The Fredösphere

No, I'm not particularly interested in collaborating with a judeo-mormon writer of musical comedies, but hey, maybe you are, so here's the link.

More urgently, you should be aware that About Last Night has become (improbably) a central on-line clearinghouse for information about Hurricane Katrina.  Meanwhile, I got word that my good friend Steve, whom I occasionally quote here on the blog, evacuated with his family from his home in Pass Christian, Mississippi, which "probably got the worst of it," as you can see here.  Steve, et al. escaped with two heavily-laden vehicles to Mobile, and right now are trying to decide what to do next.  They suspect their apartment doesn't exist anymore.

The Standing Room informs us of a handy flow chart for determining the copyright status of a work.  TSR finds humor in the complexity of the chart, which resembles a plateful of angel hair pasta.  Indeed, the copyright law is a nightmare of conditions and bizarre exceptions.

That's not the worst of it.

The mere existence of this chart implies the following scenario:  I find a piece of music that contains a tune I want to use in the tuba concerto I'm writing.  The copyright was secured in 1940, then renewed in the 1960s.  But the law is so complicated, I'll never be sure if it's in the public domain!  I'm dead in the water!

Here's the way it really works:  I find a poem I want to set to music.  It says it was copyrighted in 1940.  There is no mention of renewal, but that doesn't mean anything.  The author is so obscure, he's ungoogleable.  The publishing company is long gone.  The library of congress could do a search for you, but that's slow, and it proves nothing if they find nothing.  I can't use the flow chart because I cannot find the answers to critical questions it asks.

In other words, needing help to determine how this byzantine law applies to one's particular situation is a lofty state which one rarely attains.

Chile was a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and the companion of my family for seven years.  This week we learned that his worsening limp was caused, not by arthritis, but by a tumor.  We ended his suffering on Saturday.

Bad breeding and early neglect by previous owners left Chile neurotic.  He would bark hysterically whenever a window was opened or a fan was run -- those sorts of things might lead to smoke alarms.  He abruptly lost interest in fetching tennis balls when I hit him accidentally on the nose twice in two days.  He renounced the game forever, a foolishly cautious decision that greatly limited his capacity for fun.  His record regarding house training was, yes, spotty.  Yet he was fully a member of our family, which earned him a status beyond criticism:  he was neither a good dog, nor a bad dog; he was simply our dog.

The death of a dog is a strange event.  You lived with him; he knew you intimately; you loved him.  Yet one doesn't want be one of those people who grieve excessively.  Unlike another corgi I heard about, Chile will have no bagpipes at his funeral; indeed, he will have no funeral.  Certain disrespectful thoughts, e.g., that vacationing without Chile will be logistically simpler, can be entertained to a degree that I would never consider if the deceased were, say, a grandparent that was too old or distant ever to develop fond feelings for.

His death was an occasion for me to contemplate the Four Last Things:  Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell.  It was an occasion for me to resist the temptation to think depressed thoughts, to ask why a life has a point if it ends in death, to wonder at death's awful irrevocable nature. 

It was an occasion to resist the temptations of anthropomorphism.  When we were kids, my sister and I would play Daniel Boone out by the tall maples in our front yard.  The freakish tree that had been struck by lightning and lost a bough -- the one that had a hole in it you could look right through, yet still stood and lived -- was our fort.  Our dog at the time, Tim, was given the role (by my sister, who was older, but not old enough to know better) as the "retarded son."  But a dog isn't like a handicapped relative, who, in death, is pitied for the loss of potential as well has the loss of life.  The handiwork of God and man has been combined in the breeding of a dog to give it a peculiar destiny.  We ought not to imagine Chile missed his.

Who knows of some good anthems by Mendelssohn that will work for a church service, and (critically) are not too long?  (Three to four minutes is best.)  If I could download it for free, say, from the Choral Public Domain Library for example, that would also be nice.  Finally, I prefer the accompaniment not to be an unplayable keyboard transcription of an orchestral score.

I've been doing some searching myself, but I haven't struck paydirt yet.  Here's a very short Mendelssohn piece from 1831, almost a chorale, with a stirring text:

Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich, Herr Gott, zu unsern Zeiten!
Es ist doch ja kein andrer nicht, der für uns könnte streiten,
denn du, du, unser Gott, denn du, alleine.

which, according to Babelfish, is about a certain Mr. Gott who runs a Rental Business.  I'm not sure exactly what place in the liturgical calendar that fits.

Here's a translation of "Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe":

Honour is God in the height, and peace on ground connection, and humans well-being-please!

which would work great during the annual blessing of the circuit breakers.

"Am Himmelsfahrtstage" looks promising, but based on my incomplete knowledge of German, I'd guess it's about Heaven's launch pad.  Oooh, this is turning into a long slog.

Making fun of transhumanism enthusiasts doesn't exactly belong in my öuvre, but what the heck, it would be fun:

Imagine a cross between Janet Reno and Harvey Fierstein, except high on disassociative drugs and possibly infected with rabies.

and it gives me an excuse to use an umlaut.  Meanwhile, I knew the future of the Sceptered Isle was looking grim, but I didn't know the culture had squirmed quite this deep into the quicksand.  (Sensitive persons may want to think hard before following that last link.)

Tomorrow, I promise a return to our usual Polyannaish content.

I watched Koyaanisqatsi straight through for the first time Monday night, because Alex Ross said we had to.  I won't attempt to add much to what has already been said about it, except to marvel and the accomplishment.  As my friend Victor observed, the making of the film was such a drawn-out affair that the hair styles change from scene to scene.

Not that human figures are a major presence.  Indeed, when you finally see your first real live person, it is a bit of a shock.  Later, the teeming masses do take over, and of course man's handiwork, and its effect on the globe, is the whole point of the film.

I was surprised by the extent to which the scenes of industrial metastasis did not horrify me.  Maybe I'm just older and mellower, but those vast ponds filled with sickly liquid seemed to have a weird beauty.  Is it liberal of me to see the good side in anything, even chemical wastes?  Wait, don't answer that; I don't want to know.  Nevertheless, we see the danger in this kind of film making:  to aim a camera at something is to declare it a work of art.  It's a bit like Milton's dilemma in Paradise Lost.  If you devote a few thousand lines of poetry to the story of Satan, your readers will start feeling sympathy for him.  Or it's like what happens when the newspapers spill gallons of ink over the latest serial killer:  soon the fiend starts getting offers of marriage.

Speaking of Alex Ross (whose summer blogging hiatus has ended):  check out this unclear self-portrait from his post of August 18.  The very disturbing news is that, as best I can make out, he and have near-identical faces.  Folks, this is a disaster.  Once before I met someone who sorta, kinda resembled me, and the resulting metaphysical vertigo took days to dissipate.  (The only thing worse would be to run into someone with the same name.  Since my middle name is Gero -- yes, Gero -- it ain't gonna happen.)

Sorry Alex, but this space-time continuum is not big enough for the two of us.  One of us is simply going to have to take one for the team.  I have something to live for; how about you?  I suggest you put something by Puccini on the stereo as you contemplate your next move.

The day has demanded too much of me to allow me to blog before now, what with watching the elder child "vomitating" all over the couch, and staying home all day with both children, and meeting a fellow choir director for a schmoozathon lunch, and some intense rounds of Mighty Mind, Sequence for Kids, and a jigsaw puzzle to assemble.  Thus, I offer you but one link today:  a former keyboardist for Michael Jackson was inspired to write a symphony after almost falling into a volcano:

In actuality, I did not slide far but it was a bit scary there for a moment," Martz said. Unhurt, he says he had an epiphany for the symphony. "Charles Darwin," Martz explained, "the music would be about evolution on the earth 200 million years into the future.

I love that:  "he explained."  He put out an add for "weird musicians who play weird instruments" and ... well, I'll let you read the rest of the details yourself.

We watched all four episodes of the BBC production of Gormenghast, based on the first two books of the fantasy cult classic by Mervyn Peake.  I haven't read the books, but since they are "cult classics" instead of just plain "classics" I assume they suffer from the same lack of plot discipline that the BBC version does.  However, as far as alternate realities go, this one is a lot of fun.  An earldom, cut off from the rest of the world, is run by strict adherence to ceremony and tradition.  Even the menu for the Earl's daily breakfast must be looked up in a book.  Feebleness and dementia are epidemic in Gormenghast.  A thick layer of dust covers everything.  Some parts of the castle have not been visited in living memory.  Nobody works out.  That kind of place.  Gormen ghastly.

The acting is mostly fantastic, with our old friend Ian Richardson of Francis Urquhart fame) playing the old Earl to perfection.  (By the way, if you haven't seen him in the movie Dark City, run out right now and get a copy.)  John Sessions lets us have fun watching him have fun in the role of the zany Dr. Prunesquallor; ditto FIona Shaw as his bizarre sister Irma.  Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was very, very creepy as Steerpike, the kitchen boy who rises to power by violence and intimidation (this is an easy crowd to intimidate, as it happens:  interbreeding has left them all dumb as a bag of hammers).  He is able to make Steerpike seem alternatingly simpatico and repellent, sometimes making the switch in mid-sentence.  Space does not allow me to give full justice to other excellent performances by Celia Imrie, Neve McIntosh, or Christopher Lee.

I mention this show because some of you may be of the type to want to find out more.  You know who you are.  If you get the DVD, beware that episodes 2 and 3 are very slow moving; I'd almost recommend you skip them.  In fact, don't expect much action; when things finally do start to happen, the author kills off two critical characters without making a plot point out of them -- what a waste.  (This doesn't include other characters that are also killed, again without advancing the plot, but about which I have no complaint because I wanted them dead.  You will too.  Believe me, you will too.)

Now, here's something that bugs me.  You will have noticed most titles of nobility have a male and female version, as shown here in this handy chart:

Male Title	Female Title
Duke	Duchess
Baron	Baroness
Lord	Lady
Count	Countess
Earl	? ? ?

What the heck is supposed to go in that last slot?  Earless?  Earlette?  The cover of the DVD lists Lady Gertrude as a "Countess."  That can't be the answer, can it?  Why can't the English get this whole aristocracy thing figured out?

Lynn comments that she can hardly believe sailors call ropes "sheets" and wonders where the expression "three sheets to the wind" came from. Here's an explanation.

While driving to work this morning, I noticed a woman at a corner, waiting to cross the street with her bike.  Now, the point of this story is not that she was ugly.  She seemed a bit above average in attractiveness, really, although of course as a married man I never, never notice such things.  Beyond that, however, she was out for a bit of exercise, so her clothes were selected more for comfort than beauty, and she was visibly frustrated by her long wait for the light to change.  Bottom line:  she was nothing special to look at.

However.

I happened to be listening to An Introduction to Der Ring Des Nibelungen, narrated by Derryck Cooke, and at the moment I laid eyes on the woman, the Valhalla Theme from Der Ring broke in.  If you don't know it, let me just say that, with this theme, Wagner found music that communicates all that is sublime, noble, confident, and peaceful.  The theme is positively fruity with grandeur.

Bathed in this milky goodness, my bike woman was transfigured.  She was assumed.  She transcended petty questions of attractiveness.  Even her impatience with the traffic light was beatified, such that she became a heroine striving to achieve some great quest, and invested with tragic nobility in her failure to cross the street.

Indeed, the Valhalla motif can inspire great acts of courage and self-sacrifice.

Later, I couldn't help but perk up my ears when Deryck Cooke closes one section with these words:

This ends the family of motifs associated with the inspiring power of woman.  Although few, they are extremely powerful.

Well, I don't know, Derryck;  I don't think I would say there are few, since there are probably more than 3 billion of them alive on earth right now.  But you're right:  they are extremely powerful -- frighteningly so.

While enjoying a free sailing demonstration at the University of Michigan Sailing Club (they give them every Saturday in the summer; you should try it if you live in the area) a few weeks ago, my nephews and I learned that many of the "ropes" or "lines" or "cables" or "cords" on a sailing ship are more properly referred to as "sheets."  This is just wrong.  If anything, a sheet ought to refer to a sail -- you know, something made of cloth.  It turns out the word "rope" is underutilized on sailing ships; except for one "rope" that runs along (and, I suppose, reinforces) the inner edge of a sail, no "rope" on a sailing ship is called a "rope."

So here's my suggestion.  On a certain day in the near future, everyone in the sailing community shall switch over to calling all "sheets" "ropes."  Considering the vastness of my readership, I think we'll need only three days to get the word to everyone.  So let's say 2:00 am, UTC, on Sunday, August 21, 2005, is when we make the switch.

Without objection, is is so ordered.

One more entry to my Chicago diary.

Millennium Park is just north of the Art Institute, and during our weekend visit we took a few minutes to walk through it.  I wanted the kids to see the Bean, and they did get to look at it, or more accurately, the got a look at themselves reflected in its perfectly polished surface.  I was surprised that only one end was exposed; most was covered while workers busily ... did something to it, maybe polished it.  I suppose it would be doubly appropriate if the workers were all Polish, this being Chicago and all.

It turns out the bean is mostly covered because the bit they left exposed is all that you are allowed to look at under the "Fair Use" provision of U.S. copyright law.  Or something.  A guard was there to ensure no persons left the area with an imprint of the bean lingering on their retinas.  (No, I'm joking.)

I liked the other prominent feature of the park, which is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry.  I'm going to surprise you by not venting my impotent rage at yet another arbitrary, self-indulgent Gehry design -- not in this case.  The curlicues atop the orchestra shell are pure decoration, and belong (to my mind) in the category not of architecture, but rather sculpture, or architectural ornament.  No functional discipline is required of sculpture, so these goofy cowlicks in stainless steel do not offend me in the least.  And since I didn't pay for its construction, the 500% cost overrun is also no problem.

Who is this Van Morrison?  I've owned and loved the Avalon Sunset CD for years, but I would never have found it on my own; an old friend got me hooked on it.  Morrison mumbles his way through his songs in a way I normally dislike; a further strike against him is his habit of dropping the occasional grand philosophical statement into his conventional pop lyrics.

Right now I'm listening to Daring Night.  The chorus reads like a not terribly inspired top-40 song:

In the daring night when all the
Stars are shining bright
Squeeze me don't leave me
In the daring night

but suddenly, in the second time through the chorus, he adds:

In the firmament we move, we move and we live
And we have our being
Squeeze me don't leave, leave me in the daring night

He gives us mangled quotes from the King James Bible!  Bizarre. 

A couple of other songs on the album are overt worship songs, like "Whenever God Shines His Light" or "When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God", the latter which informs us:

You brought it to my attention everything that was made in God
Down through centuries of great writings and paintings
Everything lives in God
Seen through architecture of great cathedrals
Down through the history of time
Is and was in the beginning and evermore shall be

The vibe has become almost liturgical.  And yet, besides the cathedrals, Morrison appreciates other, uh, conduits of the beatific vision -- from the song "Coney Island":

Coming Down from Downpatrick
Stopping of at St. John's Point
Out all day birdwatching
And the crack was good

These juxtapositions are violent:  the bluesy delivery, the pop music conventions, the high-falutin' ideas that should sound hopelessly silly and pretentious, but instead break in like rays of light.  The whole album has an endearingly improvised quality; as he approaches the coda of Daring Nights, Morrison directs the band to switch to the closing chord vamp with an urgent murmur, "one, four.  One, four!"

How does he pull it off?  What's going on with his spirituality, which seems almost orthodox, but jarringly not quite?  I want to know.  These songs only hint at the answers.

The Chicago trip was a complete success.  We experienced no inconvenience around Gary, Indiana, which is one of the great traffic snarlers, not to mention tops in stench and eyesore production.

Remarkably, we never found OGIC, even though I approached every woman who appeared to be between 15 and 75 years of age, asking "are you OGIC?"  Fathers of some of the teenage girls I asked seemed to take offense for some reason.  I guess I just need someone to explain to me the rules of dealing with people.  For example, I used to carry battery-powered hair clippers because I noticed some guys don't keep the backs of their necks shaved properly.  It turns out "the rules" say you shouldn't try to give strangers hair cuts without permission.  Sheesh, it's amazing how much some people can get bent out of shape.  I guess everyone  received an instruction manual in the mail that tells them what is and is not allowed in public.  I wish they would remember to send me a copy.

A quick word in favor of the Art Institute:  I forgot how thick the place is with great paintings.  Wow.  Double wow.

Finally, I have to mention Chicago's most remarkable treasure:  the Fairy Castle of Colleen Moore.  This over-the-top obsession of a silent film starlet now resides in the Museum of Science and Industry.  The tiny chandeliers have real diamonds in them, the staircase is not up to code, the main floor lacks a bathroom, and a side table holds a gun that really shoots, but is only as long as your fingernail.  Royal Doulton once made two sets of tiny china plates stamped with a royal crest; one set was made for the Queen of England's doll house; the other for the superbly well connected Colleen Moore.

At one point the wifeösphere missed a part of the narration that describes the castle, so I explained to her that the chapel contains a sliver of the True Cross that the pope gave to Clare Booth Luce.  (No joke.)  I observed, "this is getting really decadent," and a woman standing next to me agreed emphatically.  See!  Someone in the world thinks the same way I do.

Wherein Our Hero devises a plan whereby he would transport his family -- countrified naïfs, every one of them -- to the Great City, to absorb some heretofore unseen urban sophistication therein, and to sacrifice his wallet upon the altar of the Temple of Cheap Yet Stylish Furniture.

When we found out the shipping on some Ikea bookcases we want would add 200 bucks to the purchase price, the wifeösphere suggested we take care of the shipping ourselves, which would fulfill a desire of mine to take the whole family to Chicago sometime this summer.  Thus, today we are packing and raiding the library for kids' books on CD.  (We've got some Narnia and some Unfortunate Events; that ought to keep the little darlings happy).

Chicago is a big place, and I seriously doubt any other city on earth could be bigger, yet it stands to reason we will run into OGIC at some point.  In any event, our itinerary puts us at Ikea when it opens on Saturday morning, then Giordano's for some true Chicago-style pizza for lunch (i.e., the only kind to attain greatness), then maaaaaybe a peek at the nearby Water Tower Place, then a whirlwind tour of the Art Institute, wherein the children will get their eyeballs rubbed in some Impressionism, then finally some lever pulling and crank turning at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Then we limp home.  Assuming the place doesn't kill us, or seduce us with its overwhelming wickedness.

This interview with Anne Sofie von Otter contains lots of fun keywords and phrases:  zombies, ABBA, staging The Flying Dutchman in a nuclear submarine, Elvis Costello.  Oh, and did someone mention Zombies?

Today's post begins by belatedly reacting to a couple of excellent recent comments.  First, M. C- of The Standing Room points out he was the first to suggest that Ned Rorem's 40-year-old diaries seem very bloggish.  Mister Cee, I must confess I remember reading at least a bit of that article; I don't think I got so far as your diary=blog line, and I can at least promise you I didn't consciously steal your idea, but the whole situation leaves me uneasy.  Anyway, let credit go to whom it is due:  yue!

Next, M. Gable of Aworks found a fun (but salty) anti-blues rant to compliment mine.  Of course, if I really believed what I wrote about the blues, I'd be guilty of letting my personal tastes spoil my critical judgment.  As it is, I have no critical judgment, so there's nothing to spoil.  In any case, the truth is, I'm looking for certain things in music to satisfy me, and the blues is one genre that is simply missing those things.  It's missing those things by design, but that doesn't do me any good.

Finally, I'd like to follow up on yesterday's ringing endorsement of Der Ring.  Some of you may remember I have agreed with those who complain about Wagner's long-windedness; I have not changed my mind, and I'd like to assert out there is no contradiction in the various things I've said about Wagner, good or ill.  Furthermore, although the plot of Der Ring loses it's way in the fourth opera, as the fascinating Wotan recedes and the dull, witless Siegfried takes over (an idiot-savant, without the savant), I really admire the earlier treatment of Wotan, who struggles with the question of legitimacy in the exercise of power.

It is his subtle exploration of this complex issue that tells us Wagner is a much, much more thoughtful artist than, for example, Gerry Anderson, the creator of the Thunderbirds Are Go series.  Let's overlook for now the series' technical shortcomings, primarily the mechanical puppets who were unable to walk convincingly and who therefore spend most of their time sitting on their respective butts. (And here let us also insert the obligatory joke about the "wooden" acting).  Instead, I want to consider the weakness of the underlying scenario:  the super-rich mastermind Jeff Tracy controls a fleet of super-advanced jet rescue craft that can negotiate air, sea, and space.  Tracy alone is the one who gets to decide when a crisis is sufficiently severe to launch the craft -- to announce pompously, "Thunderbirds are go!"  Now, think about it:  these craft, piloted by his five sons whose loyalty is to him alone, are invulnerable to the war-making ability of any nation on earth.  It is absurd that Jeff Tracy is somehow immune to the corrupting influence of the power he possesses.  That he would be sucked into the great political conflicts of the day would be inevitable, as would be efforts by various governments to influence him.  I think it would be only a matter of time until Tracy would find himself saying something like:  "tell the Belgian prime minister that those chocolates he sent over are not up to his usual standards!  He better send me more, or he can forget about me suppressing that Walloon uprising!"

It is come.  Let the nations rejoice.  I now own a copy of An Introduction to Der Ring Des Nibelungen, narrated by Deryck Cooke.

I haven't heard this disk since my undergraduate days, but I never forgot it.  It was incredibly influential, teaching me pretty much everything I know about the Ring cycle.  If you have not yet undertaken a study of the motifs of the Ring, I urge you to order a copy of the Deryck Cooke CD now.

I said now.

A few reactions:

• Knowing the many motifs, and especially, understanding how they relate to one another, gives one an appreciation for the towering achievement of Der Ring.  Good job, Wagner!
• This recording was made in 1968; my only complaint is that the singing lacks the precision of modern examples, so some of the motifs are not clearly defined.
• Of the many things in the plot that bug me, it seems no one ever actually gets to wield the power of the ring.  I'd like to see a little conspicuous consumption somewhere along the line.  Most people die too quickly when they acquire it; the lone exception is one very sulky dragon.
• I'm reminded of a friend who was a deep, deep Wagnerophile.  His hobby was transcribing Wagner's orchestral pieces for wind ensemble.  He and I both attended an independent evango-charismatic church at the time, and he latched onto me, perceiving (no doubt, correctly) that I was the only member of that congregation who could converse with him on the subject of Wagnerian operas.  "In Wagner, the drama is in the orchestra pit!" he would always exclaim, his face flushed with satisfaction at his insight.

Do any animated versions of Der Ring exist on the internet?  Silly question!  Here's a flash animation realization that is just getting started; only a bit of Die Walkure is available.  There's also a animation of the legend, using Wagner's music as background to the spoken dialog, and it is located ... it is located ... darn!  I can't find it anymore.  If you know where it is, please be a good egg and put the link in the comments section.

Incidentally, these nascent efforts at visualizing Der Ring are almost certainly not up to ACD's standards (certainly not this one!), but he supports the general idea.  Finally, here's a highly-prized version in graphic novel form, for all those who think Der Ring would be great if only they would turn that dang music off.

I've interrupted work on my current project -- an ambitious choral setting of a really nice text which I'm thrilled to have found and secured rights to, a text that must be kept secret so none of you other weasly composers steal it from me, a text so deserving of great treatment that I feel very pressured to make this composition the ultimate, the most perfect, the most revolutionary choral work in the history of the world, and therefore a work that is progressing and an incredibly slow rate -- to put together a quick brass arrangement to be used this fall as a prelude for a church service:  thus, I found myself lying awake at 5:20 this morning with my mind on fire with creative ideas, noticing how the standard chord progression of the blues is mirrored in the phrases of certain hymns in the Lutheran tradition, not to mention the idea that came to me for grating onions and pressing the juice out of them to improve their performance while one is deeply caramelizing them for Indian recipes -- but I'll stop right there, both because, again, I should keep my new ideas secret, but also because the mind can play tricks on itself in the early hours and one all too often discovers that one's brilliant ideas don't hold up too well under subsequent scrutiny.  In light of that, I guess I have nothing to blog about today, except that, having mentioned the blues, let me just state

WARNING.  THE FOLLOWING OPINION MAY CONTAIN THOUGHTLESS AND/OR ARROGANT STATEMENTS WHICH SOME MAY FIND DEEPLY OFFENSIVE.  READERS ARE URGED NOT TO CONTINUE.

that I happen to be continually amazed that one simple, not very beautiful, chord progression has inspired so much redundant musical effort, and let me further state that I have serious questions about the intellect of anyone who chooses to work within the blues tradition, if it is not modernized or otherwise reconstructed in some way.

My fun-filled weekend began with a Friday night Fountainhead party.  Hilarity ensued as planned.  Saturday found us traveling to Frankenmuth, Michigan for a family reunion.  You don't know what Frankenmuth is?  It's the place where twee faux-Bavarian restaurants go when they die.  At times it has laid claim to the title of premiere tourist destination for all of Michigan (supposedly beating out the Tiara, the Mackinac Bridge) and natives tend to start rolling their eyes over it once they reach the age of irony, i.e., fourteen, but these days it has acquired a few really nice destinations, including a brewery that serves bread made from an exclusive recipe by Ann Arbor's own Zingerman's Deli (A.K.A. the Third Holiest Site In Judaism).  Today was relatively calm, but 13 large planes did lumber over the neighborhood; I'm guessing they were B-24s and that they were built at nearby Willow Run airport.  There was something creepy about the way the flew en masse so slowly and so low.

UPDATE: After looking closely at photos, I'm sure those planes were not B-24s.  From the look of the tail I'd say they could be B-17s.

Blogging is late because I spent the day at a sacred choral music symposium at Concordia University, led by Brian Altevogt who directs the choir there.  We ended the day with a nice evening service in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, which is the focal point of the whole campus.  It's the tri-cornered building that shows up prominently in the school's homepage and in its Wikipedia entry.  The chapel's lofty ceiling gives a wonderful delay to the sound in a way very friendly to choirs.  I recall it is one of architect Alden Dow's designs -- it sure has his look -- but Google cannot confirm it.

Thanks to Alan the Wobegon Boy who sent me the link to MPR's review of the World Choral Symposium in -- where else? -- Japan.  As always, it's the train wreck that prompts the most entertaining review:

At one point in a particular piece it seemed as if the whole thing was going to fly apart. The choir was spinning off vital hardware left and right. There goes rhythm, now pitch—oops, now it’s ensemble. It was like watching your worst performance-anxiety dream unfold right there onstage, the one where you forgot to come to the rehearsals and the wrong music’s in your folder. The only thing missing was the inevitable I’m naked fiasco.

Meanwhile, on my beloved Choralist, some poor innocent opined that "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."  Well, well!  Quite a few people had some choice reactions to that bit of wisdom.  Heh.  And let me point out that ChoralNet, host of Choralist, has an updated website with news and a choral blog (that's short for "web log," you know) and lot's o' cool stuff.

Over at the 2 Blowhards they have proclaimed The Fountainhead the most earnestly pretentious movie ever.  Dudes, that's my movie you're talking about.  In a few days I will watch it for about the dozenth time; I'm having some buddies over who have never seen it, and I'll get my entertainment from observing their reactions, which will range from stunned disbelief to pure hilarity.  These Fountainhead parties are a ritual for me; one time I even baked a cake in the shape of the model of the funky bank building that shows up early in the movie.  (If you've seen it, you'll remember it as the glass rectangle mounted on four stilts -- the monster with no door anywhere.  What the heck kind of bank is that, I ask you.)

Many of you already noticed one of my little joke pages is devoted to a modest proposal regarding The Fountainhead.  Colorizing an Ayn Rand film:  I wonder how many people got the joke.  (Credit goes to my friend Molly who first suggested it.)  I've certainly not received any comments about it; maybe it's because people (dare I say) don't think my execution of it is terribly funny.  You can see a picture of the 4-stilted monster there.

My other joke page, my pride and joy really, is the New World Order, wherein I provide what I believe to be my one truly unique idea, combined with truly unique images.  As a bonus, I've thrown in some gratuitous UN bashing.  I finally received my first email regarding that page this week.  Hey, somebody finally noticed!

So, I guess I'm the last classical music fan to find out Ned Rorem has a "web log."  I suppose I have an excuse for this oversight, since Rorem's web log (or more simply, "blog") has not been published on the actual web.  I suppose his excuse for that is that he published it in the 60s, a time when the internet had not gained popular acceptance.  Instead, he chose the unusual format of words printed on sheets of paper, bound together at their sides into a volume (or more simply, "book.")

This is my cute way of saying I'm reading Rorem's New York Diary.  It's an odd book, and the first thing that strikes you about it is ... well, let's just let Alex Ross deliver the harsh verdict (which refers to the previous volume, the Paris Diary):

The oddity of Rorem’s career is that ever since he made his literary début, in 1966, with “Paris Diary,” he has been known more for his writing than for his music. The writing has an insolence and a swagger that the music lacks. The spectacular self-absorption of the diaries—“A stranger asks, ‘Are you Ned Rorem?’ I answer, ‘No,’ adding, however, that I've heard of and would like to meet him’”—made the young Rorem famous for being famous in his mind.

The second striking thing is the way Rorem never really lets you in on what's happening in his life.  Is this just Ned being Ned, or is it a conscious strategy?  It's certainly not shyness, since he doesn't mind updating the reader on the state of his KY inventory, for example, but he never truly reveals, he just exhibits.

Rorem relies on odd, short, paradoxical profunditites to fill out the volume.  They don't always hit the mark -- hey, epigrams are hard to write.  Here are a few, chosen by opening the book to random pages:

Can the dead fall in love with the yet-unborn? Let us be thankful we're of the same generation.

Why does Venice seem always to mean the death of someone?  Why don't maniacs more frequently put rocks on tracks to cause train disasters (it's so easy) like the Hungarian lunatic who used to stand off in the woods to applaud the mass of twisted steel and broken bodies he'd just caused?  The endless tunnels Italian railroads go through, as aggravating as a woman's purse!

Some of my best friends are 12-tone composers.  David laughs for Absalom.  Fugue is as suspect as its opposite, improvisation.  (This applies to present decades.) [...] I deserved the Gershwin Memorial Award (1949), but the piece I wrote did not.

I relive my songs, though I'm not always sure of the poem's meaning as I write the music.  I compose not through past experience but what will happen to me.  Today I create (not the, but) my future -- and, years after, I whistle my own tunes while practicing what they preach.

Huh?  (And yes, I transcribed that last sentence accurately.)  So tell us, Umie, why should anyone read the self-indulgent ramblings of a musician?

Umie the Umlaut says, "I think you better ask yourself that question."

I just added two new blogs to my roll:  the Well-Tempered Blog and Texas Best Grok (home of the Carnival of Music).  Give 'em a visit, won't you?

Thanks be to Chan for sending me this link on Emmylou Harris, synaesthetes, and emotions in musical keys.  Yes, there are still fresh points to be made on the subject, and Norman Geras is making some, although I think associating B Flat with blackness is a minority opinion.  And the reader JK, who added a comment about Klezmer music for clarinet, would benefit from the knowledge that many clarinets have B Flat as their home key.

B Flat is not the friendliest key for singers, because the pitches upon which lie the breaks in their voices, so I'm biased against it.  It seems stodgy.  It's not the most natural key for sting orchestras, but all wind ensembles (not just Klezmer bands) find it very comfortable.