The Adventures of the Blind/low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 48: Am I getting old or am I still cool?
Over the past weekend I travelled to one of my favorite places, Asheville, NC, to attend the Moogfest. What is Moogfest, you ask. It is the celebration of the Moog synthesizer that forever changed music. They have three days of bands who all use Moog instruments. While I was there, amongst the diverse, yet mostly younger crowd, I began to wonder, after being wiped out by 10 at night, am I getting old or am I still cool because I am actually at the Moogfest? That is the focus of this blog. But first…………….
My WTF of the week is the fact that the IPhone 4S is not the most magnificent thing for the visually impaired, as it was touted to be. After reading articles and seeing YouTube videos of blind people using all these apps to do amazing things, I had to go test out and get myself the phone. Just the fact I could have all my Kindle, audiobook and music content on the phone (and there is a Voice reader to tell me what those books and songs are) made me giddy. And then I tested out the phone. Then new Siri voice command system is useless if there is any background noise, the screen is too small to zoom up enough where I could see anything and the Voice reader that can read all the content is hard to find. Then when you turn it on it changes the whole tap system so that you have to double tap everything to get it to open and you have to scroll with three fingers. The people that helped us could not even get the double tap and three finger scroll down at first and they could see. One suggested I cut my mails off so I could do it. That is just too much to ask. The double tap had to be in quick succession or else it does not work and I was not that quick on the draw. So after about two hours of frustration trying to get the thing to work for me, I gave up and decided to call Apple to tell them what I needed them to change about their phone to make it more useful for the visually impaired. And by the way, the full blown 5 is coming out soon and the screen will be bigger. If they can make the other changes I requested, then I will be happy. But I am only one person and I am sure they have a bigger market than just me.
This week I can’t get enough of strange musical instruments. It all started with my boyfriend’s obsession with the Melodica-which is basically a tube connected to a thing that looks like a big harmonica or a small accordion with three octaves of piano keys. Then we discovered the Kazukulele which is a kazoo on the neck of a ukulele. I think someone just made this one up, but the YouTube videos are absolutely hilarious. I have been obsessed with the Theremin for years after seeing a PBS special on it and they had Theremins at Moogfest. The YouTube videos with the demos of the Theremins will also have you on the floor. At Moogfest we played with several of the Moog products. There was a cool one called the Little Phatty. The sounds you can make on these things are amazing. Although it is a nightmare for the visually impaired because there are tons of knobs and buttons with small labels. So I just ended up randomly turning and sliding controls to see what happened. I actually happened onto a sound that sounded like a Theremin. Maybe I will call the Moog factory about making some stuff for the visually impaired. It is amazing what you can do to make music now and the influence of digital music and technology. It is amazing how much music is now produced by one geek on a computer (see Dam Deacon as a prime example of this). As a music lover, I am always looking for new and innovative stuff, so nifty instruments, sounds and technology excite me.
And speaking of the Moogfest (see pictures), I thought I was cool because I not only knew what a Moog synthesizer was, but liked the bands enough to go to the festival. I thought that made me cool. While there I attempted to look cool wearing funky hats and my vintage coats. But alas I realized I am still getting old. For one thing, I could not handle the smoke at the outdoor venues. There were a ton of people smoking and smoking various substances. I expected the cigarettes (the normal and clove variety), but tons of people were smoking what I assumed was that salvia stuff. It smells like sweet pot and you could not move ten feet without getting hit by a blast of it. Between all these smoking substances (I would say about 60% were lighting up), I just could not take all the smoke-it really bothered me. That made me feel old and smell awful.
Then there was the fact that I could only get through three shows before crapping out and needing to go to sleep. Both nights I was done by 10 or 10:30, even though we had planned one night to see bands until 1am. Why do I need so much sleep? Again, it is because I am old and can’t keep up with the young pups.
Third, I now have developed an aversion to strobe lights, which most of the bands used because strobes and Moog instruments go together. They must have developed new technology to make strobes extra bright. They were unbearable so I could not even look at the stage most of the time. I know part of it was because of my retinal damage, but it even was annoying my boyfriend. None of the younger people seemed at all bothered by the strobes or the lasers or the ear splitting decibel level of the music. What makes this younger generation so impervious to these devices of torture? Is the Salvia that good?
And then there were the people in costumes, bearing lots of skin in frigid temperatures. As you can see from the picture I am bundled up like Nanook of the North. I even had to buy gloves to stay warm. Bit all around us there were youth wearing costumes that barely covered them and they had to be freezing (or really messed up on drugs). Was I impervious to cold when I was younger? Yep, I must be getting old.
So in many ways I learned I can no longer keep up with the youngsters when it comes to partying or merely staying awake. But at the B and B we were staying at there were two couples in their mid to late 20’s also there for Moogfest and we could hold our own in a music discussion with them. Plus my boyfriend is a good friend of this dude called Analog man who is the number one producer of analog guitar effects and I thought the music engineer guy was going to jump up and down when he found this out- he was so impressed. It was a kiss the ring moment. And the other geek music guy said he was going to see bands that had an 80’s influence and so I said I grew up in the 80’s and it would be interesting if current bands sounded like “The The” and I totally stumped him, because he had never heard of that band. I have concluded that in some ways I am slowing down but I am still wiser than the young pups and in many ways I am still cool. So, as they say, age before beauty. And I plan to always be cool (at least in my own mind).
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
No comments:
Post a Comment