I did try to tell her that shaving cream is the worst possible thing ever ever ever, but they never listen!
The pie-in-the-face topic came up a bunch of times last week, which always makes me cheerful….
Lazy Linkage!
It’s been a while since I did this, hasn’t it? I am, once again, going to try to be better about regularly updating this blog. Of course, we’ve heard that before, haven’t we?
:: Apparently the person who runs the social media for San Francisco’s mass transit system, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), finally decided to take a different approach in his/her responses to negative comment on social media. The result is some breathtakingly blunt honesty, and it really points up, in my mind, the odd American insistence on creating government services that are just good enough to be disappointing, and then complaining about them without actually committing, as a public, to do better. The money quote here is when this poor soul points out that the BART system was designed to move 100,000 people in a week, and it now moves over 400,000 people each day.
:: Moby Dick, read aloud, by the likes of Stephen Fry, Neil Tennant, Fiona Shaw, Will Self, Benedict Cumberbatch, China Miéville, Tony Kushner, John Waters, Simon Callow, Sir David Attenborough, and Tilda Swinton. Wow! I don’t really like listening to audiobooks — my mind wanders too much and I miss important stuff — but this might bear investigation!
:: CGI recreation of the destruction of Pompeii. Wow, those people had a bad day.
:: The filmmakers of Airplane! reflect on that brilliant movie’s making. Such a classic…although I got in trouble when we watched it as a family years ago, because The Daughter was six or so, and I figured, it’s rated PG. I’d forgotten the gratuitous shot of waggling breasts during one of the air-turbulence scenes.
:: Finally, I didn’t get around to properly observing Pi Day this year, but I did repurpose some older pie video footage of mine into a possible commercial for a new topical treatment for Resting Bitch Face, of which I am a sufferer….
I’m not promising more next week!
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On Plaid
I’ve always had an odd relationship with plaid. I love it, but I’m never sure it looks all that great on me. Until now, my only plaid clothes have been fleece tops:
But then, a while back, I bought a regular plaid shirt on eBay. I had to search around for a while, because I wanted a standard shirt, but I wanted a banded collar. Why? Well, in general, I’m not a big fan of collars on shirts. I have a few denim shirts with collars that I like, but by and large, I prefer collarless. Here’s the result:
I don’t hate this. I do worry that red plaid, worn under a pair of overalls, might look a little too, well, Hee Haw. But then…what difference does that make? I mean, I’m already weird enough, what’s another thing…and I do like the look.
Hmmmmm.
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Vlogging: Yay or Nay?
So I’ve been considering doing some occasional vlogging, as a way of mixing some stuff up and staying relevant and all that jazz. So, Dear Readers, some questions!
First: Would you be inclined to watch vlogs posted by Yours Truly? (I’m thinking of doing it no more than once or twice a month.)
Second: If you watch vlogs already, is there an ideal length for them? I’m kind of thinking that I should never be more than ten minutes.
Third: If I start vlogging, what manner of content should I mainly provide? Thoughts on writing? Reviews of stuff? Or all of the above, combined with random thoughts on stuff?
Some of the writer-folk I follow online in various places have added vlogging to their content lineup, and I’ve been kicking the idea around for a few months. The “hold-up”, as it were, has been my general sense of existential horror that I experience whenever I hear my own speaking voice. But, I suppose I can get over that, in time. (Or I just won’t listen to myself.)
Thoughts, Readers?
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Symphony Saturday
First off, it’s been brought to my attention that sometimes there are ads on the symphony videos that I use, and that sometimes the ads are not appropriate, over and above their annoying presence to begin with. The problem is that I never see ads, owing to my paid membership on Google Play and Google Drive, which also gives me access to “YouTube Red”, which is YT’s premium service. I’m going to try to alleviate this by using Internet Explorer to search YT for symphony videos. (On IE, I’m not signed into my Google account as a default, so my YT access through IE is the regular service and not the premium.) I hope this works.
And now, Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major!
I love this symphony. Always have. It’s always been one of my favorite symphonies of all time, and certainly my favorite of Dvorak’s, even above the amazing, tuneful 9th. This music is so well-attuned to me, with its sense of lyrical good cheer and its Dvorakian attention to folk and dance rhythms. This is the music of Eastern Europe. I call anyone heartless who isn’t moved to at least a little bit of happiness upon hearing this work.
Pay special attention to the finale, a theme-and-variations that opens with a trumpet fanfare. (How I would have loved to have been able to play this!) One conductor once said of this opening: “Gentlemen, in Bohemia the trumpets never call to battle – they always call to the dance!” This movement is just a fun listen, as Dvorak builds the theme from its first statement, through the orchestra, until it explodes in full force with blazing brass (note the loud trills in the horns). There is just so much pure delight in this symphony! In terms of pure optimism, the only symphony that might outpace it is Beethoven’s Seventh. (Yes I consider Beethoven’s Seventh an optimistic work, even with that magnificently brooding slow movement.)
Here’s Dvorak’s Eighth.
Next week: Yup. The Ninth. Time to visit “the New World”!
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Bad Joke Friday
Something for Thursday
Symphony Saturday
Time for the great Czech master, Antonin Dvorak.
Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which I’m going to focus on the last three, or at least as far as we know are the last three. The numbering of Dvorak’s symphonies is a rather messy affair: what is commonly thought of as the Ninth was originally published as the Fifth; the symphony up for consideration today was originally published as the Second but is now considered the Seventh.
Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony (“From the New World”) is so well-known and frequently performed that it actually tends to overshadow the rest of Dvorak’s symphonic output, which is quite a shame as I’ve yet to hear a work of Dvorak’s — in any genre or form — that didn’t have a great deal of charm, melodic invention, fine orchestration, thrilling gift of rhythm, and most important of all, a feeling of folk dance. Dvorak was a Czech national through-and-through, and the native tunes and rhythms of his country shine in everything he wrote. The Seventh Symphony is a perfect example of this, with its emotional intensity and stormy passages juxtaposed with moments of tranquility.
My favorite movement of this symphony is the Scherzo, which is likely because I actually got to perform it in my student days, at the summer music camp I attended. I’ve always found Dvorak to be a wonderful “gateway composer” for introducing people to classical music — not that he’s demanding, but his music is enjoyable on a lot of different levels. There is profundity, but there is also melody; there is long-form symphonic thought, but there is also dance.
Here is Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. Next week, my favorite of Dvorak’s symphonies — the wonderful Eighth!
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Bad Joke Friday
