Author: Zingblog 2

Origami Dual Color Stellated Octahedron Revisited

A few years back I published a crease pattern for my Origami Dual Color Stellated Octahedron on this very blog. Being a single sheet polyhedron with a color change, the layout is kinda complicated, with two superimposed grids. In order to make the folding easier I slightly fudged the relationship between the two, so one could start by folding a 13×13 grid and develop the other grid in the middle at on offset angle.

The other day I got an email from Akira Terao. He not only developed a method for folding a mathematically perfect layout, but he also published an article about it on the origamidraw blog. Very cool. His method is developed from first principles very elegant, and his article is very clear and explains it well. You can read it here:

origamidraw.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/drawing-a-cp-with-unknown-references-part-3

I hadn’t heard of Origami Draw before. It’s an app for making crease patterns. It has a lot of origami geometric logic embedded in it. From their web site (origamidraw.wordpress.com):

With Origami Draw, you can:
– Perform all folds possible with the 7 Huzita-Hatori/Justin axioms
– Divide segments and angles in any number from 2 to 8
– Compose with building blocks from rabbit ear to frog base
– Propagate new folds across existing folds, alternating mountain and valley folds (or not)
– Instantly find the missing fold to flatten the paper around a node
– Find and retain all references needed to replicate your model exactly
– Verify its flat-foldability, with clear indications if anything is missing
– Keep all your CPs in one place
– Create different versions as your design evolves or to show a folding sequence
– E-mail your CP to your desktop computer as an Oripa file

Very cool!

Fotoz 2018, Part I

Well we’re not quite up to springtime yet. It was a lovely weekend, and I went for a nice long walk up the hill, finally took down my xmas lights outside, and even started up my Mustang. But it’s gotten cold again and is supposed to remain cold all week. Ah well. Lizzy is home again for spring break.

It’s photo gallery time again. I added five new albums for 2018. This brings up up to middle of July. It turns our last year was a really interesting year with lots of travel, and these galleries include our trip upstate and to Montreal. Still plenty more to come, so stay tuned.

http://zingman.com/fotooz/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2018/2018-01/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2018/2018-02/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2018/2018-03/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2018/2018-04/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2018/2018-05/

New Home Page

Hey everybody, go on over and check out the new home page to my website:
http://zingman.com

It’s now split into two main entry points, one for music and one for origami, with the rest of the stuff below. The current features are the Haven Street album for music, and the Origami Air and Space book for origami. This way I can update the features for the two front page elements independently. While I was at it I updated my origami publications page with the new book and some improved layout.

There are some updates in the offing. I figure I’ll want to finesse the styles on the home page. And I realized I never made a page on my site for G-Force. I also want to add some more media to the Haven Street page. And it’s getting time to put up some new photo galleries.

Double Shot

Winter grinds on. We are in the midst of an epic cold snap. High today is 6 degrees F. Lizzy is back in Buffalo enjoying sub-zero temperatures and lake effect blizzards. More on all that later.

Last weekend we had two excellent gigs back to back, one with the jazz group and one with the rock group.

First, Friday night was the the jazz group Haven Street at the Bean Runner Cafe in Peekskill. This turned out to be a great venue. It had a very San Francisco vibe, with good food, coffee, beer and wine, and a sunny, unpretentious and casually put together decor. There a stage with a PA and the owner was also the sound man, made the band sound great. The room in front of the stage was set up like a night club, with two rows of tables going back, and waiter service so the people there were able to stay in their seats and listen to the music. We had a full crowd, and everyone seemed to dig it. My friend Joe from work and his wife Liz came out. Joe and I always talk about music.

I’m still touched at how an audience will applaud after every solo. And I’m kinda of amazed how, even with a really out-there song like King’s Hex, the audience is right there with us. The band’s playing was tight and solid, good grooves and tempos and dynamics. We all had several really good solos, free and spontaneous and musically happening. We played two sets, about two and half hours. By the end of the second set, after we’d played all our originals and were going out with a couple standards, I felt my energy and imagination flagging. I find when I play in front of an audience I’m a little less inclined to take risks, and sometimes end up falling back and wishing I had a larger vocabulary of canned patterns, but ah well. They don’t know about all the things I might have played. All in all a great gig, and they invited us back. The next jazz gig is this Friday at Silvana’s in Harlem at 6:00, happy hour.

Then Saturday night the rock band, G-Force had our debut gig with our new drummer Pete at Fogherty’s in Bronxville, right up the street from my house. Vinny came and helped load the gear before the gig, which was super helpful. When we got there the setup was a little weird cuz the stage is really small and three of us were out in front, but there was also heavy traffic from the waitstaff right there. The drummer was in a corner and couldn’t see half the band. But once we started playing everything was okay. Pete’s drumming lifts the whole band up a level and everything is much more solid and groovin’. He also sings, so we learned a few few songs for this gig including the Grand Funk Railroad classic Some Kind of Wonderful with Pete on lead. I can hardly wait to get him to harmonies on some other songs; having three voices really will take it to the next level. Onward and upward!

Wonderful Christmastime

Okay let’s see. Out with the old and in with the new year. 2019 wow. Our troubled world keeps on spinning, weaving its joys and sorrows into the fabric of our lives. We’re back into the groove with the new year, with its new demands and challenges. Things already happening fast. Work has been busy, I guess you could call it a kind of comfortable chaos, the Devil you know. Lizzy had been showing initiative, getting things done during her winter break, painting furniture, redoing her room, throwing away stuff. She told me she wished she could find some kind of work for a few weeks, and Anna said she needs some help with the Global Jukebox. So now she’s interning there.

Rewinding a bit, we had a nice break for the holidays. Christmas Eve mass at Christ Church was absolutely beautiful with the choir doing Lessons and Carols. On Christmas day we visited family on Long Island and watched the classic Christmas movie Die Hard, which doesn’t really hold up well and makes no sense. Jeannie and I watched a few of the old Rankin and Bass holiday specials too, including the one with Heat Miser and the one with Burghermeister Meisterburgher. It turns out the actual animation for a lot of those was done in Japan. One of their last productions made was the 1977 cartoon of the The Hobbit, which was the thing that got me into Tolkien and Middle Earth as a kid. (Compare cartoon Gandalf to the Winter Warlock.) Shortly thereafter the animators founded Studio Ghibli and began production on Nausica: Valley of the Winds.

We went upstate after Xmas to visit my parents. Martin and his family were there too, so it was a really full house. When were unwrapping presents my Mum mixed up my little 3- and 5-year-old nieces names and chaos ensued. Ah, fun times. I got to play chess with Martin and my nephews too. I haven’t played in a long time, wish I could play more.

We met up with Larry and Jackie one night and went out to a restaurant in Hamburg called Grange that had a Cheese Describer to enumerate and describe the cheeses in our appetizer. One was described as “the most adventurous” along with a slew of adjectives. They also had raw scallops and other weird food, all really great! Michelle got a plain pizza. We visited Denis and Sarah while we were up there too, which is nice cuz we haven’t done that in a couple years and their kids are getting bigger.

Unfortunately I’ve been sick off-and-on since the day after Christmas. One thing after another. Shoulder, stomach, back, head cold. Comes and goes. It’s the cold and dark time of year. But you know, emotionally and spiritually okay. Now my feet are hurting again after being basically okay for over a year. Hope it passes soon. I’ve been trying to relax and take it easy. Luckily I had a few days off and I can work from home when I need to.

We had to give up on getting the Honda fixed at the Honda dealer. We took it there three times and they didn’t do anything, and lied about the service they performed, wanted to charge us $600 to change the spark plugs. Bad scene.

After we got back we had Nick and Lisa over one night, good to catch up and good fun. New Year’s Eve was fun too. Jeannie and I went out to dinner with Gina and Andy from the rock band to see our friend’s band Sue and the Fun Ghouls featuring the inimitable Shredder on guitar. I knew Sue, Shredder and the drummer George from ICS. My other friend Mike is gone and they have a new keyboard player, and she’s really good too. They’re one of the best local bar bands in Westchester and they played a great set. Good to see them and it was a great time.

I got my record made and it’s now available online. More on that next post.

Also a reminder my jazz group, Haven Street, is playing this Saturday night at the Green Growler in Croton-on-Hudson. Last rehearsal, first time back in the new year, we put together a set list. Everything sounded great. Not just my playing, the whole group was really on. Jazz is funny cuz improvisation is so central the whole thing. You memorize all this stuff to have at your command just so you can forget about it and be in the moment. When you’re not playing you’re best you get the feeling you’re falling back on canned riffs, and it’s still pretty good. But when you’re really on it’s like magic, taking flight, beautiful and expressive and spontaneous. We’ve been able to hit that level more and more consistently, so I’m expect it’s going to be a good show.

Manic Mechanic

So last week the new G-Force made it’s debut at Dudley’s Friday Night, followed the next night by a show at Victors. Both gigs went well, with the second being tighter than the first, and with a bigger crowd too. There was a really entertaining drunk chick who stole Gina’s tambourine and ran around the bar shaking out the beat. Later sang a song with the band. I thought she was a friend of Gina’s but none of us knew her. She was a friend of the drummer’s sister or something. During the intermission she was hitting on me until I went over to the bar to get a drink and introduced her to Jeannie, who was sitting right there. Then she took off. Funny how that always seems to happen.

I must say Vinny is not only a really good guitar player, but he’s a great asset when it comes to loading and unloading, and setting up and tearing down the PA. He must have experience lifting heavy things, cuz he knows what he’s doing. Very efficient, always there at the right time with another pair of hands.

Monday night was maybe the first rehearsal ever where we didn’t learn any new tunes. Instead it was all tempos, endings and transitions. I’d say now most of the songs ought to be pretty damn tight. We have two more shows the next two weeks, and then we’ll learn a bunch of new songs when we come back in January.

We’ve also been having a series of really good jazz rehearsals. Unfortunately our guitarist Gary has been out sick, but we’ve been exploring cool new grooves and sounds as a quartet. Jay got genuine gut strings on his bass, which changes the tone considerably, making it much warmer and richer. Last Sunday we practiced at the drummer’s house. He lives right on the river near Croton-on-Hudson, straight across from where we went hiking last month. The next gig with the jazz group is in early January. Should be lots of fun.

Meanwhile on the home and auto front, it seems everything breaking down at at once and takes forever to get fixed. Nothing catastrophic but a series of minor inconveniences that by now are adding up.

First I’ve been meaning to get my car into the shop for an oil change and a new set of tires. The tires are not super urgent, but I’d rather get it done now than wait until springtime. I took it to the shop one day last week, but they only had 2 tires in stock. The said they’d order two more but now I have to take it back. And my car is full of amplifiers these days so I’d rather wait until after this run of gigs.

Next we have a fluorescent light fixture in our kitchen and ballast blew out on that. So that was an unexpected repair project. This is the second light fixture I’ve replaced this fall.

Then our furnace shut off one day and wouldn’t restart. We had go out to the garage and flip the breaker to get it to come back on. And just as it’s getting below freezing at night. After this happened two days in a row we called in a repairman. He fixed it temporarily, and now we’re waiting on a part.

It turns out the cause of this was that water got into our chimney pipe and dripped down into the furnace. The day it happened was windy and rainy and stormy. So now we need to get someone to go up on the roof and check out the situation, whether thing on top the chimney that’s supposed to keep the water out is intact.

And then to top it off, yesterday my car key broke in half. The metal key part separated from the plastic part that holds the electronics. What’s next?

G! Force Gigs

You may be wondering whatever happened to the rock band since we had to kick out our old guitar player. Well, the new guy Vinny has been jamming with us a few weeks now. He’s really good and is a nice and fun guy too, and has learned the whole set. So it’s all systems go! Next rehearsal we’re gonna start in on some new tunes, mostly Xmas carols. We have a run of gigs coming up between now and the end of the year. Hope to see y’all at one or more:

November 30 – Dudley’s in New Rochelle
December 1 – Victors of Hawthorne
December 8 – Barney Mc Nabb’s in Tuckahoe
December 15 – Chat 19 in Larchmont

Bridge’n’Tunnel

We had a really fun and interesting weekend full of music and visiting the old neighborhood. First off, my jazz group Haven Street played a gig a club called Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn. The gig was on a Friday evening, so getting into the area took about two hours for a trip of fifteen or twenty miles, going thru, as Jeannie put it “all three boros”. We took the route down the FDR drive which was at least fun and scenic since I rarely go that way.

It turns out the club was only a few blocks away from where we used to live in Park Slope in the year 2000. Fun and intersting to see how the neighborhood has changed. It still seems lively as ever. We found a great pizza place right around the corner form the club.

Shapeshifter is a very nice place to play, with a big stage, grand piano, drums and PA already set up, and even a professional soundman. You can tell they care about the music and the musicians. It’s run byt the son of the bassist Jimmy Garrison, who is famous for playing the classic John Coltrane quartet among many others.

Our set went well. As mentioned previosuly, the band has been sounding better and better, and the songs getting freer and more interactive. Everyone’s playing was in top form and the set was all originals, wide-ranginng and expressive. We had only and hour and we focused on getting more songs in rather than stretching out. We played eight songs, four from our first record, and four from our upcoming future record.

The second band that night was a big band doing avant-garde material. They were very good musicains, and intersting music. But when the main idea is to eschew traditional melody, harmony and song structure, there’s only so much one can take. Still I’m happy they kept alive my streak: the eighth band in a row I’ve seen with a trombone player.

After the show Jeannie and I decided to drive past our old apartment in Brooklyn to see how the neighborhood had changed. Driving home we went across the new Kosciuszko bridge, which was pretty neat. Then we decided we might as well drive past our old apartment in Queens from the mid 90’s since it was pretty much on the way.

Saturday it rained all day. In the evening we went out to see Ravi Coltrane at the Village Vanguard. Wow, what a sax player! A very high level of vrituousity, and very expressive. He has alot of his father in his sound, but is doing his own thing, very modern and up to date. The thing that impressed me probably the most of anything is his tone on the soprano sax is so full and fierce it’s actually baddass! He also had a great group with him: piano bass and drums.

We hadn’t been in the Village for a while, and it was just a few blocks away from where I used to live in the early 90’s. It was Saturday night of Halloween weekend when we got out of the show, so it was extra fun to watch the people all dressed up and going out to party.

There’ll Be Spandex Jackets One for Everybody

It’s been another busy week. Last Friday my piano guy finally came by with my adjusted pedal board. If you recall, way back when I bought my piano I had them make some casters to raise the height of the keyboard 2″. This is because I’m tall and me knees need to fit underneath. However the pedals were quite high. Close inspection revealed it looked like they had been raised previously. So had them extend the pedals again to be lower. But they didn’t follow my directions and they made them too low, so that I would never be able to take the piano off the casters. I had to have them raise them back up again partway. This is all custom work and it took a long time, and I’ve been without my pedals the last few weeks. Now at last it’s at the right height and all is well. Ah happiness.

I’ve been trying to get out to see more live music. Jeannie and I saw Steely Dan at the Beacon in NYC last weekend. It was a great show. They do complete albums nowadays, a different one each night, and for us it was The Nightly. Technically it was a Donald Fagen solo record, produced by Walter Becker, but I guess now it’s part of the Dan cannon. Of course it’s a great record, opening with the retrofuturistic classic I.G.Y., and naturally the band played the heck out of it. It was a big group, with Donald on vocals, piano and melodica, two guitars, another keyboardist, bass and drums, three backup singers and four horns. When I’ve seen the Dan in the past the horn section was all saxophones, but this time they added a trumpet and trombone, extending my streak to seven of the last seven bands I’ve seen have had a trombone player.

The second set was a bunch of hits and deep tracks from throughout their career, all great stuff. In a group of top-notch musicians doing complex arrangements, the drummer really stood out over all the rest, with Neil Peart level chops applied to nonstop funk and soul grooves. At the end of the set he did a drum solo. Just wow.

The opening act was an unexpected treat: the Peter Bernstein trio with Jimmy Cobb on drums and some old guy whose name I didn’t catch on organ, just amazing.

As mentioned a few posts ago we had to get rid of the guitar player in my rock band cuz he was always too loud, wouldn’t stop playing between songs, was generally unprofessional and just didn’t get along with the others in the group. But we have a whole string of gigs coming up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we need a new guitar player fast. This week we got a new guy Vinny who came in. He seems like a nice guy, learned a bunch of the tunes, and he’s a good player. So it looks like we can move ahead again. Looking forward to the new lineup coming together.

I had to go the music store this week to get a box of reeds. We have a jazz gig coming up Friday in Brooklyn and I was down to my last one. While I was there, they had for sale the Real Book, Sixth Edition in Bb. So I finally replaced my old 5th edition which I bought out of the trunk of some dude’s car my freshman year of college, before they were legal, and is so deteriorated it can longer properly even be called a book.

One other thing they had for sale in wind section – a melodica! I picked one up, inspired by the Dan, and also Michelle has been asking for one. I brought it to jazz rehearsal, thinking i might try it out. I told Jay about it, and he asked “Is the the instrument with the little keyboard that you blow into? I hate those!”

So that was that. Nevertheless the jazz group continues to sound better and better, tighter and more free each rehearsal. We’re starting to plan our next record. I’m totally psyched for our gig on Friday.