The Fredösphere

In my previous post I quoted one of my favorite poems, To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence.  There's an old rule of thumb that says the best satirists are those with a love for the thing being made fun of.  Hoping that is true, I offer you this:

To A Blogger A Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic blog,
Send you my words in digit form;
The way: it is not analog.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure in the cruel height,
Just tell me if Blogger.com
Can yet republish my whole website.

But have you pictures of your cats
Who pose before a live web cam,
And flame wars over politics,
And comments clogged with perverts' spam?

O friend unseen, unborn, online,
Student of all our sweet shortcuts,
Read out my BTWs, my OTOHs,
I was a blogger, I was nuts.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
Link me and boost my Sitemeter
Visits.  Google will understand.

For something more ennobling (maybe), check out this post from God of the Machine, especially the comment by Timothy Murphy, who has a slightly more boisterous take on the Message From The Grave sub-genre of poetry.

Richard Hickox is making excellent recordings these days, and among them is one I found at the library, this collection of songs by Gerald Finzi.  If you like, follow the link and listen to a bit of the first song, "To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence," although it is not my favorite Finzi song by a long shot.  Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for introducing me to a mesmerizing, melancholy poem.

To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure in the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Maeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago,

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.

This poem was written by James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915).  Look again at those dates -- as you might guess, he was consumed by the Great Meat Grinder.  As a friend said to me, "cruel skies indeed!"

I have a job.  I am going to write some music for the Maundy Thursday service at my church.  It will be an extended work -- 15 or 20 minutes long.  It has been quite a while that I have needed to put together something that long.

I would like to have it done by mid-January, since there will be drama or dance involved and my collaborators will need time to work with the score.  So, counting from last week, I have 8 weeks to write about 18 minutes.  For me, that's a terribly tight schedule.  I usually enjoy the leisurely pace of an amateur.

The deadline means I must manufacture 2.25 minutes of music per week.  That reminds me:  creating any work of art is exactly like laying pipe.  And when I'm done, I will create a nice graph to evaluate the work's greatness.  "If the music's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the music yields the measure of its greatness."  Thank you, Mr. J. Evans Pritchard, for your excellent essay that explains this principle to us.

My duet from a month ago, Psalm 46, has for a month now been reduced to data patterns (also known as pdf, wma and mp3 files) but only today did I complete the work of adding it to my Music Downloads page.  You Have Been Officially Notified.

Here's a bit of important information:  those googling gondor urbanism will find me in the coveted number two position.  Once again:  if the Fredosphere is the answer, then it must have been a really stupid question.

We watched Millennium Actress and liked it a lot.  It scored high on my list of recommendations at Movielens.  (You are using Movielens to decide what movies to see, aren't you?)  It's yet another implementation of the collaborative filtering concept, and this particular movie is yet another example of how collaborative filtering finds for me movies that are perfect for me, but which I would have never found any other way.  You bozos certainly were no help.  Did any of you think to tell me about Millennium Actress?  Did any of you even know about it?  I didn't think so.

It's Japanese, it's animated, and it's subtitled, so maybe that explains why it didn't get more attention when it came out.  (Or if it did get attention, then:  I'm American, I'm inanimated, and I'm fat, so maybe that explains why I didn't hear about it.)

Okay, were not talking about a perfect film.  Not quite Ed Wood-levels of flawlessness.  (Relax.  I'm talking about the movie Ed Wood, not an Ed Wood movie.)  Millennium Actress relies on earthquakes as dramatic flourishes a little bit more often than a movie should, and the ending left a faint bitter taste in the mouth.  Nevertheless, it was great, and the complexity of the various layers of the film and the way they were manipulated was simply dazzling.

This is a movie made for the love of a woman, but more than that, it was made for the love of movies.  I think I shouldn't say anything more about it.  See it.

One more thing:  today my nephews Dan and Paul introduced me to a deeply cool game called Carcasonne. You lay down square cards to build medieval cities, connected by roads.  A river runs through it.  Buy it and try it.  Trust me.  It's almost as cool (and about one third as quirky) as Ace of Aces, which I can only describe as a video game implemented with paper and ink.

Via ArtsJournal (again!) we get this Newsweek column by Gersh Kuntzman.  There's a lot of annoying stuff in this column, along with some deep truths:

We just had an election that turned, in part, on cultural values—and we Blue Staters lost! Now we have a new modern art museum with a $20 admission fee to divide us further. The paper called MoMA "indispensable to our shared cultural legacy," but there’s nothing "shared" about the culture on view inside. If the dominant institution in the Red States is the church, then welcome to MoMA, where the Blue States pray! And what a cathedral to Blue State values it is!

I won't presume to impose on you my opinions about this article, only because I have not decided yet what they are.  But this complaint caught my eye:

Look, museums annoy me. Yes, they present the great works of art, but devoid of historical or social context. I can look at a painting as well as the next man, but the next man always seems to understand it better than I do—and I blame museums. On the wall next to a painting, all you get is a card reading, "Pablo Picasso, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” 1907, oil on canvas." Oh, oil on canvas! Now it makes sense!

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that painting.  The most influential gobs of paint ever!  In history!  But is it, you know, great?  The test of art's greatness is its ability to transcend its time and place.  Here, I direct you to a memorable essay on this painting by Friedrich von Blowhard (if the 2 Blowhards were a boy band, Friedrich would be the one who's always staring at the floor and frowning):

To sum up, let’s review the burning social and artistic issues my little history of religion in the Third Republic has touched on:
1) The woman question, prostitution and venereal disease
2) Anti-clericalism and the severing of church and state
3) The Catholic cultural/religious revival generally and the specific example of Cezanne, who evolved a painting style that provided a formal treatment suitable for his spiritualized view of nature
4) Africa as a symbolic focus of French national ambition and military anxiety

Friedrich shows how all these cultural issues are given a unified expression in Picasso's painting.  Okay, now I'm getting it -- assuming Friedrich has rightly sorted it out, which is something I'm not qualified to judge.  Even with all this information -- and according to Friedrich, it is information not easily found in standard art textbooks -- the painting still leaves me cold.  It's repulsive, probably intentionally so.  I hate it still, and I'm waiting for someone to give me the reason why my reaction is wrong.  I guess I'm just one catechumen who needs more instruction before he is ready to commune fully at the church of MoMA.

I'm sitting here in my veal-fattening pen, listening to the printer in the next room run a very, very long print job.  It is making repeated whistle-like noises in a four note theme, essentially "Here comes the bride" on a tritone.  Over and over.  And over.

It's driving me insane.

On a related topic, I was doing research to find the definitive answer to the all-important question of whether one could sing the words to the Bobby Goldsboro song "Honey" to the tune of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."  (The answer is:  no.)  I found a website.  It is definitely Not Safe, but not for the usual reasons.  It may make you go blind.  Passing the link on to you would be a deeply irresponsible act on my part.

Here's the link.

I found a biography of Alfred Schnittke at the library and I am working my way through it.  It is part of a series of biographies of 20th century composers put out by Phaidon.  So far I have read Ravel and Sibelius from the series.  They are a nice length for an introductory biography, and I appreciate their effort to bring attention to composers like Ligeti and Nielson, especially since they probably are not making big bucks doing it.

But. 

But so far, the writing has not been up to very high standards.  The prose does not flow in these books, and the way the material has been condensed and summarized is a little disappointing.  (I suppose I am especially picky because I have recently read a couple of magnificent examples of the biographer's art.)

Is this Schnittke biography an improvement over the others?  This is from just one highly complimentary review on Amazon:

This book is an excellent biography and overview of the music of Alfred Schnittke. The casual listener probably wouldn't be interested, but for those that love Schnittke's music this is a goldmine. It provides plenty of insight in the personal life of Schnittke and the events that helped shape his music. It details many of his personal political struggles (which would truly make comparisons to Shostakovich even clearer.)

I respectfully disagree.  This biography lurches from one topic to another.  The author is a friend of Schnittke's, which ought to be an advantage, but really, a professional who knows how to research and organize biographies would have been a better choice.

The single most fascinating fact about Schnittke is his spiritual odyssey.  The son of Jewish communists (on his father's side) and devout Volga Deutschers* (on his mother's side), he considered a wide range of philosophical and religious beliefs before choosing, well into adulthood, to be baptized into the Catholic church (thereby proving that pope is a verb).  I want more information about this journey, how it influenced his compositional choices, and how it made his life more difficult under the Soviet system.  I suspect there is a lot more to the story than we get in this book.

But hey, I should focus on the season we are in and give thanks that any biography of Schnittke exists in English at all.

I found a good micro-bio of Schnittke here, BTW.

*The wifeösphere is Volga Deutsch.  See more information about them here.

Virginia Postrel found this link which I can only describe as the designer's guide to The Incredibles.  If you are interested in architecture and design you should read it before seeing the movie (unless you already know everything about the subject, but even then, read it anyway).  Included is a link to a bizarre Guardian column giving the neo-Marxist take on superheroes.  (Hey, it's the Guardian; what did I expect?)

I described to my friend Victor the introduction to the second movement of Michael Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony (it would have been called the Superman Symphony if trademark law had not interfered).  A siren rises in pitch and volume until it climaxes with the entrance of the low brass, then falls away, leaving the strings (or something that sounds like strings) keening away on high wavering notes.  (Listen to the intro to the second movement here.)  Victor immediately said:  "War Pigs.  Black Sabbath."  I do not know if Mr. Daugherty misspent his youth with Black Sabbath (I do not think that would have been possible) but in any case I am glad to report the similarity really ain't there.

The Guardian says a national musical style is the product of the nation's language.  Composers form melodies that are influenced by the rhythm and pitch forms of the way they speak.  That's plausible to me; I once heard a jazz historian claim that music was based on the inflections in the speech of African-Americans.

For this idea to be confirmed, I suggest further a further study that compares nations that speak the same language.  Britain vs. the U.S. is the obvious choice:  is there a difference in the national styles of those two countries?  (Hint:  yes.)  How do you explain it?  (Hint:  probably the different accents, plus the wider international influences in the American polyglot population.)

(With a tip o' the hat to ArtsJournal.)

Mark your calendars, kiddies.  Earthsea comes to the Sci-Fi Channel on December 13.

Now, here is my question:  is there any possibility that this mini-series will not be a crashing disappointment, at least for those of us who read and loved the original Earthsea novels by Ursula Le Guin?  After all, Peter Jackson made his LOTR movies with a budget worth the crown jewels of Gondor, yet the end result deeply troubled Tolkien fans.

Via St. Andrew, who spotted it before I did:  City Journal offers an electrifying alternative to the usual machines for dying.  They have commissioned six architects to propose new skyscrapers with the classic Gotham look, for an area on the Far West Side of New York slated for massive redevelopment.  If only. (Definitely go to St. Andrew's site first. I don't know where he got them, but he has nice large color renderings of the buildings.)

The wifeösphere and I arrived early at that Tuesday night concert I mentioned, so I suggested we take a quick tour of the Rackham Building.  This is the home of the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan, although it is hard to figure out exactly what goes on inside that building.

The Rackham Building contains a 1,200 seat auditorium, an amphitheater, a gorgeous lecture hall (where I sang a recital as a student) and a long study hall.  Nevertheless, the building is so huge there is plenty of space in the non-public areas for -- well, what, exactly?

The building is given pride of place at the end of a mall that stretches two blocks.  (According to an urban legend, Horrace Rackham demanded a certain fountain in the mall be scaled down so it wouldn't block the view of his building.)  The style is a spare classicism with an emphasis on symetry and unassertive art deco detailing.  You enter the lobby, and if you are not headed into the auditorium, your only choice is to take one of massive stairways at the far left or right.  As you ascend, you are welcomed by a wall painting of a towering, betogaed figure with a wise and utterly calm expression.  As you move higher, the detailing becomes sparer and less grand, but only slightly, and when you reach the top floor, home of the lecture hall and amphitheater, you enter a zone that is frankly Greco-Roman, with ionic capitals and barrel vaults. 

I also want to mention the second floor:  to get to the study hall, you must pass through a curious round room located at the heart of the building.  Here you find a bronze plaque commemorating Horace Rackham the Humble and Hard-Working.  One can only fervently wish the old man did not write the copy himself.

On your tour, you will see discrete signs pointing directions to this or that office.  These signs are the only evidence that such offices exist.  If you walk the hallways you occasionally encounter blank, uninviting doors.  It seems clear that allowing these doors to exist at all was a painful concession on the part of the architect, and that if anyone ever presumed to, you know, walk through those doors, it would be simply too much.  Since the building is well lit, I assume it is wired for electricity although I cannot help but regard it as regrettable.

The Rackham Building exists only to support the improvement of disembodied minds, through enlightened activities such as the performance of chamber music or lectures on theosophy.  You expect to spot stately demigods in shimmering robes every time you turn a corner in one of its lonely hallways.  I simply don't believe that any of these "offices", with desks and computers and telephones and filing cabinets, exist anywhere inside the Rackham Building.

Thanks to the Deux Bleauhards for a link about rediscovering the music of the Ancient Greeks:

Greek poets and dramatists regularly set their work to music themselves, and from at least the fifth century B.C. on they used a highly sophisticated system of musical notation. The very idea of poetry, in fact, originally tended to imply music, and Athenian tragedy at its artistic peak, in the fifth century B.C., was a complex combination of poetic text, solo and choral song, recitation with instrumental accompaniment, and dance. This has an unsettling if little-recognized implication: watching a play by Euripides or reading poetry by Sappho is perhaps as incomplete an experience today as watching a "play" by Wagner or reading "poetry" by Stephen Sondheim would be.

Research into ancient (really ancient) music has been slow due to a shortage of scholars familiar with both the classics and music.  Until now:

Yatromanolakis aims to bridge the gap. He has degrees in the classics from the University of Athens (B.A.) and Oxford University, in England (M.A., Ph.D.). He recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and has just finished a three-year appointment to Harvard's distinguished Society of Fellows—a sort of incubator for exceptional young academics from all disciplines. He also happens to be a lifelong student of the history and the historical performance of music; a fan of classical Chinese music and world music; a composer in his own right; and a practicing countertenor who also plays the piano, the classical guitar, the sitar, and an ancient Greek plucked instrument called the cithara.

Wow.  And no doubt he is also known for his sensuous and godlike trombone playing.

Reviewing a book I have not yet read would be foolhardy. Nevertheless, I will not do it. Not exactly.

You probably have had the experience of reading an article in a newspaper or magazine about some corner of the world that you know very well, and being shocked at how wrong it was. All kinds of details are wrong, and the whole thing adds up to a very shallow, inaccurate picture of the truth. "Heavens to Murgatroid!" you say, "if they get it wrong when I'm in a position to fact-check them, how often do they get it wrong whey I'm not?"

So, Tom Wolfe's new novel is out. The big question is, can we trust Tom Wolfe's depiction of college life? The battle doth rage. I loved Bonfire of the Vanities (of course) and liked A Man In Full a lot in spite of its weaknesses (I was willing to take the ending as a kind of metaphor), so I am biased toward trusting Wolfe over his critics. I also have another reason to believe him.

An old friend of mine is a trial lawyer and amateur singer. Back when we both still sang with the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, I mentioned to him I was reading Bonfire and loving it, and he almost exploded with enthusiasm. It turned out, he was an intern in the Bronx courthouse just after Bonfire came out. According to him, Wolfe nailed the place -- the people, the environment, the judges and lawyers and defendants and the whole "alimentary canal" of the justice system.

But maybe I'm all wrong. How about it, Umie, can you give us your sagacious opinion?

Umie the Umlaut says, "Let's hook up!"

Uh, right, thanks Umie.

Labels: Culture

Here's a run-down of the pieces Jerry Blackstone conducted in the University of Michigan Chamber Choir concert from last night.

Mark Buckles, Morning Song:  an excellent student work.  I hear echoes of Eric Whitacre, who has one of the most attractive and useful composer websites I've ever seen.

Evan Chambers, Deploration:  an expression of mourning, with each note falling heavily and lingering in lethargy.  The lines of the organ accompaniment act as supplemental vocal parts, adding only an extra range in the bass, but avoiding much in the way of contrasting timbre.

William Albright, Chichester Mass.  This beautiful work sounds better with a full choir, which is what the U-M "Chamber" Choir really is, than with an otherwise excellent double sextet I heard perform it last year.  Among singers you sometimes find a certain snobbish disdain of big choirs (call it the Mormon Tabernacle effect) but the fact is, big choirs and chamber vocal groups are two different types of ensembles, and each has its strengths.  That big choirs are often the less disciplined doesn't mean there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

Franz Schubert, Mirjam's Siegesgesang:  a cantata for soprano, choir and piano.  Regarding the soloist, Heather Yanke:  what a horn!  She was enjoying herself almost too much; but if you are going to be extreme, that's the extreme to be.  It gladdens me to report that the Schubert was fiber-filled.

Jerry is good at finding these neglected pieces by big name composers.  One example is a cantata by Mendelssohn, Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, which will not be performed in most churches because it recounts a scene where Druids outwit Christians.  I saw Jerry conduct that piece a few years ago with my friends Glenn and Jeff.  Afterwards, this was their reaction:

Glenn:  "The bad guys won!"
Jeff:  "They won the battle."

Dominick Argento, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine:  A bizarre, uncanny work that captures the spirit (or at least, one of the spirits) of the Revelation.  The piece was written in 1968 -- a nasty low point in the annals of music composition -- but Argento the neo-romantic did an above average job of resisting the pressure to make it gratuitously weird, although the choice of text helped him by giving license for a phantasmagorical* vibe.  Did I hear a few gestures lifted from Stravinsky's Les Noces?  The ensemble is similar, with piano, harp, celeste, marimba and other percussion, but with a brass septet thrown in, all accompanying a tenor soloist and male choir.  I think it was cruel decision of Argento to call for the tenor soloist (here, new U-M professor John Charles Pierce) to out-shout six brass playing dense counterpoint.

*So, is it phantasmagorial, or phantasmagorical?  My Webster's New World Dictionary (paperback) doesn't say, so I submit the question to Google The All-Wise:  628 for the former, 16,200 for the latter.  Truth is a democracy!

Very alien:  Mixolydian Mode reviews the state of the art of Elven genetics (no, Legolas was not blond).  Meanwhile, the Lost City of Atlantis is found at the bottom of the Mediteranian Sea, and Patrick Duffy is found at the bottom of the Where Are They Now? file.  Via Plep, there's this.  And via Instapundit, we learn of top researchers' efforts to create house mixes of Lawrence Welk.

I hope to see you all tonight at the U-M Chamber Choir concert.  Jerry Blackstone will be working his magic once again.  The performance schedule says they will perform music by William Albright and Evan Chambers, two neat guys I blogged about a while back.  I believe Chambers is mainly known for his instrumental music, so this will a revelation.

Tonight, 8p.m., at Hill Auditorium (aka The Polaris).  Free.  See you there.

Someone just searched for brontosaurus opera bolcom and ended up at this website.  According to Google, I am the number two expert in the world on the subject.  I guess I better find number one and ask him what the heck it means.

I was going to write up a quick bit of self-indulgent twaddle that no one would want to read, pointing out how that everyone's got a blog, even Brother Cadfael, who wants to talk about singing the Psalms, complete with teasing references to dwarf tossing and Mozarabic chant (Byzantine chant sung in Latin, but you knew that already, didn't you).

I was going to link to the official website of the movie National Treasure, where you can watch approximately 7% of the movie for free, and speaking of treasure hunts, there's one right here, but I read the full explanation and I'm much, much more confused than when I started, but there is a Michigan tie-in, so it can't be all a waste.  Right?

And finally, I wanted to discuss James Lileks' leisure suit, or really, I wanted to not discuss my leisure suit, because it doesn't exist, and never did, and now I have an excuse to brag about my one moment of fashion prescience, to wit, as a ninth-grader, I disdained the leisure suit fad and instead became the sole owner of a three-piece suit, and to my profound satisfaction, within two years all my friends had junked their leisure suits, and three-piece suits became the fashion, and I'm still basking in the glow of that turn of events.

But now I see music blogger el grande Alex Ross has linked to me, and lots of people will be visiting this site, so I better clean up the clutter and find a way to give this place some style and class.  As soon as I figure out how, I'll let you know.

Today, I give you a revelation of the unveiling of an epiphany of my Psalm chants.  These chants are something I've been creating for use in my church since September of this year.  See them at the link called "Chanting the Psalms" in the list at the top of the right-hand column, or just use this link here.

The link gives you a full explanation of the hows and whys of what I'm doing.  I do want to emphasize that I am offering these chants to other church musicians to use freely for liturgical purposes.  I would also enjoy hearing from anyone who is using something similar in their congregation.  (To my knowledge, the chants I am creating are not exactly like anything else out there.)

(And if you'd like to understand where the title of this post comes from, go here and download the chant.wav file.)

My, what a busy day we've had.  I took Der Drubermensch to downtown Detroit for a DSO kiddie koncert.  Some chick who supposedly anchors a local TV news broadcast (hey, how would I know if she does?  I don't watch TV) read the narration for Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony.  No wait, I mean Peter and the Wolf.  I get those two mixed up sometimes.  The 'Mensch's favorite part was driving past the giant tire on display next to I-94.  We're talkin' giant, as in maybe a 60 foot radius.

The DSO has a nice new lobby space with an atrium, and they were wise enough to take our money by selling us hot dogs and pizza before the concert.  Plan A was not for us to eat right at the concert venue; I had this vision of me and the 'Mensch finding some hole in the wall restaurant, maybe a diner, someplace with cheap and lousy food but with loads of character.  You know, authenticity.  We would be immersed in the urban environment.  What I forgot is how astonishingly barren much of Detroit is, even (especially even) that stretch of Woodward Ave., the main drag.  The emphasis is definitely on drag, since the street is populated by tiny, grungy businesses that sell nothing any sane person would want, sitting isolated in large windy asphalt expanses which would make convincing parking lots if anyone ever -- you know -- parked there.  Just to keep you off balance, the equilibrium of this bleak post-apocalyptic landscape is punctuated by the occasional impeccably maintained public building -- a museum or a church or a historic mansion.  Alas, Babylon.

The afternoon I took the 'Mensch and the Maharincess to our usual Saturday destination -- the Ann Arbor library.  I picked up a book waiting for me from inter-library loan, a text on Schenkerian music analysis by Carl Schachter.  The goodly folk at Jessica Duchen's pad (see the comments of this post) recommended it.  Also, I borrowed once again Pete Seeger's seminal Banjo book.  Thus I fan the dying embers of my ambitions to become an old-tyme claw hammer banjo player.

Be sure to check out the comments to my post on the so-called "Maus of cancer comics." The comic strip's auteur himself showed up to explain his artistic choices.

I want to make clear that when I mentioned the "inappropriate" art, I was talking about my first impression, and my point was, if you have the same reaction, to press on and read the thing anyway, because it is really, really worth it. Please. Believe me, the artist knows what he's doing.

Umie the Umlaut says, "It's the Citizen Kane of mothers with cancer comic strips!"

Yeah, good, thanks for your input, Umie.

If you (like some I know) thought "inappropriate" was a code-word for what my friend Victor refers to as "pr0n" then no, really, that's not what I meant. On the other hand, I do continue to be disturbed by the artist's decision to depict his mother as that fat, naked guy from Milton Bradley's Operation board game. (No kidding.)

By way of Virginia Postrel, I give you Top Ten Greatest Books of All Time About Guys Named Steve. In line with this, and my wildly popular (hey -- wildly popular by my standards!) posts about band names, I give you a list of The Best 70s Bands About Fred. Believe it or not, there was a short period of time in my life when my friends' favorite pastime was thinking these names up. Honest.

The Grateful Fred Fred Nugent Three Dog Fred Grand Fred Railroad Tony Orlando & Fred Fredbone Earth, Wind & Fred Fread Fredland Vocal Band REO Fredwagon

On select occasions this blog has declared an Anti-Pope Thursday. Today I continue in that spirit, while following up (as promised) on an exposé of the bizarre world of Neo-Tech. Regular readers will also recognize a connection to my long-running series of posts on The Varieties of Religious Art. For indeed, Neotech is a religion. I'm not thinking particularly of its attempts to appropriate Jesus or religious terminology. I'm thinking of the movement's totalist aspects, as claimed by the author of this FAQ. Here is the juicy bit:

I began questioning my involvement in the company directly following the infamous monthly meeting where a bust of Christ was smashed to pieces with a sledge hammer by JF. The statue rested on the table surrounded by live microphones. I was recording the meeting and wore headphones, not knowing what was about to occur. Hours later, after regaining my hearing I was accused of doing speedballs and other drugs. I was temporarily fired and then re-hired a week later. (Matt referred earlier to this incident as the Great I&O Purge of 1988.) After this incident, the common question running throughout the company (outside the family) was "Is this a cult?"

Read the whole thing, the tangles with the IRS, the founder's weird career as an expert at poker, the claims about space aliens and the power to raise the dead, and above all the organization's -- how shall I put this? -- interesting track record dealing with human resource issues. Also you may want to browse the official Neo-Tech website, especially the sections devoted to what it alluringly calls Psychuous Pleasures. Enjoy.

They were talking about Arcangelo Corelli this morning on WKAR out of East Lansing, Michigan. (And by the way, what a great name: Arcangelo. Why don't people name their sons Arcangelo anymore. Cowards.) So anyway, our good buddy Mark Schwitzgoebel dug up this quote from 1789, by Charles Burney:

The Concertos of Corelli seem to have withstood all the attacks of time and fashion and the effects of the whole [is] so majestic, solemn and sublime that they preclude all criticism.

Cool! The Concertos of Corelli are just like the Fredösphere!

Some people are calling this online comic strip "the Maus of cancer." I checked it out and was immediately put off by the inappropriate artwork. Since Maus was mentioned, my expectations were skewed toward a much darker look, something with a sinister edge. (Maybe I expected the cancer patients to look like mice and the doctors to look like cats.) Anyway, I am part way through the strip now, and I am telling you, the writing is brilliant. You get lots of analogies here, sometimes hilarious, sometimes very disturbing, but always inspired. This is a tale of folly, selfishness, incompetence, denial, compassion, heroism, struggle, and love. If you have never had cancer, or you have a lot of distance (temporal and emotional) from your treatment, then I definitely recommend this. Otherwise, you may want to leave it alone. Yes, my dearest darling, I'm talking to you. Update: Read this additional post for a clarification.

I would like to dig up Jane Austen, prop her in front of my computer, and make her watch as I browse my way over to this post, then download the trailer to Bride and Prejudice, a new movie from the makers of Bend It Like Beckham, then listen while the bewildered 250-year-old author asks "what's a computer?" and "what's the internet" and "a trailer for a what?" and "are all the men of the 21st century as devilishly handsome as you?" but the result would be that I would have a decomposed corpse stinking up my house, so I guess I won't.

Yesterday in a post I mentioned Forrest Covington's sunset musings on the creative process and how it works. Today I have time to say a bit more. I do my creative work mostly away from the piano (and the computer, for that matter). I admit that with some hesitation because working in your head is the idealized way to compose -- Beethoven composing while walking, and all that. Those composers who work at the piano usually feel the need to cite Stravinsky's impeccable example to justify themselves. I also recall Michael Daugherty shocking an unsophisticated audience with the revelation that he relies on synthesizers and computers to create his orchestral scores. I say, if the piano helps you, use it. My piano skills are too slight for it to work for me when writing a complex score. More significantly, there is something about sitting down in front of a piano (or even a computer) that simply turns off my creative powers. I enter a kind of somnambulant state. My improvising devolves quickly into a stock set of primitive gestures. I use the piano only as a correctional tool, which for me is not an insignificant part of the process, but it is a more reactive, less creative, part. Over the summer I experienced a dry spell in the creative juices and I really started worrying about it. Then we fixed our treadmill and I noticed how valuable that time is. I put my body into motion and my brain starts working too. Very strange. And unlike jogging out doors, I can have my text and my notes (not musical notes) in front of me, and I can play out my composition in my head as I exercise. It works great. I work great. I am happy.

The A Cappella News has a brief history of the King's Singers, one of England's loudest sextets. This paragraph caught my eye:

In 1978 Thompson was the first original member of the group to leave. He was ably replaced by Bill Ives, and the perpetually renewing tradition of the King's Singers began. By 1993, the group had been passed on to an entirely new generation of singers. To date, 19 performers have been a part of the group.

That's a lot of members lost along the way -- and that only counts the drummers!

Forrest Covington likes to talk about the creative process. Here's his latest post on that topic. He describes the way a composition assumes its own identity (if allowed) somewhat different than the composer's initial intention. I'll comment more later if I can. Right now I need to recover from a very nice company lunch at a local Chinese place (Gormet Garden).

Just read this.

Mixolydian mode asks that question, and answers yes.  He seems to be saying our culture, even (especially) our pop culture, is becoming richer and more sophisticated all the time.

Hey, whatever, just so long as it keeps supplying me with this basic necessity.

WKAR out of East Lansing was burning up the airwaves this morning with Old Simon the King as performed by the Palladian Ensemble. Wow. It sounded like a simple duet of wooden flute (probably) and lute, except the flautist played a line that was packed full o' notes that never stopped. Then the line got packed even more. Sheesh, when does this player take a breath? I didn't think flautists practiced circular breathing, but that is really the only explanation for what I heard. It's a good thing Old Simon was merely a king; if he were the Austrian Emperor he would be saying "too many notes" for sure. I couldn't find a sound file of the piece, but here is the album with a few other beautiful tracks for your listening pleasure.

Thanks to Michael Blowhard who pointed out this NYT article on the great urge to tear down architectural landmarks from the 60s. (Read Michael's whole post, a roundup of great new urbanism links.) I'm a little conflicted about this trend. A little. Yes, when building turn 40 they are at their most vulnerable to the cruel cycle of fashion. Nevertheless, for the most part we are talking about buildings that are maintenance nightmares and eyesores. Some of these building bark. Look at the Orange County Government Center in Goshen, N.Y., featured in the NYT link. As a sculptural object, I can get why some people like it. (Although the big blank windows scream "low-class" if you ask me.) But as a building, it is a failure. It is exhibit A in the whole indictment against modernism in architecture. Here's my suggestion: don't tear it down. Instead, build a huge museum all the way around it. That way the building's uselessness becomes a non-issue and it will be in an environment where people will be free to view it to its advantage, as a piece of sculpture. We'll have to pick an architectural style for the museum, however. I think something neoclassical -- a faux Greek temple -- would set the right tone. I have a local tie-in. I just read in the Ann Arbor Observer that the city needs more office space. One proposal involves building a new City Hall around the existing one which would be torn down later. (Or it could be burned down in a spasm of spontaneous atavistic rioting. Hey -- just a suggestion.) This demolition would be no great loss, for reasons similar to the case mentioned above. Have a look at this top-heavy monster. Alden Dow was the architect, a Wright disciple who was more than capable of doing beautiful work. I wonder what went wrong with the City Hall. Maybe he was forced to do it on the cheap.

Today begins a new era for the Fredösphere -- a more user-friendly era.  Those of you who have been confused by the technical jargon or dazzled by the fancy photoshopped graphics can now rest easy.  This blog now has a mascot.  I present to you Umie the Umlaut.

Umie says, "Always blog responsibly!"

Umie is a friendly guy who will guide you through each visit.  I expect he will turn out to be just as helpful and loveable as that paper clip guy in Microsoft Word was before he was tragically assasinated.

My, the voting lines were long this morning. Yes, I said lines. Plural. I went to the usual place, misread the map, went to another place and wasted a half-hour there before I found out my first guess was correct. I wished I had thought to bring a book with me, but right now the novel I'm working on is called Dewey Defeats Truman and someone might have construed that title as having a political message, so it is probably just as well. The only time I was called up for jury duty, I took Homage to Catalonia with me, and it earned me a comment. I did happen to have a printout of Aristotle's Physics with me, so I looked at that. I noticed someone else in line reading The Illiad; what kind of coincidence is that? I'm reading Aristotle because I have this not very practical idea for setting some of the words to music. I think it contains a hypnotic combination of rigorous geeky science guy talk, based on some quaint premises and intuition that is tragically flawed, but beautiful. There is lots of spooky metaphysical talk about the prime mover and infinite this and that. I think there really is a fun piece in there somewhere, probably with a post-minimalist machine rhythm, but I have to decide if it is worth the time trying to extract it. Of course, it would have to be really, really good or no one is going to want to listen to it. Finally, I'd like to mention the guide dog I saw at the polling place, which got me all choked up if you want to know the truth. Ours is a very progressive county and we have this wonderful guide dog program paid for by local government funds. if officials determine your political views are just too screwed up for you to vote properly, they assign you a guide dog to lead you into the polling place. Then the dog goes into the booth and makes your voting decisions for you. I really hope this program catches on all over the country; it could save us all a lot of grief in future elections.

Terry Teachout saw a revival of 12 Angry Men performed on stage recently, and gives us his reaction here. That reminded me of the movie version, which in turn reminded me of another Fonda movie with a similar name: For some reason, 12 Angry Mennonites never really caught on with the public in the way that 12 Angry Men did. In fact, if you go to imdb.com you will see that no one has ever bothered to create a page for it. Fonda was a surprising choice for a role that portrays a Mennonite - turned - vigilante impaling scores of bad guys on a pitchfork, complete with lots of blood & gore. Apparently the director saw a rage in Fonda's audition that was lacking when Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger et al. tried out for the part.

The Vox concert on Saturday night was exquisite.  What a great ensemble.  Their intonation was really impressive.  It's nice to see how much Whitnie (executive director, soprano) and Chris (director) Wolverton were geeked (or jazzed or pumped or whatever word from your college years you would like to use) about their group and getting up in front of an audience. I'd like to know at what level Chris does his research when selecting music.  Is he blowing dust off of ancient parchments in the crypts of European cathedrals?  Does he rely on more secondary sources?  I know the work in recovering early music has really taken off in the last few years.  You can't swing an extinguished censor these days without hitting a musicologist with a pile of newly-discovered, neglected early-music masterpieces. Chris Wolverton is on a Gombert bender right now.  Nicolas Gombert (c.1500-c.1556) is an obscure composer who worked in the shadow of Josquin and whom Chris (c.1968-c.2058) believes is due for a revival.  He programmed one piece by Gombert for this concert, Musae Jovis, and I would like to hear more. My only regret is that they programmed no new music, but that should change.  They have a composer-in-residence, Kristin Kuster, and I really want to hear what she will do with a early music ensemble.