Greetings!

     At long last the summer season is upon us.  With this welcome change of seasons and renewed attention to outdoor activities, it's hard not to notice all of the things occuring outside of Status Hat Productions.

     One event in particular seems especially relevent to our work here this summer: the Hudson River Quadricentennial.  2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's fateful (yet quite accidental) journey up the river which now shares his name. Hudson discovered the river while he was on a hired mission to find an expedient route to the Orient. In general, rivers play a significant role in societies in that they often are the catalysts for the growth and development of the communities which surround them. The Hudson is certainly no exception to this trend. 

     Ah recording...it's fun, stressful, exciting, and tedious all in the same day. The Dirties just finished a session in the capable hands of Josh Herzog at Cat Track Studios now in Altamont, just below the huge rock outcrop of the Helderledge. The beautiful day and surroundings fostered a good mood as we set up and got sounds. 

     It can be difficult to muster that live feel because you tend to be in an isolated area cut off from the rest off the world. It can be difficult to muster that live feel because you tend to be in an isolated area cut off from the rest off the world.  Don't think, just play - sometimes the best policy is to jam like you are playing live, not trying to be precise but setting up a good vibe. Often it can be easy to choke up knowing that you are on tape, with headphones being your only lifeline to each other.

     In late 2004, I first visited Russia as a guest artist, hosted in part by a national puppet theater and a composer's union. More importantly, I had traveled there to hear the debut of the 3rd symphony by Masguda Shamsutinova, a Tatar composer who had begun introducing me to her culture after seeing an exhibition of my work in Seattle ("Playthings", JEM Gallery, 2004).  
                                                                  

As Masguda's own work as a composer had taken her on a life-long journey through folk and music ethnology, she had a strong call to preserve the vanishing traces of languages and traditions of the many peoples with whom she shares a nomadic ancestry. She was also intimately familiar with the richness, depth, and dream-like layers of material I would encounter as I entered a terrain she had long been exploring. She prepared me, in part, by telling me that from this one trip I would have "material to work with for years to come" which would inform and shape my own art, work, & life.  

      When researching for an article about rivers and their importance, I was a bit confused by what seemed to be obvious discrepancies in many of the river length calculations. How could researchers in one study claim that the Mississippi River is 6, 420 km, and in another claim that it is 3, 765 km? I had to get to the bottom of this, so I continued to research rivers. I found that several factors must be taken into account when calculating the length of a river. The source and mouth of the river must be located, and the distance in between is usually calculated to be the length of the river. The trouble is agreeing upon the exact location of the source and the mouth of the river. Locating the source of a river is difficult because rivers usually have many tributaries. Usually the furthest tributary is considered the source, but what happens if this tributary has its own tributaries? For example, the furthest tributary of the Mississippi River is the Missouri River, but the furthest tributary of the Missouri River is the Jefferson River. Technically the full name of the Mississippi, when measured from the furthest source, is the Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson. It is also difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the mouth of the river. Rivers can form large estuaries, or dwindle away to nothing. Should the estuary be included in the calculation of the length of the river? When exactly is a dwindling river no longer considered a river, but categorized as a stream or creek? This is why the calculated river lengths vary – it is difficult to determine exactly what to calculate, not to mention that nature has a way of always fluctuating and changing.

- Kaitlin Vignali