Contingent Encounters

Contingent Encounters offers a sustained comparative study of improvisation as it appears between music and everyday life. Drawing on work in musicology, cultural studies, and critical improvisation studies, as well as his own performing experience, Dan DiPiero argues that comparing improvisation across domains calls into question how improvisation is typically recognized. By comparing the music of Eric Dolphy, Norwegian free improvisers, Mr. K, and the Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis duo with improvised activities in everyday life (such as walking, baking, working, and listening), DiPiero concludes that improvisation appears as a function of any encounter between subjects, objects, and environments. Bringing contingency into conversation with the utopian strain of critical improvisation studies, DiPiero shows how particular social investments cause improvisation to be associated with relative freedom, risk-taking, and unpredictability in both scholarship and public discourse. Taking seriously the claim that improvisation is the same thing as living, Contingent Encounters overturns long-standing assumptions about the aesthetic and political implications of this notoriously slippery term

Identification of Potential Seepage Locations Along the Herbert Hoover Dike, Lake Okeechobee FL., by Electromagnetic Geophysical Method. Prediction and Confirmation.

This case history demonstrates the use of electromagnetic (EM) induction methods to examine known seepage locations and then predict future ones along the Herbert Hoover Dike (HHD) in south central Florida. The HHD forms an embankment dam 20 to 30 feet high and 140 miles long surrounding Lake Okeechobee. Approximately 26 miles of embankment was surveyed with EM induction. The objective of the EM survey was to identify active and potential foundation seepage locations and conduits. Areas of greater conductivity were often associated with seepage locations observed during a record high water event in October, 1995. These problems included boils and piping of foundation and embankment materials. One great benefit of this investigation was that large areas of competent dike foundations could be separated from areas containing potential problems requiring additional examination

Effectiveness of an Inpatient Movement Disorders Program for Patients with Atypical Parkinsonism

This paper investigated the effectiveness of an inpatient movement disorders program for patients with atypical parkinsonism, who typically respond poorly to pharmacologic intervention and are challenging to rehabilitate as outpatients. Ninety-one patients with atypical parkinsonism participated in an inpatient movement disorders program. Patients received physical, occupational, and speech therapy for 3 hours/day, 5 to 7 days/week, and pharmacologic adjustments based on daily observation and data. Differences between admission and discharge scores were analyzed for the functional independence measure (FIM), timed up and go test (TUG), two-minute walk test (TMW), Berg balance scale (BBS) and finger tapping test (FT), and all showed significant improvement on discharge (P > .001). Clinically significant improvements in total FIM score were evident in 74% of the patients. Results were similar for ten patients whose medications were not adjusted. Patients with atypical parkinsonism benefit from an inpatient interdisciplinary movement disorders program to improve functional status

Оцінка оновлення основних засобів за рахунок позикових коштів

Оновлення основних засобів є актуальною проблемою сьогодення. Для багатьох підприємств кредити банків є чи не єдиним джерелом коштів на модернізацію виробничих потужностей. В даній статті нами були розглянуті можливості і перспективи приватних фірм для використання з цією метою позикових засобів, оцінений ступінь прозорості банківських установ, річні ставки за інвестиційними кредитами та інші умови їхнього надання.Modernizing of the basic assets is a topical problem of the present. For many business firms bank loans are may be the only source of funds for renewal of production facilities. In the article we have considered the opportunities and prospects for use of borrowed funds by private firms for this purpose, rated the degree of transparency of banking institutions, the annual rates of investment credits and other conditions of their granting

Apples and Oranges

Professor DiPiero is a member of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

Improvisation as Contingent Encounter, Or: The Song of My Toothbrush

This article hazards a definition of improvisation as a "contingent encounter," not in order to settle definitional debates, but in order to productively re-evaluate questions around improvisation as an aesthetic and socio-political force. Here, I argue that thinking improvisation through contingency highlights several key characteristics while leaving behind a set of problematic assumptions that often accompanies thinking improvisation in social spaces. First, I outline these characteristics, establishing what it might mean to bring contingency to bear on a musical performance. Subsequently, I compare two instances of "transatlantic improvised music": Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch," and "Waves, Linens, and White Light" by contemporary free improvisers, Mr. K. I conclude by sketching some of the implications of taking this experimental definition seriously, arguing that it re-orients improvisation away from a rarefied behavior and more towards a potentiality hidden inside each moment

Contingent Encounters

Contingent Encounters offers a sustained comparative study of improvisation as it appears between music and everyday life. Drawing on work in musicology, cultural studies, and critical improvisation studies, as well as his own performing experience, Dan DiPiero argues that comparing improvisation across domains calls into question how improvisation is typically recognized. By comparing the music of Eric Dolphy, Norwegian free improvisers, Mr. K, and the Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis duo with improvised activities in everyday life (such as walking, baking, working, and listening), DiPiero concludes that improvisation appears as a function of any encounter between subjects, objects, and environments. Bringing contingency into conversation with the utopian strain of critical improvisation studies, DiPiero shows how particular social investments cause improvisation to be associated with relative freedom, risk-taking, and unpredictability in both scholarship and public discourse. Taking seriously the claim that improvisation is the same thing as living, Contingent Encounters overturns long-standing assumptions about the aesthetic and political implications of this notoriously slippery term