Making the Case: Time Turns Elastic

Posted on November 27, 2009 by Adam S

Trey Anastasio’s masterpiece “Time Turns Elastic” was written for an orchestra.

That’s what they tell us, at least. It was performed with the New York Philharmonic in September of 2009. A video surfaced, Trey playing TTE alone, acoustically. And then there’s the Fenway debut.

Somehow, we find ourselves here in November, a few short months after the song was released, and many Phish fans, not just the next generation, are calling TTE the worst Phish song ever. I hear “Time Turns Molasses.” I hear “Time Turns Craptastic.” I hear “Time… to pee.” But why? Why do so many fans hate this song? Why don’t they see what I do in TTE?

I think it’s for a few reasons. Firstly, this song took me a while to “get into.” It’s a long song with many distinct sections, and most people, I honestly think, don’t take the time to listen to it to not only ingest it all, but to even get to know it all. Much of the instrumental part of TTE, I think, is really easier to appreciate as a musician. Counting out some of the bits are a challenge. Many people think the song rambles on for too long aimlessly. Yet I can’t see any section of the song I’d want to trim out. Every bit is great. It’s said that Phish took something like 283 takes to get this track right. I believe this, there are a lot of intricate bits to the song that would be a challenge to capture in one 13 minute chunk.

Which leads me to argument 2 against the song: it’s not been “nailed” yet live. All of the performances thus far have ranged from “pretty lackluster” at worst to “decent” at best. I was excited to get my TTE at Festival 8 only to have it crush under the weight of itself. I love the song, and I’m willing to give Trey the benefit of the doubt and say that the cold air of night one of Festival 8 was responsible for so much of the fudging, but it was hard to hear the climax of the song, “The Carousel,” be executed so sloppily. Having said that, poor live execution does not a bad song make.

Clocking in at over 13 minutes (for the studio version, at least), and usually closer to 18 minutes live thus far, TTE is a big commitment in a set. So it seems reasonable to assume that, in time, Phish will tire of a song like that in regular rotation. When TTE becomes more of a rarity, more like a McGrupp, I bet people will start to think it’s more interesting to hear the song performed live.

The third argument for Time Turns Elastic is that it’s actually a suite of several smaller sections, which, as songs, aren’t nearly as tough to swallow. The song is arranged as follows:

Movement 1a – Song At Dawn
Movement 1b – Ruby Shaded Sea
Movement 2a – Submarine
Movement 2b – Landslide
Movement 2c – Rays Of Blue Light
Movement 3a – Silver Sound Shower
Movement 3b – Hilstorm
Movement 3c – Funnels
Movement 3d – Carousel

Image courtesy of Mr. Miner

Surely, most would agree that the intro and the outro are the most identifiable and the easiest to digest at first glance. It’s just parts of the middle that require some patience and some re-listening. If these parts were played on their own, they wouldn’t be hated. So narrow it down for me: it’s obviously many smaller bits pieced together: which is the part(s) you don’t like? It can’t be all of them, because the odds of Phish writing so many greats songs and then 3 you hate all coincidentally stitched together are pretty much nil. So those who hate TTE probably aren’t talking about the entire song, but rather, some bit of it.

If anyone has the gall to say “it’s too stretched out,” I’d tell them “you have no place at a Phish show.” These same people would soil their pants for a 20+ minute jam of 46 Days, Down With Disease, or Split Open and Melt.

Not everyone has to love every Phish song. Not every fan has to love TTE. In fact, I understand and concede that TTE is not for everyone. But it’s annoying me that it’s simply becoming “cool” to not like TTE or to call it the “bathroom break.”

I’ve heard stories that when the Grateful Dead debuted “Terrapin Station,” many fans were unsure of how to receive it. It wasn’t bluesy, it didn’t rock, it wasn’t a ballad, and it was long. Years later, many of us regard Terrapin as one of the band’s masterpieces.

I think that many new fans, those that got into Phish during the post-breakup phase, are the ones most vocal about disliking TTE. And many of them, I do in fact think, are simply naive noobs. Some have a “kinda” fair argument: I like the song, I don’t like it live. To them I say: many songs took a while to find their right incarnation and place in the Phish repetoire. Water in the Sky, Shafty, Limb by Limb, Black Eyed Katy/Moma, Tela, and many more went through revision before it found its sweet spot. On the whole, I don’t think TTE is getting the love and patience it needs and deserves, so I’m making the case.

Javascript Ninja!

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Adam S

Thank you, John Resig. Because of you, I’m learning about Javascript the way Andy Gadiel taught me HTML. In the days before server-side scripting, I learned my first bits of HTML largely by viewing the source of Andy Gadiel’s Phish page (which, for some reason, remains largely unchanged since ~1997). By reading Gadiel’s HTML, I slowly pieced together my own understanding of HTML. It was Joe Burns’ fantastic Javascript Goodies that first had me dipping my n00b fingers into client side active scripting. I picked up CSS all over the web.

Resig’s jQuery is so powerful and so easy that even with basic knowledge of CSS and Javascript, anyone can be a virtual scripting master. It’s so easy, that I’ve slacked on learning about javascript objects, inheritance, closures, anonymous functions, prototypes, and scores of other Javascript staples that I should’ve long since mastered. I just discovered John’s new web app, cleverly titled “Learning Advanced Javascript“, and so far, so good!

I wrote this myself and understand why it works, which is much more than I could say yesterday.

var ninja = {
	walk: function(steps,turn) {
		toDo = 'Walking '+steps+' steps forward, then turning '+turn;
		return this;
	  },
	star: function(action,distance) {
		toDo = toDo+' '+action+'ing star '+distance+' feet'; return this;
	  },
	then: function() {
		toDo = toDo+', then '; return this;
	},
	doIt: function() {
		log(toDo);
	}
}
ninja.walk('7','south').then().star('throw','50').doIt();

Output:

> Walking 7 steps forward, then turning south, then throwing star 50 feet

It’s clear to me – and has been for some time – that the future of the web, for better or for worse, rests heavily on the mighty shoulders of client side scripting. Building on powerful, extensible frameworks like jQuery and MooTools, the next generation of web apps is sure to compete with the desktop. The ability to understand how to utilize the frameworks when necessary and hack together powerful scriptlets for other purposes seems essential to success in the future web. I know I’ll be investing in “Secrets of a Javascript Ninja” just as a result of this tutorial.

Festival 8

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Adam S

It’s impossible to sum up all of my thoughts and feelings about Festival 8 in a way that would do any justice to my memory of it. I know that to be true, but I’m going to try anyway, because it seems foolish to let this high fade over time, and I want to remember how I feel so next time a festival comes around, I’ll know why I want to go.

I was a little nervous about this one for a number of reasons, because I didn’t want to go on an adventure like this without my wife; I didn’t want to miss my two year old’s first trick-or-treating adventure; I didn’t want to go cross country alone. But a big one was that I didn’t want to go and be alone the whole time. Sure, there were JAM listers who were going to be there, but sometimes you meet people in real life and it’s awkward, and you realize it was more natural when you were just talking to a screen.

I was lucky enough to have found a hotel where two of my new friends were staying, Scott and Elayne. Elayne and I had arranged to carpool to the event. I had softly pre-planned to meet a few people, so I figured I’d bum a ride the first day and then go my own way so as not to be a leech.

I got to the hotel around 5:30 or so, completely mentally drained and exhausted, and Elayne texted me that they were about to go on “an adventure” and “did I want to come?” I knew blowing off the excursion was exactly the opposite of what I wanted the trip to be, so I threw my stuff in my room and headed out with Elayne, George, and their friend Jess. Jess was working on site, so we stopped by to drop her off. While waiting for her pass, I turned to George and whispered, “Hey, isn’t that Brad Sands?” “I don’t think Brad Sands works for them anymore,” he answered, at full volume. Elayne shot him a dirty look and loudly whispered – “That IS Brad Sands!” He was about 5 feet from us. I imagine it was more awkward for him than us, since we were just excited to be there.

We lightly scoped the festival grounds and inadvertantly learned our way around Indio. I was starting to fade from lack of food, so we found an authentic Mexican restaurant. It’s hard to sum up how grea the meal was largely because I don’t know how good it actually was: at the time, it was incredible. The best guacamole I’ve ever had combined with an array of homemade goods: crunky taco shells that were imperfectly crafted from freshly-fried hand-made corn tortillas, strechy and rich queso, thick and hearty chips… it was all perfect. We followed the meal with a stop off at some of E & G’s friends’, where I finally got to meet ZZYZX. Afew hours later, day one was done and all that remained was the festival itself.

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