Fredösphere

Friday is Toyday

2008-05-09T17:15:00.000-04:00

I like DesignObserver, I really do, but sometimes they play to the stereotype. Here they are, analyzing Spirograph:

The Spirograph demonstrates, if not promotes, the belief that design can be formulaic and that good design has something to do with simplicity and objectivity. However, qualitative aspects such as emotion, irrationality, and instinct are largely missing. The patterns themselves make no direct reference to a user’s nationality, ethnicity, social class, or gender. Choices are officially confined to color and template combinations.

...and inevitably, the Tet Offensive also gets a mention. Only near the end does the essay get back on track. I wonder what ominous visions of militarism one could see in Major Matt Mason (one of my favorite childhood toys) if one went looking? I loved the space crawler, which one could mount atop the moon base and use as a crane (since it had a winch in its tail). Don't make my mistake and confuse it with the crater crawler, another toy I owned but which is not of the MMMM (Major Matt Mason Mythos). Don't forget, James Lileks has beautifully deconstructed the MMM Big Little Book. Beat me to it--dang.

Milk, Apples, Adorable Babies, Nazis

2008-05-08T13:27:00.001-04:00

The title says it all: The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized. (Hat tip 2Blowhards.)

Meanwhile...

Rene's Apple will have what Ann Althouse is having:

I'd rather see a show where philosophers descend on a woman with a perfect exterior and rip into her for her intellectual and spiritual failings, put her on some kind of internally transformative regime, and turn her into a human being of substance. Can we get that?

...and furthermore...

Man Babies. Plus, have a look at Nazis on the Moon.

Slush of the Clarkesworld

2008-05-05T17:02:00.002-04:00

I've said it before, and I become more convinced of its correctness by the day: some of the most entertaining literature of any genre is found among the Advice to the Young Writer. Most choice among this type is the Fiction Magazine Submission Guidelines. Such guidelines are de facto distillations of all the entertainment value (which is to say, unintended entertainment value) of the bottom 90% of the slush pile. These editors do the miserable work of reading the drek; we reap the rewards.

Today, I direct your attention to Clarkesworld Magazine, an online outlet for the big three--fantasy, science fiction and horror. These are among the types of stories the editors list as "hard-sells" (as they can't quite bring themselves to state unequivocally that they will never print one of these):

stories in which a milquetoast civilian government is depicted as the sole obstacle to either catching some depraved criminal or to an uncomplicated military victory

talking cats

talking swords

stories that depend on some vestigial belief in Judeo-Christian mythology in order to be frightening (i.e., Cain and Abel are vampires, the End Times are a' comin', Communion wine turns to Christ's literal blood and it's HIV positive [yeeee-ikes! -ed.], Satan's gonna getcha, etc.)

stories about young kids playing in some field and discovering ANYTHING. (a body, an alien craft, Excalibur, ANYTHING).

stories about the stuff we all read in Scientific American three months ago

stories where the Republicans, or Democrats, or Libertarians, or the Spartacist League, etc. take over the world and either save or ruin it

your AD&D game

"funny" stories that depend on, or even include, puns

sexy vampires, wanton werewolves, or lusty pirates

stories that take place within an artsy-fartsy bohemia as written by an author who has clearly never experienced one

The guidelines are not restricted to Thou Shalt Not invectives; here's what thou shalt include in the cover letter that accompanies your submission:

[I]f you send us a lusty pirate story and happen to BE a lusty pirate, mention that.

Dang, I could read this stuff all day. Editors are geniuses!

Space Opera, Furthermore

2008-04-29T17:09:00.003-04:00

In an earlier post I commented with pleasant surprise on a Swedish composer's attempt to create an opera on a science fiction theme. Commenters assured me this was hardly the first composer to attempt such a feat. Daniel Wolf cited as ancient an example as Haydn, which impressed me to no end. Those of you familiar with my Haydn animus won't be surprised my mental picture of Haydn as a space opera-tor is that of the salt vampire of Planet M-113.

Anyhoo, I'm pleased to add another work to this growing list: Jacques Offenbach's adaptation of Jules Verne's Le Voyage dans la Lune. Wikipedia has the details, including a wonderful photo showing costumes and a set from the original lush (but to the modern eye, goofy) production. Kudos is due (hey! I conjugates that verb real good!) to io9 for dredging up this information (especially considering that deep historical perspective is not what you expect from a Gawker-related site) in a terribly interesting roundup of info on Georges Méliès' groundbreaking 1902 SF film A Trip to the Moon, which itself was recycled in a trippy music video by The Smashing Pumpkins called Tonight, Tonight:

And I suppose I'll have to comment on The Man that Fell to Earth if I ever get up the courage to watch it.

Space. And opera. What else have I overlooked?

Prince Caspian

2008-04-25T11:41:00.001-04:00

I am so looking forward to Prince Caspian. First, because it's my favorite of the seven Narnia books. Indeed, the opening sequence--when the Pevensie children dig through ruins to learn that their own castle, and even their own past lives, are now relegated to half-forgotten legends--is the spookiest, most melancholy thing I've ever read in all of fantasy literature. It is my sword Rhindon; with it I killed the Wolf. Ooooh, yes!

I'm also hoping this movie will not disappoint as the previous one did. I'd like to see a little more compelling performances and a little less cringe-making dialog (but the trailer does not inspire a lot of hope along those lines). I'd also prefer no more of the kind of scene we saw in the first movie, where Aslan comes to the underground lake, and the White Witch emerges from the water wearing little more than stiletto heels and a thick layer of gold paint, and I'm like, whoa, dude, I don't remember this being in the book.

Watch the trailer and hear our hero introduce himself: "Ah im Printz Gespian!" What's with the vaguely continental accent? Is it an artifact of the trailer, or does he talk like that all the time? Here, the ugly head of linguistic nit-picking opens its Pandora's box: how is it that 20th century English is spoken in Narnia--over a period lasting many centuries? Did the filmmakers decide to throw in a little weirdness in the Narnian accents to slightly cover their hienies on the issue of linguistic drift? I really doubt it, but it's fun to imagine they did.

Monday YouTubage

2008-04-21T13:14:00.001-04:00

Via SF Signal, it's High Noon exactly as you remember it. Well, as I remember it anyway:

Via Ionarts (who got it from Boing Boing, who got it from Laughing Squid), it's a cat playing a theremin. I definitely detect the influence of Messiaen, although I'm thinking not so much the Turangalîla Symphonie as some of the more pointillistic moments in Des Canyons aux Etoiles:

A Cappella Aflame

2008-04-18T13:36:00.002-04:00

Frankly, if you're going to email me asking for my help and you can't even be bothered to do me the courtesy of placing your apostrophes correctly, don't expect me to call 911 for you.

Here are two excellent a cappella groups to sample. First, via A Capella News, it's Naturally 7:

This group is so hot, they make their tour bus burst into flames. Meanwhile, Chicago A Cappella is equally caliente--listen to samples of them singing Mata del ánima sola by Antonio Esévez, Son de la loma by Miguel Matamoros, arr. J. Castillo, and Salseo by Oscar Galian.

My hoary custom of playing Bach's St. Matthew Passion every Good Friday has gradually given way to Golijov's La Pasion Segun San Marco. I switched because I figured the hot Latin rhythms would be more compelling to my kids ears (plus, they have enough Spanish that they can translate most of it). What I didn't anticipate is the way the music sets their feet a-dancing. We compromise, and I make them wait a decent interval, then let them cut loose. Watching them dance to the Death of God is disconcerting, but their urges are innocent and I think it would be wrong to suppress them completely.

Space Vulture

2008-04-17T14:04:00.000-04:00

I've been writing reviews of SF books for Starship Sofa. My latest reviews cover The Jewels of Aptor, the first novel of Samuel R. Delaney (written when he was only 19), Neil Gaiman's instant-classic youth novel Coraline, and most recently, Space Vulture. This last is an ambitious attempt to recreate the raw energy of the great pulpy space operas of 40-60 years ago, written by the creator of Roger Rabbit and his childhood friend, the archbishop of Newark, NJ. Yes, we're talking about a confluence of very odd factoids. If you want to find out if Space Vulture achieved it's authors' high ambitions, head on over to the Starship Sofa Reviews page.

R & SF

2008-04-11T17:14:00.002-04:00

Ambigrams. Wow, and double-wow. Plus, a bearded dragon named Fred.

Today's post is about religion in science fiction. I wanted to write something that aspired to comprehensiveness, but that vain hope was quickly dashed. These days there is so much fiction being written and commented on that fits that description. Just finding all the blogs devoted to R & SF is too big a task.

Ted Chiang, author of the excellent (and award-nominated) The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate displays the stereotypical SF author's attitude:

All science fiction is fundamentally post-religious literature. For those whose minds are shaped by science and technology, the universe is fundamentally knowable. Faith dissolves, replaced by a sense of wonder at the complexity of creation.

Yet Chiang's alternate realities subvert that belief, out of a playful sense of adventure, if for no other reason:

In "Tower of Babylon," a group of miners climb until they reach the vault of heaven, hoping to find God on the other side of the carapace of granite that enfolds their world. "Hell is the Absence of God" tells the tale of one Neil Fisk, whose wife is killed in a visitation by the angel Nathanael to a downtown shopping district. In Neil's thoroughly contemporary world, God exists beyond a doubt. Angels behave like weather phenomena, the miracle of their appearances tracked, quantified, and reported on the nightly news.

Another point of view is represented by this expert who correlates belief in aliens with Jesus and going to the bathroom while employing logical rigor to a degree I don't recall ever encountering before.

Whole blogs devote themselves fully or mostly to religious SF. Old Testament Space Opera is the first to come to mind. An impressive list of websites and more impressive steampunky graphics are maintained at Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy Central. I also found a list of recommended titles and a list of authors by religious affiliation. (The latter really needs to do some wheat-chaff sorting; I suspect a lot of these guys are nominals, which is a far more important distinction than how they fall out in the dreaded Congregationalist-Methodist schism. For example, calling that Olaf Stapledon a Quaker is ridiculous in light of the letter he wrote to his unborn great-grandson urging him to fall off the religion wagon without delay.) Finally, the unfortunately-named topic of "Christian science fiction" has its own Wikipedia page, wherein this tragedy of the publishing business is documented:

Christian bookstores, like some of their secular counterparts are often unsure how to deal with such stories, and may shelve what few they carry under the rather generic and somewhat unhelpful label "futuristic literature".

Catholics are everywhere in SF and speculative fiction generally--call it the Chesterton Effect. For example, Insidecatholic.com likes the hard-to-categorize Tim Powers, author of Declare. This link recommends other authors, and makes this observation:

That's a curious thing when you think about it. Science fiction is a genre whose founding fathers and mothers tended very often (though not exclusively, of course) to be the sort of people who were hard-boiled atheists of the Arthur C. Clarke/Isaac Asimov mold -- people who spoke the word "Science" either with a sort of religious reverence or with the sort of stentorian triumphalism of a Thomas Dolby tune. Some of them, like H. G. Wells, managed to achieve both science worship and stentorian triumphalism in their work, writing books which were combinations of fun narrative and some of the preachiest, creakiest, antiquated prophecies in print.

Outgrowing God is indeed a favorite theme of science fiction and fantasy. Evolution/technology/aliens/time travelers from the future/computers/whatnot are always just about to prove that God does not exist, life after death is a fantasy, the soul is a function of matter, man is but a sophisticated meat machine, Jesus never existed, etc.

And yet the astonishing thing is that science fiction and fantasy are absolutely awash in theological speculation. Lots of it is pagan, in the Chestertonian sense. That is, it is an attempt to reach God through the imagination, hampered by the inability to conceive of something truly outside of the created world. The result is a sort of quasi-supernaturalism that acknowledges planes of existence beyond the human, but refuses to entertain the notion of angels and demons.

I'd like to give more attention to religious themes other than Christian ones in SF, but I lack the knowledge or the time. Once again, Wikipedia is a (meager) starting point. I tend to hear about mostly the scandalous examples, like the rise of the Jedi Knights in the UK, or (most deliciously) graven images of Kirk and Spock.

SF Signal's symposium on the question, "Is Science Fiction Antithetical to Religion?" One participant was John C. Wright (see him at livejournal.com) whom I have blogged previously. John is an interesting case; he's an adult convert from skepticism to Christianity who nevertheless is pessimistic about inserting religious characters into fiction. Does the new retro-space opera Space Vulture prove him right, or wrong? Mostly right, I'd say, but there is plenty of contrary evidence from writers with higher ambitions and, frankly, better skill. Take C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, for example.

Nevertheless, he's right to be skeptical. Blending religion and SF does go wrong sometimes. Oh yes, terribly, terribly wrong.

UPDATE: Calvin College joins the party.

Composers' Forum

2008-04-08T13:48:00.001-04:00

Composers, watch out! Tell your congressman to include you in the next round of protectionist legislation. You're about to be replaced by a computer! And, talk about matchstick men--via SF Signal, it's the Matchstick Minas Tirith.

I attended a composers' forum at the University of Michigan School of Music last night. It's the first time in several years that I've gone. I used to find these concerts painful, but last night's show boasted a few genuinely well-written pieces, and even the dogs had something to recommend them. Is it possible that the kids are better than they were in the good old days? I definitely recall the forums from way back, from the time I was a student there, were very informal and low on the spit & polish. Not much was taken seriously back then. Now, the kids seem terribly sophisticated--sophisticated in a real way, as though some of them are already moving beyond youthful gestures of pseudo-profundity and pointless complexity.

Either the UMSM composition department is recruiting better these days, or maybe I'm getting better at listening. I suspect the answer is, some of both. No question I have finally begun to learn how to pay attention to what is not immediately compelling. I'm still bad at listening, but I now realize I was absolutely, dreadfully terrible at it in my younger years. (Having a son with the same tendency has made me more aware of the problem.)

While I was at the forum I reintroduced myself to Evan Chambers, who recently emailed me to thank me for blogging his new work, The Old Burying Ground.

The Ultimate Endorsement

2008-04-07T09:13:00.004-04:00

Here's an enticing subject line from some spam I received today:

Stalin took this pills two times per day before food

I'm tellin' ya, spam is the art form that modern poetry anticipated and aspired to become, but could not. Spam is the authentic voice of our time!

Blog More, She Said

2008-04-03T16:40:00.003-04:00

Is three times in one day enuf fer ye, Lynn?

(And, in a slightly more gracious tone, let me say thanks for the nomination. Sorry I don't have the energy to continue the meme.)

Lulu Never Lies

2008-04-03T16:38:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how the existence of something like Lulu Titlescorer--its mere existence--can expand one's creative boundaries. After playing with this thing for just five minutes, I suddenly knew (knew!) that a book with the title The Truth of Lies would be a hit. Lulu agrees, giving it a 69.0% chance of becoming a bestseller.

Lulu loves titles with abstract nouns and figurative meanings. She also likes the "The __ of __" template. I think she would have preferred my title have a proper noun in it too, but sorry Lulu, you are a harsh mistress and I cannot give you everything. (But I notice The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a mere 26.3% chance of being a bestseller. Back to the drawing board, Robert A. Heinlein!)

Now, to the obvious question: did I find The Truth of Lies first? Not...exactly.

Fools

2008-04-03T14:45:00.002-04:00

Lingering after- (and fore-) shocks of the Day of the Fools: Charles T. Downey celebrates the Ahn Trio (hey, they're not that bad, are they?), Harriet Klausner has a bad day (more context here), "Virgle" makes you an offer, the Blogger Complains, the Writer Creates and the Highway refuses to stay Lost (sadly).

Rardin to Go

2008-03-27T17:28:00.002-04:00

It was too true to be good. Or something.

Meanwhile...

Roll over, Edison: some French guy made a vocal recording that predated yours by 17 years. What is odd, from our modern point of view, is that, although the recording device was invented in 1860, no playback method was attempted (or even contemplated, apparently) until recently. (Title on the A side? It's "Au Clair de la Lune.")

Also...

Der Drübermensch and his fellow members of the Boychoir of Ann Arbor were joined in concert by the hoary heads of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club. It was a great chance for the boys to hear what kind of sound a 100+ member ensemble can make in a medium-sized church (in this case, St. Paul's Lutheran of Ann Arbor). Also on display were the ancient customs that give the club it's appealing Gemütlichkeit: the concert-ending school songs, the use of finger snaps for applause, and especially the elaborate body piercings, especially the wearing of elephant tusks in the nasal septums, which look terribly painful and are probably illegal, but which are worn with panache even when they cause awkward situations in doorways.

Okay, so I made up that last part. Hey, I gotta give the guys some reason to complain each time I blog them, don't I?

Finally, let me praise the conducting of Paul Rardin, who combines control with enthusiasm (were those his fists I saw flying around?) in a perfect combination. He offered a miniature seminar on vocal leadership in this one concert.

On the Sofa

2008-03-25T09:37:00.000-04:00

This week at the Starship Sofa podcast you'll find me in my occasional role as celebrity co-host. Tony Smith and I discuss the five British Science Fiction Association nominees for best short story. In 40 minutes we discuss slasher novels written by Mormons, the advantages and disadvantages of fax machines for souls, and two-headed bug-eyed aliens, as well as the topic at hand. You can download the audio file directly from the Starship Sofa homepage, or better yet you can subscribe via iTunes.

The Communist Party at Prayer

2008-03-20T09:57:00.004-04:00

Well, smack my gob. Who knew the world-wide Christian conspiracy was so insidious?

"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Russian Orthodox church?"

I could go on. The irony--the sheer symmetry--boggles the mind.

Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel

2008-03-19T18:03:00.001-04:00

Build time machine, travel back to 1936, assassinate Hitler: what could be more simple?

William Hague's Stiletto

2008-03-17T13:38:00.001-04:00

Frequently wrong; never boring: Camille strikes again, and this time, her topic is Presidential politics (hat tip to 2Blowhards):

Obama has seemed tentative in countering the Clintons' trademark mudslinging, but perhaps coolness and poise are what the nation needs after eight years of George W. Bush's lurching braggadocio. Obama hasn't figured out how to stay classy while delivering wicked stiletto thrusts -- a talent mastered in spades by British politicians produced by the Oxbridge debate culture.

I wonder if she had this particular example in mind: the cool brutality of William Hague as he mocks Tony Blair and Gordon Brown while even the Labor MPs laugh along ruefully and admiringly. My fellow Americans, can you imagine--can you dream in your wildest fantasies--our political culture producing this kind of wit and intelligence? I can't.

Two Make a Trend?

2008-03-14T16:07:00.002-04:00

Two makes a trend? Composer James MacMillan and writer David Mamet find they no longer fit comfortably inside the box labeled "left-wing." These epiphanies are not headlong rushes to some other well-defined opposing ideology (thankfully). Instead they seem to be, like Michael Blowhard's earlier experience, an adoption of skepticism toward all -isms.

But enough of this boring unimportant stuff. I want to know how I can turn my TV into a 3D VR display using a head-mounted Wii remote. Take it away, Jonny Lee!

Obsolete Skills

2008-03-13T16:50:00.002-04:00

It's the Wiki of Obsolete Skills! (Via SF Signal.) It's, you know, all that stuff we know how to do, but our kids couldn't do if their lives depended on it, like dialing a rotary phone or putting a needle on a vinyl record.

It's a wiki, so think up your favorite and add it to the list. Mine might be the hand-engraving of musical scores. A friend of mine from the UM School of Music, was famous for her scoring by hand that truly could not be distinguished from plate engraving. (A tragic waste of time really; she did it because she loved the precision of the work, but she spent hours per page on it. Not a good example of setting proper priorities.)

Another interesting case file from the History of Hand-Engraved Music is that of Imogen Holst (daughter of Gustav), whose own compositional career was arguably stunted by her slavish work as an underpaid assistant to Benjamin Britten. Some of her friends grew to resent the time she spent copying Britten's instrumental parts, but she seemed content, and he was happy to take advantage of that.

I'm glad to see that the Copying Assistance Program of the American Music Center has been renamed the Composer Assistance Program. I was always sad whenever I thought about that pile of grant money sitting around, dedicated to the cause of helping composers do something that can be achieved these days by selecting the proper item from a pulldown menu in Finale or Sibelius.

I suggest a new fund be created, one dedicated to helping struggling composers remove Vista from their computers and upgrade to XP. Now there's something that would really stimulate the productivity of composers.

And When He Woke Up, He Was In a Bathtub Filled With Ice...

2008-03-13T13:53:00.001-04:00

Notice how our culture can be desensitized to anything, given enough time. Even really scary words like "opera":

Imagine the horror of a future in which organs are for sale - and can be repossessed for non-payment. Now imagine that tale told with rock music, singing and dancing. That would give you REPO! The Genetic Opera, touted as "Rocky Horror meets Blade Runner", which is coming soon to the big screen.

Don't watch the accompanying trailer, it's nasty. Looks like Sweeney Todd with the gentle, lyrical parts cut out. (And I do mean cut out.)

From the Canyons to the BBC

2008-03-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

Everyone's linking to the amusing BBC interview of a couple of European critics attempting to take down a notch Alex Ross' beautiful book The Rest Is Noise. Kyle Gann has an elegant and gracious (gracious to Alex, anyway) rebuttal, and he quotes Alex's cool line about the German music tradition now resembling a crime scene. Sequenza21, where I first saw the link, has a more varied discussion in the comments section. It's all fascinating; it is a crime scene itself.

Have I commented on the book yet? If I haven't, well, I liked it so much, I even recommended it to the Wifeösphere, who has only so much time and interest for classical music (beyond my own, of course). Nuts to detailed descriptions of the music; we don't need more of that whole Dancing About Architecture stuff; inspire us to curiosity, then let us go directly to the music itself. This, Alex has done. He's even made me want to give Messiaen's thorny Canyons another try.

Goodbye to All That

2008-03-07T16:26:00.001-05:00

My previous post described a visit to an indoor soccer match. Today I'd like to look more closely at some of the extra-soccer activities.

Before the players are introduced, the crowd is warmed up with an announcer, a woman with a screechy voice designed to prevent you from ignoring it. (That it, like every other sonic event of the night, is pumped out at 110 decibels only adds to its inexorableness.) The troupe of dancers/cheerleaders/actresses/models/whatevers run out and hop around. Let's not linger by examining the psychology that permits a young woman to adopt that role; nor let us think too hard about the self-esteem of the gentlemen who dons the habit of the team mascot, in this case a anthropomorphized spark plug called Scorch. Instead, consider merely the team owner's belief that such things, as well as the clouds of mist and the exaggerated hype surrounding the announcement of the players' names, are all a net economic positive, contributing to the organization's bottom line.

Yes, the cheer leaders, the mascot, the throbbing rock music, the announcer that seems to think he is describing the lineup for the battle of Armageddon: all these are necessary accouterments for a modern pro sporting event. And pray tell, why? Because, for the average spectator, there is not sufficient interest in the sport qua sport to attract a crowd.

That's right, people. Sport in its pure form cannot survive as a commercial venture. It must be gussied up. It must include appeals to the average person's vulgarity. This is a sign of desperation, pure and simple. It is clear to me, based on this one Friday night experience, that the long-term prospects for pro sports is bleak. Bluntly, it ain't gonna survive.

Oh, there will always be the reliable core, those faithful fans of the pure game, who will turn out no matter what. You see them at games, sitting there in the front row at the 50 yard line or at mid-court. They can be identified by their formal evening wear, and by the way they shush those around them who chant "we will, we will ROCK YOU!" because they want to savor the subtle nuance in every sound of the ball striking human flesh, or racket, or wooden bat. They can divine from such sounds, to a degree that we vulgar people cannot, important information about the players and their skill.

Such hard core fans will never be enough to justify financially a pro team, however. They are, at best, only 2 or 3 percent of the population. The other, ordinary fans are notoriously fickle, and will soon wander off to other diversions. For now, the dancing girls and the comic relief of the goofy mascots will slow the hemorrhaging, but already the temptations mount; there are symphonic concerts to attend and mp3s of choral music to download.

Alas, Babylon.

Ignited

2008-03-05T13:37:00.001-05:00

I took Der Drübermensch (now 9 years old) to a pro indoor soccer match on Friday, and was very pleasantly surprised by how much we both enjoyed it. The home team is the Detroit Ignition, and it helped that they are doing well this year. Indoor soccer is played on an Astroturfed hockey rink, and the small size and enclosing Plexiglas make for a fast-paced, high-scoring game. (Really, can someone explain to me why anyone would tolerate a conventional soccer game, once they've seen indoor soccer? Zzzzzzzzzz!) The spectators skewed quite young; there were very many kids of Der Drübermensch's age in the crowd, which bodes well for the future of the sport.

We had relatively lousy seats, but we were so close to the action, it didn't matter. A capacity crowd in that arena would be fewer than 4,000, I think. This experience confirms my long-held bias in favor of the semi-pro, the minor league and the small-time. Quite simply, I regard the paying of enormous sums for the privilege of sitting somewhere about a mile from the action as completely, utterly bogus. The thought of my one visit to a football game at U-M stadium still enrages me to this day; I was led to believe that, by buying that ticket, I would, you know, get to actually see a football game. I and my "friends," the ones who talked me into going, sat there for three hours, speculating among ourselves vital issues such as:

Why is nothing happening now? Was a penalty called? Or maybe an officials time out?
Which team has possession of the ball?
When will they pass so we can at least see something besides the backs of the heads of the people in front of us?
Do people actually pay money to sit in this stadium on a regular basis?
Whose fault, ultimately, is it that this is happening to me, and what novel legal theory could justify my killing that person?

No doubt some of the seats in that 100,000-seat stadium allow one to see the game, but I doubt the proportion is even half of the total. There's something deeply disaffecting about spending three hours telling yourself you are in the presence of at least 60,000 fools. What a hateful, hateful experience.

Tomorrow, I'll dig a bit deeper and explain how the Detroit Ignition match portends very good things for the survival of classical music.