC (How to Be a Zillionaire)
  2. Always Something There to Remind Me – Naked Eyes (The Best of Naked Eyes)
  3. She Blinded Me With Science – Thomas Dolby (The Golden Age of Wireless)
  4. Your Love – The Outfield (Play Deep)
  5. Spies Like Us – Paul McCartney (Press to Play)
  6. Your Wildest Dreams – The Moody Blues (Anthology: the Moody Blues)
  7. Rain In the Summertime – The Alarm (Eye of the Hurricane (Remastered))
  8. Africa – Toto (Toto IV)
  9. No One Is To Blame – Howard Jones (Dream Into Action)
  10. The Captain of Her Heart – Double (The Captain of Her Heart)
  11. Life In a Northern Town – The Dream Academy (Rhino Hi-Five: The Dream Academy – EP)
  12. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight – Genesis (Genesis: The Hits – Turn It On Again)
  13. Sanctify Yourself – Simple Minds (Once Upon a Time)
  14. Higher Love (Full) – Steve Winwood (Back in the High Life)
  15. I Wanna Be a Cowboy – Boys Don’t Cry (Boys Don’t Cry)
  16. Pump Up the Volume (USA 12) – Colourbox (Best of Colourbox: 1982-1987)
  17. The Reflex – Duran Duran (Duran Duran: Greatest)

Your Scary 80s 8

  1. Gardening At Night – R.E.M. (Dead Letter Office)
  2. Alive and Kicking – Simple Minds (Once Upon a Time)
  3. You Be Illin’ – Run-DMC (Raising Hell)
  4. Do You Really Want 2 Hurt Me – Culture Club (Culture Club (Box Set))
  5. West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys (Please)
  6. Moments in Love – Art of Noise ((Who’s Afraid Of) The Art Of Noise?)
  7. Let the Day Begin – Michael Been AKA The Call (The Best of the Call)
  8. The Perfect Kiss – New Order (Low-Life)
  9. Fire Woman – The Cult (Sonic Temple)
  10. One Thing Leads to Another – The Fixx (20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Fixx (Remastered))
  11. Banned in D.C. – Bad Brains (Bad Brains)
  12. Rise Above – Black Flag (Damaged)
  13. Small Man, Big Mouth – Minor Threat (First Two 7″s)
  14. Kinky Sex Makes the World Go ‘Round – Dead Kennedys (Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death)
  15. I Want You Back – Hoodoo Gurus (Stoneage Romeo)
  16. Red – Mission Of Burma (Signals, Calls, And Marches)
  17. You Are My Friend – The Rain Parade (Emergency Third Rail Power Trip: Explosions In The Glass Palace)
  18. Jetfighter – Three O’Clock (Sixteen Tambourines/Baroque Hoedown)
  19. I Love Rock N’ Roll – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (I Love Rock N’ Roll)
  20. Beat Box – Art of Noise (Into Battle with the Art of Noise)

Grab bag: AT&T network down, MacPaint source opened

Grab bag: moonscapes, zero days, fiddling

Remembering Angelo F. Lucadamo

My father-in-law died late on Wednesday night. He was 90 and lived every one of those years with passion. I remember meeting him for the first time 15 years ago, and being struck initially by his age but also by his energy and drive. The man could charm anyone: I remember him deep in conversation with my Uncle Forrest, swapping stories, and being struck by how natural it was for this son of Italian immigrants from Pennsylvania coal country to converse with my very Southern uncle.

Al always engaged everything he came across with curiosity and humor. I remember hearing the story about his first drive through the south–it was the middle of World War II, and he, as a petroleum engineer, was heading to the Gulf to contribute to the war effort by working at a refinery. He stopped somewhere in the deep south for breakfast and placed an order. The waitress asked if he wanted grits. Of course, he had no idea what grits were, but didn’t want to be impolite, so said, “Yeah, I guess I’ll have one or two.” There were many stories that he told over and over again, but I never tired of that one–it said a lot about his sense of adventure.

Most of all, I remember sitting around a lot of tables with him. Even to the end, he loved food and drink, and would always ask for his wine glass to be refilled– “Poco, poco“–look and wink, and say, “Quando festa, festa.” I think those are some pretty good words to live by.

The online condolences book is here.

John Oliver on memorization

John Oliver, founding director of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, was on a great roundtable on WAMC about the chorus, memorization, Michael Tilson Thomas, his garden, and a bunch of other topics.

[audio:http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.mediaplayer?STATION_NAME=wamc&MEDIA_ID=912057&MEDIA_EXTENSION=mp3&MODULE=news&ext=.mp3]

It makes me want to head off to Tanglewood right now.

In other news, I am heading to Tanglewood. Tomorrow, actually, to sing the Mozart Requiem and Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms with Michael Tilson Thomas. I’ve never sung with him before, but based on how the performances of the Mahler went last week, we should be in for an exciting ride.