Changes on the Way for Stormhorn.com!

A new look is coming to this blogsite in the near future. You may have already noticed one of its precursors in the movement of advertisements to the top of the sidebar. But more is on the way. My beautiful, geek-to-the-Nth-power lady friend, Lisa, is working on an update to my theme that will improve it both cosmetically and functionally.

This is just a heads-up. I don’t know precisely when Lis will have the new version of Stormhorn finished, and I’m not pushing her–this is her labor of love on my behalf, and she gets all the space she needs. But she has been beavering away in a spirit of excellence. I just got a look a little while ago at a new feature she has in mind for me, and I was extremely impressed. Good things are worth waiting for, but I don’t think the wait will be very long. So this is your heads-up: Look for a fresh wind to blow through Stormhorn.com sometime soon. I know you’re gonna like the results!

Yet Another Update: Huge Progress!

I know I’ve been posting a lot of status updates concerning Stormhorn.com. Maybe I’m guilty of overkill, but I feel it’s better to let you know what’s going on with this blog than keep you wondering.

And the fact is, a LOT has been going on. I should have scrapped my old NexGen plugin weeks ago, done the reinstall, and gotten on with replacing my image files. I didn’t because all I could think was, “Oh, man, all those files!” Nearly 500 of them. But as it turns out, reinstalling them hasn’t been nearly the prolonged hassle that I thought it would be–not that it isn’t time-consuming grunt work, but the process is moving along just fine. Much better, in fact, than I expected.

Image Files Are Now Largely Restored

That’s right–I’ve got the bulk of my galleries back in place. The work certainly isn’t finished, but right now, if you go to my photo page, you’ll see that most of what used to be there is back where it was. Well, sort of. I took the opportunity to do a little reorganizing, but that’s a good thing that brings a little more order to my collection. Anyway, just about all of my storm photos are back in place. Ditto my wildflower, bird, and other images. Check ’em out!

The CopyFox Has Reopened for Business

One of the worst parts of this whole debacle was having to take my CopyFox page and subpages offline. There was no alternative. Nothing looks worse than a copywriting business site that’s having communication issues!

But huzzah! The days of woe are past and the time of jubilation is at hand! The CopyFox now has its very own website, which is how things should have been from the beginning. Bang the drums, bring on the jugglers and dancing bears, and let there be music in the streets! And by all means, check out the site at www.thecopyfox.com.

What Still Needs Doing

Now that I’ve got the bulk of my image files downloaded, I need to sift through my posts one by one and restore images to their proper places. There are also plenty of galleries that still need to be downloaded.

But so much has already been accomplished. This blog is essentially well on its way to complete recovery. And even as I sort backwards through past posts, you may notice that Stormhorn.com is also moving ahead with new posts that will keep storm chasers current on the incoming spring weather season and equip jazz musicians with fresh food for thought and material for the woodshed.

So there you have it. The news is all good. Thanks for your continued interest and loyalty to this site as it endures its growing pains. I’ve been amazed and encouraged to see that traffic has not only remained consistent through the worst of it, but now appears to be experiencing some impressive growth. Having changed to a new web host, I’m not sure yet how accurate my WordPress stats are–perhaps they are inflating the numbers and need to settle in a bit; but I think that Awstats is pretty dependable, and assuming that’s the case, then March is off to an awesome start.

So again, thanks for bearing with me. And stay tuned, because repairs are being made rapidly at this point.

Goodonya,

Bob

Update and Gig

The Latest on Stormhorn.com: Navigating the Move

This is my first post after changing my Web host to Dryline Hosting. The transition has been a bit bumpy, largely because I’m not familiar with the details involved in Web hosting and have had to deal with the learning curve. My friend Karina Myers, who with her husband, Mitch, operated the now-defunct Tablox Web Solutions, was gracious enough to move my files for me, and as I look at how many of them there are, I realize how overwhelmed I’d have felt if I’d had to handle the transfer myself. That kind of thing takes infinitely longer when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing!

Anyway, right now you’ll notice that the header and all my images are missing. That includes all the practice exercises and solo transcriptions I’ve developed over the years.

RELAX! (I’m saying that to myself as well as to you.) The image files all still exist. But I’ve obviously got a bit of work to do in order to get them back to where you can once again view and access them. Trust me, doing so is high on my to-do list. I want to get my Stormhorn blog site fully functional as soon as I can, so stay tuned, and please bear with the current, stripped-down look, sans images. It’s only temporary.

Gig Saturday at the Cobblestone

A reminder that my jazz trio plays again Saturday night, January 22, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at the Cobblestone right here in Caledonia, Michigan. The place is an ideal setting for jazz. The room is such that you can hear the music anywhere while at the same time being able to carry on a conversation. The food and wine are great. And my fellow musicians, bassist David DeVos and keyboardist Paul Lesinski, are some of the best in West Michigan.

Tomorrow is our last booking, and while I hope that the owner will  extend our stay, I don’t know at this point whether that will happen. Ben loves jazz and really wants to make it happen at his place, but he needs an increasing customer base in order to make it work for him financially. So come on out, show your support, and enjoy an evening of  live jazz with the Stormhorn Jazz Trio  in the warm, relaxed, and inviting setting of the Cobblestone Bistro.

• Date & Time: Saturday, January 22, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

• Place: The Cobblestone Bistro & Banquet Center

• Address: 9818 Cherry Valley Ave. SE (M-37), Caledonia, MI

• Phone: (616) 588-3223

Reservations are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome.

Stormhorn.com Is Switching Web Hosts

Hello, friends and readers of Stormhorn.com! I want to make you aware of a change that’s underway with this site. Hopefully it won’t create any temporary hiccups in service, but I want to alert you just in case any down time arises. Not being technically astute, I figure it’s best to let you know what’s up, if for no other reason than to reassure myself, in the face of my own ignorance, that I’ve covered as many bases as I can!

My old Web host, Tablox Web Solutions, operated by my friends Mitch and Karina Myers, is terminating their service as of tomorrow, January 19. So I’ve made the move to Dryline Hosting, operated by David Drummond. Karina has greatly eased the process by graciously transferring my files for me. Thanks so much, Karina! I really appreciate your assistance!

As the name of his company suggests, Drummond is a well-known storm chaser based in Lubbock, Texas, in the heart of dryline country. The process of shifting to David’s service has allowed me to get acquainted with him over the phone, and our chat just naturally drifted into storm chasing, including speculation about what it would be like to capture video of one of those monster West Texas tornadoes chewing its way through a windmill farm. It’s bound to happen, and I can only imagine what it would be like to watch a blizzard of those 100-foot blades go sailing through the sky. That’s not a spectacle I’d care to view at close range, and it’s bound to happen. With a swarm of enormous wind farms already extant in Tornado Alley and more mushrooming up all the time, I have to wonder how safe it is to live near those things.

But I digress. Back to the move: So far, so good, but I won’t know for sure until Tablox pulls the plug tomorrow. Cross your fingers and hope for the best, which would be uninterrupted service and no broken internal links to my old b2evo blog.

A Christmas Meditation, Revisited

Good morning, and Merry Christmas to you! Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with me. I don’t take lightly the fact that, amid the helter-skelter of this Holiday, you’ve taken the time and interest to drop in. I’d like to offer you something of real worth in return, and having checked my traffic stats, it seems that my readers have already been pointing the way for me.

My readers are wise. They’ve been finding their way to a post I wrote a year ago today, in which I shared a still older writing of two years previous. I was 51 when I wrote that piece, and dealing with a broken heart, singleness, and loneliness. Yet, sitting alone in my apartment, I experienced a deep comfort and contentment that transcended my circumstances.

That was in 2007. Last year was different. Two years had elapsed, and my beloved friend, Lisa, had entered my life. In the midst of a new set of circumstances, I added a prelude to account for the time that had passed and then shared my original writing for the first time on Stormhorn.com.

Another year has now come and gone. Lisa and I have weathered a lean financial time in the face of what some have called The Great Recession. Since our needs are simple and Lisa has a practical attitude that flexes with life’s realities, we’ve managed to stay afloat and feel grateful. Along the way, we’ve made choices concerning each other and ourselves that have demonstrated our love for one another. It hasn’t always been easy for either of us. But it has been rewarding, and the gift of who Lisa is continues to shine more brightly in my eyes. What a unique, brilliant, talented, good-hearted, godly, and most beautiful woman the Lord has blessed me with!

Yet, knowing her heartaches as well as my own, more than ever I understand that the words I first wrote on Christmas Eve of 2007 are relevant today, and will remain so through the long years. Today, I reaffirm that Christmas–not “The Holidays,” as political correctness now insists that this occasion be called, but Christmas–is not about warm traditions, wonderful though they may be, but about a living, deeply invested Love that has reached out, and continues to reach, to those of us for whom this time of year seems anything but warm, or rich, or wonderful.

I cannot add to what I wrote three years ago; I can only introduce you to it from the context of today and hope that you will find meaning and encouragement in its message. Without further ado I now direct you to that writing, together with its preamble, in last year’s Christmas Eve post titled “A Christmas Meditation on Jesus.”

Whatever the realities of this season may be for you, may the great grace that is the driving force of true Christmas touch and uphold you in ways seen and unseen.

Your friend,

Bob

Spam Rant

Excuse me while I depart from the normal storm-, jazz-, and saxophone-related material on Stormhorn.com long enough to let off some steam. Sorry, but I’ve had it up to here with email spam, and I feel a profound need to vent if not outright vomit.

I have deleted, I have blocked, I have blacklisted, I have steadily added keywords to my spam filter, and still the unwanted sales messages pour in daily, relentlessly. They are tasteless. They are offensive. They are irritating as hell. And, at least where I’m concerned, they are worse than ineffective–that is, unless the goal of the unscrupulous marketers who send them is to infuriate me. In that, they’re succeeding. As for getting me to buy their products, never in a million years are they going to see a solitary farthing from me for their…

* Cheap Swiss Watches. Hey there, Spammer, why not just stand on a street corner in a rain coat with big interior pockets filled with your trashy fake Rolexes and hawk them to passers-by? That’s the time-honored way.

* Sex Products. Pardon my bluntness, Spammer, but you’re a lot more concerned about the size of my penis than I am, and if I felt otherwise, I wouldn’t come to you for help.  As for “sex pills,” what kind of vast quantities do you think I consume? Judging by the volume of email you send me daily, a dump truck ought to be pulling up to my place once a week and restocking my supply of your cheap Viagra through a coal chute. But if you want the truth, I’m not using your products at all, and I never will.

So stop calling me “User Bob” in your subject lines, because I’m not a user. And while you’re at it, “Friend Bob” doesn’t work with me either. I know you think that using my name and calling me “friend” is the Marketing Magic Button, but here’s a tip: Disingenuousness is never good marketing. I’m not your friend and you’re not my friend. You’re a sleazy, greedy, unprincipled, disrespectful purveyor of sham products that you’re marketing illegally, and if I knew of a way to shut you down, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

* College Degrees and Diplomas. Let me get this straight: I “deserve” a master’s or doctor’s degree and you’re the folks who are going to help me get one in just 6 weeks. Gosh, what a great idea. I’ll consider your offer of a cheap and easy graduate education once you learn how to write and spell on at least a 3rd-grade level.

* Cheap Software. Guess what? I can find my own cheap, not to mention free, software online without your help. I don’t need your cheap software. I don’t trust your cheap software. I don’t want your cheap software. And I’m not going to buy your cheap software. Take your cheap software and stick it in dark, sunless posterior accommodations.

I suppose it goes without saying (though I’m going to say it anyway) that I delete all such messages without opening them as soon as I see them. What amazes me is the sheer audacity of the folks who send them. We’re talking about an entire spam marketing industry that is premised on violating people’s communication boundaries, an industry that is all about peppering their unwilling database with an endless supply of unwanted sales messages. It’s the good old shotgun approach: If you shoot enough pellets, a few are bound to find their mark, and hang whoever else they hit.

The approach must work; otherwise, such an industry wouldn’t exist. But of course, spamming is illegal, and I marvel at the willful dehumanization that lies behind it. Spam filters are the modern counterpart of a “No Solicitors” sign to a vacuum cleaner salesman. In developing technology that enables them to slide over, under, and around those filters, spammers are saying, in effect, “Nuts to your sign, nuts to your closed door, and nuts to you. I’m coming in anyway!”

A Hoover salesman who tried to sneak in through a side window would deserve to have a shotgun stuffed in his face. Unfortunately, no virtual shotgun presently exists that can inspire spammers with a sudden ethical awakening.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if one did? Wouldn’t it be extraordinarily cool if someone would develop a spam filter that not only deleted the most sophisticated forms of spam, but that could also, at the user’s discretion, trace its way back to the sender and wipe out their entire database? Just a thought.

Hmmm…

Hey, there, Scouts, if one of you is looking for a project for your Hacking Merit Badge, have I got a fantastic idea for you!

Counterpoint: Why I STILL Love Playing Rhythm Changes

In his recent guest article on Stormhorn.com, my esteemed colleague Kurt Ellenberger explained why he dislikes–nay, loathes, abhors–soloing over rhythm changes.

By George, I enjoy calling Kurt that: “my esteemed colleague.” It sounds so dignified, so prawpuh, so…so pretentious. Hmmm…I relent, Kurt. That description is as cloying as some of the sacred jazz cows that I know you’d like to kebab. So I’ll retract the “esteemed colleague” bit and just call you my friend; a funny, thoughtful, and insightful guy; and, need I say, an absolute monster musician.

But I still disagree with you about rhythm changes.

To an extent, that is. I’ll begin my rebuttal to your post by agreeing with you. Given your musical experience and the high level at which you play, you get to hate rhythm changes to your heart’s content, along with any other musical formulae that you choose. You’ve attained, man. Once a person has mastered the rudiments of jazz to a world-class degree, there’s no need to keep rehashing them. The point of laying a foundation is to build something new upon it, not enshrine it.

This being said, foundations are important, and rhythm changes are an exercise in foundational material. Moreover, whether they’re banal is a matter of  perspective.

In his post, Kurt provides an analysis of rhythm changes that emphasizes their mostly static harmonic nature, with the exception of a temporary digression to the circle of fifths at the bridge section, which Kurt labels as trite. Overall, he is unimpressed by RCs.

But “trite” is simply a viewpoint, and viewpoints are personal. Some perspectives change as an individual accumulates experiences, while others deepen as time helps to clarify and reinforce them. This, I think, is the heart of the matter. As Kurt puts it, following his analysis, “In general, I prefer music that has a higher degree of harmonic activity and direction, or, absent that (as in music of a more minimalist nature, much of which I enjoy tremendously), there must be some other complexity in play to retain my interest. These preferences have become more pronounced over the years. As a result, I’ve lost interest in a lot of tunes that are similar in construction.”

Note the words “prefer” and “preferences.” They are personal terms. Everyone is entitled to his or her preferences, but one’s reasons for them are not necessarily a definitive yardstick for determining the value of a thing, particularly when other criteria can also be applied.

If I ever attain to Kurt’s level of harmonic and overall musical sophistication, then perhaps I’ll feel as he does about rhythm changes and the 32-bar song form overall. Probably not, though. Rhythm changes just never bothered me at the onset the way they did Kurt. But then–and this should come as no surprise–I see them in a different light.

For one thing, I’m a saxophonist, and as such, my concerns as they apply to my instrument are purely melodic. By this I don’t mean that I’m uninterested in harmony–I’m keenly interested in it, of course–but rather, that I’ve only got one note at a time at my disposal, not entire clusters. This alone creates a different outlook than Kurt has as a pianist.

For another thing, I’ve taken a different and slower developmental path than Kurt’s. For still another, I’ve worked on rhythm changes by choice, not because of an educational or cultural mandate. Finally, I’m me, with my own set of preferences and dislikes. And on both artistic and practical levels, I find playing rhythm changes to be enjoyable, valuable, and, yes, challenging.

On the practical level, rhythm changes are a great way to take rudimentary elements of improvisation such as turnarounds, cycles, and ii-V7s out of isolation and set them in an applied context. I’ve already addressed this matter in my original post on rhythm change, so I won’t rehash it here. The points I made then remain valid. From a developmental standpoint, RCs are–like that other even more foundational form, the blues–good for you. You don’t have to build your world around them, but learning how to play them well gives you some substantial building blocks which you can adapt in other ways that may interest you more. As a musical exercise, I view rhythm changes in somewhat the same category as scale work and etudes.

As a young improviser, I first began to make the leap from technique to musicality by memorizing a Charlie Parker solo based on rhythm changes. Today, I’m still finding RCs invaluable for helping me to build my chops in different keys. I’m convinced of their value. A raftload of Charlie Parker contrafacts can’t be wrong.

However, those same Charlie Parker tunes are now very old, and jazz has traveled in a lot of directions from its 1940s bebop watershed. Bird himself, in the final years of his life, felt that he had taken bebop as far as he could and was seeking a new direction. Which brings me to the artistic aspect of rhythm changes.

Rhythm changes, banal? I suppose they can be, but I don’t think they have to be. Listen to Michael Brecker ripping through “Oleo” and tell me that’s banal. The difference lies in Michael’s approach. He’s not merely regurgitating old licks; he has developed his own voice and is applying it masterfully to the changes. Michael certainly doesn’t seem disenchanted.

While I can’t say for sure, I suspect that the late tenor master had absorbed so much music of all different kinds that he didn’t much care whether he was playing a sparklingly contemporary, harmonically complex tune or an old chestnut. Like Kurt, I’m sure that Michael had his preferences, but that didn’t keep him from weaving magic with rhythm changes and, to all appearances, enjoying himself in the process.

Kurt mentions getting locked into a formulaic approach to RCs. I know what he means–I face that same challenge. But since I don’t have an innate bias against rhythm changes, I view the rote licks and patterns as just a framework which, as I master it, can ultimately enable me to move beyond it. Kurt knows, far better than I, that rhythm changes, like any tune, can be altered in creative ways that are only limited by one’s imagination.

And, I might add, by one’s level of interest. If a player isn’t motivated to explore the possibilities, then rhythm changes, like any well-worn standard in the American songbook, will indeed become banal through over-repetition of the same-old-same-old. I fully concur with Kurt that there has to be some level of complexity present, some kind of intellectual and/or technical challenge, to hold my attention.

However, I maintain that the potential for such complexity exists in any tune. I mean, how innately fascinating is a Dorian mode? But we understand that there’s a whole lot more to modal music than a single scale played ad nauseum over a single minor chord. It’s not a matter of what you’re given, but of what you do with it and, I should add, whom you do it with.

I could say more on the matter, but there’s no point in doing so since it really does boil down to a matter of personal preference. Instead, I have a couple observations to make with which I think Kurt will fully concur.

First, while I’m obviously a proponent of rhythm changes, I would emphasize that they’re just a stopover on a much larger musical journey. I think it’s wise for a developing jazz musician to go through them, it’s helpful to camp out on them for a season, and it’s fun to return to them and enjoy the view, but for goodness sake, don’t buy a house there. The neighborhood is already 80 years old and the heyday of its development in the bebop era is long past. Use what’s been done as a basis for finding your way toward newer, more personal musical directions.

Second, jazz traditions may be venerable but they’re not sacred, and this certainly applies to rhythm changes or to any musical form. It’s okay not to like them and it’s okay to say so.

Jazz culture has been a breeding ground for some affectations and norms that I don’t much care for. Some of them may have served a purpose at one time, but, as Kurt has done a great job of pointing out in a post titled “Jazz in Crisis” on his own blog, Also Sprach Frackathustra, they’re now outdated in a larger world that has moved far beyond the jazz era.

So let’s be real. If jazz is about freedom, as we say it is, then saying that one doesn’t care for rhythm changes shouldn’t require some sort of hush-hush, confessional tone for fear that Big Brother is listening. I’ve never been aware of such a cultural pressure, but I don’t doubt that Kurt has experienced it, and that bothers me. Good grief, we’re talking about a set of chord changes, not the Ark of the Covenant.

Many of us jazz practitioners need to distinguish between the true non-negotiables of the music we play versus the affectations and cultural mores that surround it. If we don’t search our own souls, believe me, the rest of the world doesn’t care enough to do the job for us. Many of us could start by dropping our smug, musicianly superiority and becoming just plain, down-to-earth, nice people who treat both our fellow musicians and non-musicians graciously.

With that, I think I’ve worked the rant out of my system. Kurt, I guess I’ll continue to enjoy playing rhythm changes, at least until, like you, I experience them as more limiting than beneficial. Until then, I promise, cross my heart, that if you and I do a gig together, I won’t call for rhythm changes.

However, if I catch you playing solo somewhere, I may request “Anthropology” just to see you wince.

ADDENDUM: Be sure to check out the final installment of this series, in which Kurt offers his own closing thoughts.

Giant Steps E-Book Soon to Be Released

If you want to bone up on the theory behind John Goltrane’s landmark tune “Giant Steps,” you’ll find plenty of information online as well as in print. But when it comes to actually cultivating the chops it takes to play “Giant Steps,” you may have a tougher time finding material.  Could be that I’m uninformed, but I just haven’t seen much in the way of practice resources for Coltrane changes.

So I’ve decided to share my personal material. Years ago, I went through a period when I steeped myself in “Giant Steps,” and during that time, I started writing down licks and patterns for  “Giant Steps” in a music notebook.  Today, after supplementing the stuff I had already written with some new material, including licks using the augmented scale, I completed the front matter and introduction.

All that remains to be done now is to register the copyright and set up an online store on Stormhorn.com. The e-book’s title is  “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad.” It will be the first product I’ve created and sold on this site, and I feel excited about offering it to you.

If you want to view a sample page (and cop some free licks), click here. Otherwise, stay tuned. I expect to have “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” available for purchase soon, and will announce its publication upon release.

A Rant about Spam Comments

Like most bloggers, I love to get comments. I work hard to create well-conceived, literate posts that I hope you enjoy reading, and I really enjoy hearing from you, my readers, in return.

What I do NOT appreciate are vague comments which are clearly intended only to advertise the sender’s URL. If you yourself blog, then you know exactly what I’m talking about: brief one-liners that praise one of your posts without ever specifically addressing its content, or that use a key word or phrase in an entirely unconvincing manner. You click on the sender’s URL and find a website touting an online college education, or nutritional products, or a porn site, what have you–nothing at all related to what your blog is about.

I realize that spam comments are simply a part of the blogging landscape. But lately, I’ve been getting more and more of them, so please permit me just a moment to rant. These generic comments disgust me. To say that they smack of insincerity is to pay them a compliment they don’t deserve, since they’re no more capable of something as personal as insincerity than a piece of trash. Not being a computer and Internet geek, I don’t know exactly what technology is involved in sending such stuff my way, but I do recognize mass distribution when I see it.

That’s why I screen every comment that comes through. I look for an indication that its content is truly personal, a genuine interaction with what I’ve written; and I check the URL to see whether it leads to a website that is relevant to jazz or weather, or else is of value to my readers or at least personal in nature. I’ve gotten fooled once or twice, but I’ve learned, and I’ve backtracked and deleted a few spam comments that got past me at first. I’m a ruthless eradicator of junk.

The irony of it is, I fully expect that at some point, I’ll receive comments on this post that say something like, “I really like this!” or, “Wow, this post has changed my life, much the way that getting a master’s degree can change yours.” I promise you, such baloney will never be published on Stormhorn.com. My aim is to provide you with a quality reading experience, and part of doing so includes editing out the bullshit before you ever get a chance to smell it.

Thanks for indulging my little rant. And as for your own authentic, relevant comments, please write anytime. I greatly appreciate it when you add value to this site by sharing your thoughts.

–Bob

Grasshopper Passion

So here I am, caught on the twin-horned dilemma of no storms to chase and no gigs to play. But you, my faithful readers, are longing for a word from Stormhorn.com, and I feel my responsibility toward you weighing heavily upon me. What can I offer you?

Grasshopper passion.

A few weeks ago, back in September, I took a hike at a nature park in nearby Ada, Michigan. Evidently, early fall is the season of love for grasshoppers, a time during which they become the Woodstock generation of the insect world, and in numerous places all along the trail, hoppers were locked in shocking, shameless public displays of unbridled lust.

Somehow, though, I found it hard to take offense. Probably my moral sensitivity has become dulled by Hollywood and advertising. Then again, grasshopper passion just isn’t all that passionate. By way of example, I submit the following photo of a couple locked in the throes of ecstasy. Click the image to enlarge it, though why you would want to do so is beyond me.

I have to say, judging by the looks on their faces, that this pair doesn’t seem particularly excited. In fact, they don’t even appear to be awake. When your brain is the size of an ant booger, situational awareness just isn’t going to be one of your key strengths.

I took a number of shots of these two hoppers, and they all look the same. I can testify that what you see here is as heated as it gets. A minute later, neither of my subjects had moved a solitary grasshopper muscle. It’s as if having sex had turned them to stone. Having better things to do than wait for them to finish their sordid business (Him: “So…was it good for you?” Her: “Was what good for me?” Him: “I’m not sure.”), I moved on.

Taken altogether, insect porn is pretty G-rated stuff, on a par with watching Kermit the Frog eat oatmeal. Parents, no need to shield your children’s eyes. The only trauma they’re likely to experience is boredom.