The backstory behind my review of the Masterworks Chorale performance of Les Misérables is that the last time I heard them, in Carmina Burana, the soloists were singing like it was an Italian opera and the chorus was singing like it was a German oratorio. It clashed, and not to the chorus's benefit. Would they do better in an explicitly staged work? They did, though the chorus as a group was far superior to having individual members singled out for small solo parts. It was a respectable, not brilliant, performance, and I gave it a respectful, not enthused, review. Next year they're doing Man of La Mancha, and they'd better get someone really good for the lead of that one.
That was last Saturday. Wednesday I ran over to Stanford because a student ensemble was doing Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians at Dinky. This 1976 work is an hour's pure, undiluted additive sectional minimalism, the real stuff. I was drawn to this because Reich's music draws a visceral reaction from me unlike that of any other composer, even other minimalists: a positive visceral reaction, I should add. This evening's event was not ideal in that respect, but it was still satisfying and a rare opportunity. As we left, I saw George Barth, the Stanford piano professor and co-convener of the Reactions to the Record symposia, who remarked, "That was fun." I entirely agree.
My beef is with the people who run the Music Department's e-mail calendar. Even though I subscribe to this, I only knew about this concert because I'd happened to stop by campus last weekend and saw a poster for it. The dept. sends out its calendar late on Wednesday afternoons, and they cover one week starting that evening. Wednesday is the day that B. often works late, so I can't go out in the evening without missing dinner, which is unfair not to plan in advance. After I thus missed one concert I'd particularly wanted to attend, I wrote them asking for a longer or slightly more in-advance coverage, and they irritated me exceedingly by responding, "There were many conversations about the timing and coverage of the Arts Weekly when we launched it several years ago. There are definitely readers who want more advance notice, and as many who scheduling their time with a 'what's going on in the next hour?' approach." The setting these up as oppositional, so that one taste gets its way and the other is just out of luck, is fallacious and offensive, though I didn't put it quite that way when I wrote back. I did say that I found it hard to credit that there was a significant body of readers who'd refuse to attend a concert unless they were left in the dark about its existence until three hours beforehand; and why do they only go on Wednesdays?
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Friday, June 5, 2015
Thursday, June 4, 2015
the movies come to me
The last couple weeks have been my time to catch up on DVD with all the movies I didn't see last year. Six out of eight are historical films, five of them set within the last century: I have a weakness for these as long as they're not too mechanically bio-pics. All of these were well-acted, most of them well-written. I liked most of them and I'm not sorry I saw any.
Mr. Turner
Unquestionably a great movie, but that doesn't mean it's very enjoyable. Tedious: no plot. Turner does one thing, then he does another thing, and so it goes, on and on for hours. Movies should have plots. I'd be bored to have to sit and watch even my own life presented this way. I began to enumerate reasons why I enjoyed Leigh's equally long and nearly as rambling Topsy-Turvy much more than this.
1. I'm just more interested in and knowledgeable about Gilbert and Sullivan than I am about early 19C English landscape painting, or indeed painting of any time or place.
2. Topsy-Turvy does have a plot of sorts - the creation and production of The Mikado - albeit one frequently diluted and digressed from.
3. It's more interesting to watch singers and actors sing and act than it is to watch painters paint.
4. Gilbert could be extremely funny. Turner, not so much.
Big Eyes
Another historical movie about an artist, though putting Margaret Keane in the same class as J.M.W. Turner does cause a little seasick feeling. You know this is a Tim Burton film from frame one, as it starts with Amy Adams living in the same sun-bleached and matte-framed suburb that Dianne Weist lives in in Edward Scissorhands, except now it's somewhere in Northern California. The main question this movie has to answer is how and why Margaret let Walter take credit for the paintings. Script, director, and actors are all pretty deft in dealing with this. Yet much of the rest makes little sense at all (If "S. Cenic" is not, as Walter claims, his pseudonym, then who is it?) and I'm skeptical of its forensic accuracy on a number of points. Still, the court paint-off was real, and this wasn't the only time a trial about art climaxed with a painting made under court supervision.
The Imitation Game
First of the "British Eccentric Gawky Male Genius" diptych. Benedict Cumberbatch is bloody brilliant, but I didn't have to know all that much about Turing or Bletchley Park to know that the script is hacky and the plot is garbled to the point of nonsense. You don't have to do that, you know; a more accurate story won't interfere with your precious "what did it feel like?" and might even give a better answer to that question.
The Theory of Everything
"British Eccentric Gawky Male Genius" no. 2. Not quite so brilliantly acted, but more than adequate in that department. Less inaccurate and better-written, but also much more evasive on what its subject actually did that made him such a genius. Pretty good at wrapping up the the awkward trailing off of the real-life story into a satisfying cinematic package.
Selma
Story: moving. David Oyelowo: amazingly versatile actor. Artificial MLK speeches (they didn't have rights to the real things): as effective as the originals. Political context: Sorry, but Robert Schenkkan's play The Great Society does a much better job of portraying the conflicting pressures on LBJ and how he responded to them. The movie also treats King's aborting of the second march as an inexplicable enigma, but it was nothing of the sort.
Foxcatcher
Although the movie's not really about wrestling, it turns out that you do need to know something about wrestling in order to follow it. My complete lack of knowledge of the sport - I can't tell who's winning or losing until the ref holds someone's arm up - was a hindrance. So did the lack of explanation for the motivations of any of the characters. Mark's epic poutiness over one admittedly cruel dismissive insult seems disproportionate, and his passivity in response even more so. Why did Dave come, after he'd so definitively refused earlier? And, above all, why did John shoot Dave? In real life, the courts decided that John was just insane, but the movie doesn't hint towards that, instead implying various possible motives that don't hold up. The opposite of The Imitation Game, this is a movie too imprisoned by reality, and for the sake of filmic craft, it might be better if it hadn't been made.
A Most Violent Year
Oscar Isaac, an actor I knew only as Llewyn Davis, plays a totally different kind of character: a soft-spoken, well-groomed, repressed businessman who's trying (and not entirely succeeding) at being honest in a shady trade, heating-oil distribution. Everything's lining up against him, including David Oyelowo as the local DA, and his trucks are being hijacked at a rate rendered incredible by the eventual explanation of who's responsible for it.
St. Vincent
An entry in the genre of "crusty bachelor makes friends with a boy and shows his true humanity" (see About a Boy and others). Bill Murray has inherited Jack Nicholson's old position as the go-to actor for annoying crusty old bastards who turn out to be lovable, and about time. Melissa McCarthy gets a solid starring role as the boy's mother, and about time for that, too.
Mr. Turner
Unquestionably a great movie, but that doesn't mean it's very enjoyable. Tedious: no plot. Turner does one thing, then he does another thing, and so it goes, on and on for hours. Movies should have plots. I'd be bored to have to sit and watch even my own life presented this way. I began to enumerate reasons why I enjoyed Leigh's equally long and nearly as rambling Topsy-Turvy much more than this.
1. I'm just more interested in and knowledgeable about Gilbert and Sullivan than I am about early 19C English landscape painting, or indeed painting of any time or place.
2. Topsy-Turvy does have a plot of sorts - the creation and production of The Mikado - albeit one frequently diluted and digressed from.
3. It's more interesting to watch singers and actors sing and act than it is to watch painters paint.
4. Gilbert could be extremely funny. Turner, not so much.
Big Eyes
Another historical movie about an artist, though putting Margaret Keane in the same class as J.M.W. Turner does cause a little seasick feeling. You know this is a Tim Burton film from frame one, as it starts with Amy Adams living in the same sun-bleached and matte-framed suburb that Dianne Weist lives in in Edward Scissorhands, except now it's somewhere in Northern California. The main question this movie has to answer is how and why Margaret let Walter take credit for the paintings. Script, director, and actors are all pretty deft in dealing with this. Yet much of the rest makes little sense at all (If "S. Cenic" is not, as Walter claims, his pseudonym, then who is it?) and I'm skeptical of its forensic accuracy on a number of points. Still, the court paint-off was real, and this wasn't the only time a trial about art climaxed with a painting made under court supervision.
The Imitation Game
First of the "British Eccentric Gawky Male Genius" diptych. Benedict Cumberbatch is bloody brilliant, but I didn't have to know all that much about Turing or Bletchley Park to know that the script is hacky and the plot is garbled to the point of nonsense. You don't have to do that, you know; a more accurate story won't interfere with your precious "what did it feel like?" and might even give a better answer to that question.
The Theory of Everything
"British Eccentric Gawky Male Genius" no. 2. Not quite so brilliantly acted, but more than adequate in that department. Less inaccurate and better-written, but also much more evasive on what its subject actually did that made him such a genius. Pretty good at wrapping up the the awkward trailing off of the real-life story into a satisfying cinematic package.
Selma
Story: moving. David Oyelowo: amazingly versatile actor. Artificial MLK speeches (they didn't have rights to the real things): as effective as the originals. Political context: Sorry, but Robert Schenkkan's play The Great Society does a much better job of portraying the conflicting pressures on LBJ and how he responded to them. The movie also treats King's aborting of the second march as an inexplicable enigma, but it was nothing of the sort.
Foxcatcher
Although the movie's not really about wrestling, it turns out that you do need to know something about wrestling in order to follow it. My complete lack of knowledge of the sport - I can't tell who's winning or losing until the ref holds someone's arm up - was a hindrance. So did the lack of explanation for the motivations of any of the characters. Mark's epic poutiness over one admittedly cruel dismissive insult seems disproportionate, and his passivity in response even more so. Why did Dave come, after he'd so definitively refused earlier? And, above all, why did John shoot Dave? In real life, the courts decided that John was just insane, but the movie doesn't hint towards that, instead implying various possible motives that don't hold up. The opposite of The Imitation Game, this is a movie too imprisoned by reality, and for the sake of filmic craft, it might be better if it hadn't been made.
A Most Violent Year
Oscar Isaac, an actor I knew only as Llewyn Davis, plays a totally different kind of character: a soft-spoken, well-groomed, repressed businessman who's trying (and not entirely succeeding) at being honest in a shady trade, heating-oil distribution. Everything's lining up against him, including David Oyelowo as the local DA, and his trucks are being hijacked at a rate rendered incredible by the eventual explanation of who's responsible for it.
St. Vincent
An entry in the genre of "crusty bachelor makes friends with a boy and shows his true humanity" (see About a Boy and others). Bill Murray has inherited Jack Nicholson's old position as the go-to actor for annoying crusty old bastards who turn out to be lovable, and about time. Melissa McCarthy gets a solid starring role as the boy's mother, and about time for that, too.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
pundits ahoy
Posting these so that I can look at them next summer and snicker:
A guy who says that Jeb Bush will win the nomination.
A guy who says that Jeb Bush won't win the nomination.
A guy who says that only Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have a real chance at the nomination.
A guy who says that Jeb Bush will win the nomination.
A guy who says that Jeb Bush won't win the nomination.
A guy who says that only Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have a real chance at the nomination.
quasigrecian thoughts
1. I'm seriously out of it in the pop-culture news. (Remember that I don't watch TV news or talk programs: when I do see them, in waiting rooms or in clips on The Daily Show - I do watch that - I can feel my brain melting by the second.) Consequently the story of Caitlyn Jenner is passing me by. I was never exactly sure who Bruce Jenner was, anyway - yes, I could look it up, but it's the fact that I'd have to do so, plus I'd just immediately forget again - and, like Mark Evanier, I'm already at the point where I don't care whether some celebrity has had a sex change or not.
2. I also feel terribly out of it regarding this Duggar sex abuse case. At least the name "Bruce Jenner" had been vaguely familiar; I had literally never heard of the Duggars before this scandal broke, and was surprised to learn they'd been TV stars for a decade already. At least I'd vaguely heard of Honey Boo-Boo before that became a scandal, although I hadn't been sure who - or, for that matter, what - that was either.
3. Speaking of Mark Evanier, at last here's somebody speaking in favor of two spaces between sentences. I link with enthusiasm. I really don't understand why anyone thinks that a sentence beginning with the name "St. Louis" should have no more space before the "St." than after it, and if you're going to adjust proportionality by hand, you can just goddam work with two spaces as easily as one, or else run a global search-and-replace to eliminate them if you bloody well care that much.
4. At last, an answer to the question that has baffled the ages! A former Navy chaplain is here to tell you how the existence of same-sex marriage harms his opposite-sex marriage. The problem is, of his seven reasons,
#1 is contentless;
#7 requires you to watch a 28-minute video to get the reason, and while I'm willing to read what he has to say, I'm not willing to watch him rant for 28 minutes (see above, re: television);
#s 2, 3, and 5 are distressed at the tax effects of the increase in the number of marriages (which really isn't very large) and thus all amount to arguing for the elimination of tax benefits of marriage (all marriages, not just same-sex ones) to keep single people's (not opposite-sex married couple's) taxes lower - the harm he's feeling is to his pocketbook, not his marriage;
#4 is about not letting couples adopt if they're unwilling to support a child's LGBT self-identification, and has nothing to do with some other couple being same-sex at all;
and, as for #6, if he doesn't like his church's policies of inclusion, they don't harm his marriage, and he can go join some other, more bigoted church more to his liking. It's a free country. Nobody's making any church marry anyone it doesn't want to.
5. Slightly less baffling. I went to change my smoke detector, and noticed, mounted on the upper wall next to it - we've lived here over seven years, and I couldn't recall ever having paid attention to it before - a box. I removed the cover, and found some electric gadgetry inside that looks as old as the house is. Embossed inside the cover were the words "Model KA-10." Nothing else. I Googled this in hopes of figuring out what the box was, and found suggestions that it is:
1) a battery-operated platform scale for restaurant use;
2) a keyboard amplifier speaker;
3) a remote-controlled model airplane;
4) a 1949-model helicopter;
5) a magnifying glass; or
6) a portable piston air compressor.
Any of which would be very exciting to find mounted on our wall. Ah, Google, how I love you.
In the process of perusing this list, it belatedly occurred to me to remember that I had noticed the box before, and that it is:
7) our doorbell chime.
2. I also feel terribly out of it regarding this Duggar sex abuse case. At least the name "Bruce Jenner" had been vaguely familiar; I had literally never heard of the Duggars before this scandal broke, and was surprised to learn they'd been TV stars for a decade already. At least I'd vaguely heard of Honey Boo-Boo before that became a scandal, although I hadn't been sure who - or, for that matter, what - that was either.
3. Speaking of Mark Evanier, at last here's somebody speaking in favor of two spaces between sentences. I link with enthusiasm. I really don't understand why anyone thinks that a sentence beginning with the name "St. Louis" should have no more space before the "St." than after it, and if you're going to adjust proportionality by hand, you can just goddam work with two spaces as easily as one, or else run a global search-and-replace to eliminate them if you bloody well care that much.
4. At last, an answer to the question that has baffled the ages! A former Navy chaplain is here to tell you how the existence of same-sex marriage harms his opposite-sex marriage. The problem is, of his seven reasons,
#1 is contentless;
#7 requires you to watch a 28-minute video to get the reason, and while I'm willing to read what he has to say, I'm not willing to watch him rant for 28 minutes (see above, re: television);
#s 2, 3, and 5 are distressed at the tax effects of the increase in the number of marriages (which really isn't very large) and thus all amount to arguing for the elimination of tax benefits of marriage (all marriages, not just same-sex ones) to keep single people's (not opposite-sex married couple's) taxes lower - the harm he's feeling is to his pocketbook, not his marriage;
#4 is about not letting couples adopt if they're unwilling to support a child's LGBT self-identification, and has nothing to do with some other couple being same-sex at all;
and, as for #6, if he doesn't like his church's policies of inclusion, they don't harm his marriage, and he can go join some other, more bigoted church more to his liking. It's a free country. Nobody's making any church marry anyone it doesn't want to.
5. Slightly less baffling. I went to change my smoke detector, and noticed, mounted on the upper wall next to it - we've lived here over seven years, and I couldn't recall ever having paid attention to it before - a box. I removed the cover, and found some electric gadgetry inside that looks as old as the house is. Embossed inside the cover were the words "Model KA-10." Nothing else. I Googled this in hopes of figuring out what the box was, and found suggestions that it is:
1) a battery-operated platform scale for restaurant use;
2) a keyboard amplifier speaker;
3) a remote-controlled model airplane;
4) a 1949-model helicopter;
5) a magnifying glass; or
6) a portable piston air compressor.
Any of which would be very exciting to find mounted on our wall. Ah, Google, how I love you.
In the process of perusing this list, it belatedly occurred to me to remember that I had noticed the box before, and that it is:
7) our doorbell chime.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
do you hear the people sing?
We heard them. B. and I went to see a concert performance of Les Misérables with the Masterworks Chorale in San Mateo this evening. Stirring, but then it's always a good show. Chorale members did the minor parts (it showed), and the ringers brought in for the big roles were mostly veterans of Pocket Opera and/or the Lamplighters, and they were fine. No Gavroche, fortunately for small mercies. It was satisfying. There's still another performance Sunday afternoon.
That's not all I did today. I went to hear the New Millennium Chamber Orchestra in a Spanish program - the usual crowd, de Falla and Turina and Rodrigo and all - mostly because I hadn't heard them since their premiere concert 3 years ago and I wanted to find out whether they're worth reviewing. They've certainly improved since last time.
And I began the day's outings at the Polish Festival in Belmont. Made a change from the Greek festival in San Jose that I more often attend. But this is their first year doing it and they haven't yet figured out about parking monitors or spacing out the food booths. There wasn't much there and the lines got very long. I gave up on trying for some pierogi, and instead had a kielbasa (large, but bland) and a plate of something called bigos, a cabbage stew with meat in it: tastier than I'd feared. There was music and dancing too, and I could have listened to something called the Kuzyni Polish Street Folk Band for rather longer than they played.
That's not all I did today. I went to hear the New Millennium Chamber Orchestra in a Spanish program - the usual crowd, de Falla and Turina and Rodrigo and all - mostly because I hadn't heard them since their premiere concert 3 years ago and I wanted to find out whether they're worth reviewing. They've certainly improved since last time.
And I began the day's outings at the Polish Festival in Belmont. Made a change from the Greek festival in San Jose that I more often attend. But this is their first year doing it and they haven't yet figured out about parking monitors or spacing out the food booths. There wasn't much there and the lines got very long. I gave up on trying for some pierogi, and instead had a kielbasa (large, but bland) and a plate of something called bigos, a cabbage stew with meat in it: tastier than I'd feared. There was music and dancing too, and I could have listened to something called the Kuzyni Polish Street Folk Band for rather longer than they played.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
concert review: San Francisco Symphony
It's Charles Dutoit again. This is at least the sixth time I've heard him conduct in the last five years.
He led an intriguing program: Jeu de cartes, a chunk of neoclassical Stravinsky that had only previously been heard here when the composer himself conducted it 75 years ago; Elgar's Cello Concerto; and the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures.
The performances were good, mostly (the tuba was not quite up to the solo in Ravel's "Bydlo", but Nicole Cash, the ever-reliable hornist, and bassoonist Stephen Paulson, who's rapidly turning into the new star of the woodwinds, were A-OK), but they weren't tremendously exciting. The Elgar in particular was rather limp, and soloist Gautier Capuçon was quieter than the orchestra.
Scott Foglesong gave the pre-concert talk, and actually discussed all three pieces, a rarity for him: sometimes he doesn't even discuss any of the pieces. He was obsessed with the Elgar being in Aeolian, without explaining what that was for those who didn't know (to be fair, the difference between Aeolian and minor is picky), and his discussion of Pictures consisted mostly of playing the same bit in various different orchestrations, most of which sounded pretty much alike.
Going back a bit, last Friday I wandered over to Bing for the Stanford Wind Ensemble, because they were playing Holst's Suite No. 2, a favorite, and Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy. They also played Hindemith's Symphony for Band, and a band arrangement of Glière's Horn Concerto, twice the length of the typical horn concerto. (Anyone who knows his Ilya Murometz will not be the least surprised.) Typically of Stanford, the soloist, while of professional caliber, wasn't even a music student. He's a postdoc in cancer biology.
The seating being open, I ran another little experiment in the hall's acoustics. I sat for the first half way down in the front corner, and for the second in the top row. Sure enough, the sound really is better in the second place: more balanced and blended, and not at all distant.
He led an intriguing program: Jeu de cartes, a chunk of neoclassical Stravinsky that had only previously been heard here when the composer himself conducted it 75 years ago; Elgar's Cello Concerto; and the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures.
The performances were good, mostly (the tuba was not quite up to the solo in Ravel's "Bydlo", but Nicole Cash, the ever-reliable hornist, and bassoonist Stephen Paulson, who's rapidly turning into the new star of the woodwinds, were A-OK), but they weren't tremendously exciting. The Elgar in particular was rather limp, and soloist Gautier Capuçon was quieter than the orchestra.
Scott Foglesong gave the pre-concert talk, and actually discussed all three pieces, a rarity for him: sometimes he doesn't even discuss any of the pieces. He was obsessed with the Elgar being in Aeolian, without explaining what that was for those who didn't know (to be fair, the difference between Aeolian and minor is picky), and his discussion of Pictures consisted mostly of playing the same bit in various different orchestrations, most of which sounded pretty much alike.
Going back a bit, last Friday I wandered over to Bing for the Stanford Wind Ensemble, because they were playing Holst's Suite No. 2, a favorite, and Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy. They also played Hindemith's Symphony for Band, and a band arrangement of Glière's Horn Concerto, twice the length of the typical horn concerto. (Anyone who knows his Ilya Murometz will not be the least surprised.) Typically of Stanford, the soloist, while of professional caliber, wasn't even a music student. He's a postdoc in cancer biology.
The seating being open, I ran another little experiment in the hall's acoustics. I sat for the first half way down in the front corner, and for the second in the top row. Sure enough, the sound really is better in the second place: more balanced and blended, and not at all distant.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
feghoots
"Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot" was a department that ran in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for many years, written by Reginald Bretnor under the anagrammic pseudonym of Grendel Briarton.
Feghoots were exceedingly short short-stories which would conclude with the titular character uttering an awful pun which the entire story, such as it was, existed for the sole purpose of setting up.
Recently reading Jason Fisher's history of the "hobbit"/"habit" pun, I saw that there was a Feghoot using it, and that furthermore it included Tolkien as a character. That made it eligible for my list of the Inklings in fiction, so into the list it went, both its original appearance and its reprint in The Collected Feghoot (1992), which I have.
It then occurred to me that I could find my favorite Feghoots by making a quick list of the words or phrases being punned on. By doing so, I discovered that 13 of the 122 Feghoots are not puns, but spoonerisms, and that an additional 3 are the word-level equivalent of spoonerisms: that is, they depend on exchanging words in the way that spoonerisms exchange phonemes. The most convoluted of these, which also incorporates puns, is set in ca. 1960 geopolitics and sets up "Fidel roamed while Nehru burned" and you can sort of guess the story from that.
Of course, the humor depends on the reader knowing the phrase "Nero fiddled while Rome burned," and if you don't, you'll just go huh? There's a lot of the originals that would be worth doing generational tests on, as I feel old-fashioned just being able to remember them myself, this among them. But I may not be that old, or Bretnor ran out of steam, for there were 2 Feghoots, both near the end of the run, that I didn't get at all, and another 6 that were close enough to not making sense that I might be missing something.
What distressed me more than that, however, was the discovery that the Feghoots I remember most fondly aren't in the collection at all. Uh-oh. Were they in the previous collection, which I used to have, and edited out for this one? (The ordering and numbering do not appear to be consistent.) Fortunately that turned out not to be the case. The ones I remember aren't Feghoots at all. They're from Randall Garrett's parodies of Feghoots, "Through Time and Space with Benedict Breadfruit," and I have to say, they're better than the originals. The most painful is set on a planet with a royal fiat against picking squash, and concludes:
Feghoots were exceedingly short short-stories which would conclude with the titular character uttering an awful pun which the entire story, such as it was, existed for the sole purpose of setting up.
Recently reading Jason Fisher's history of the "hobbit"/"habit" pun, I saw that there was a Feghoot using it, and that furthermore it included Tolkien as a character. That made it eligible for my list of the Inklings in fiction, so into the list it went, both its original appearance and its reprint in The Collected Feghoot (1992), which I have.
It then occurred to me that I could find my favorite Feghoots by making a quick list of the words or phrases being punned on. By doing so, I discovered that 13 of the 122 Feghoots are not puns, but spoonerisms, and that an additional 3 are the word-level equivalent of spoonerisms: that is, they depend on exchanging words in the way that spoonerisms exchange phonemes. The most convoluted of these, which also incorporates puns, is set in ca. 1960 geopolitics and sets up "Fidel roamed while Nehru burned" and you can sort of guess the story from that.
Of course, the humor depends on the reader knowing the phrase "Nero fiddled while Rome burned," and if you don't, you'll just go huh? There's a lot of the originals that would be worth doing generational tests on, as I feel old-fashioned just being able to remember them myself, this among them. But I may not be that old, or Bretnor ran out of steam, for there were 2 Feghoots, both near the end of the run, that I didn't get at all, and another 6 that were close enough to not making sense that I might be missing something.
What distressed me more than that, however, was the discovery that the Feghoots I remember most fondly aren't in the collection at all. Uh-oh. Were they in the previous collection, which I used to have, and edited out for this one? (The ordering and numbering do not appear to be consistent.) Fortunately that turned out not to be the case. The ones I remember aren't Feghoots at all. They're from Randall Garrett's parodies of Feghoots, "Through Time and Space with Benedict Breadfruit," and I have to say, they're better than the originals. The most painful is set on a planet with a royal fiat against picking squash, and concludes:
"But why can't I pick a pumpkin, father?" asked the child.And you have to remember an SF writer named Gordon R. "Gordy" Dickson to get that one, but even if he'd never done anything else, it'd be worth remembering him just for that.
"It would be a violation of the Gourd Edict, son."
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Tolkien Studies 12: an announcement
On behalf of my co-editors, Michael D.C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger, and myself, I wish to announce Volume 12 of the journal Tolkien Studies. All the contents are now in the hands of our publisher, West Virginia University Press, and the volume is scheduled to be published both in physical copy and online on Project MUSE in August or September.
Several important new features or highlights about this issue:Tolkien Studies 12 (2015) ** Notes and Documents ** Book Reviews **
Several important new features or highlights about this issue:
- Starting this year, physical copies of Tolkien Studies will be in sturdy softcover rather than hardcover in boards. We regret the necessity for this change; not just cost but the difficulties attendant on the greater physical weight of the hardcover and the logistical challenges of producing it have led to this decision. In particular, the Press anticipates that overseas customers will have less trouble receiving their copies under a softcover regime. Customer price will be set by the Press later.
- This change has also provided the impetus and opportunity for a cover re-design. The new design will be striking and we hope you like it, and it's not entirely dissimilar from the old design.
- This year, we've acquired an entire phalanx of sturdy Dwarven scholars to compile "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies," and we expect to continue this practice in the future.
- See under "Notes and Documents" for the ultra-rare Tolkien reprint I alluded to last year, and which this year is actually ready to appear.
- Kelley M. Wickham-Crowley, "'Mind to Mind': Tolkien's Faërian Drama and the Middle English Sir Orfeo"
- Kris Swank, "The Irish Otherworld Voyage of Roverandom"
- Simon Cook, "The Peace of Frodo: On the Origin of an English Mythology"
- Carrol Fry, "'Two Musics about the Throne of Ilúvatar': Gnostic and Manichaean Dualism in The Silmarillion"
- Alban Gautier, "From Dejection in Winter to Victory in Spring: Aragorn and Alfred, Parallel Episodes?"
- Sherrylyn Branchaw, "Boromir: Breaker of the Fellowship?"
- J.R.R. Tolkien, "Henry Bradley, 3 Dec. 1845-23 May 1923," an obituary for his supervisor at the Oxford English Dictionary, with commentary by Tom Shippey and Peter Gilliver
- Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary together with Sellic Spell, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, reviewed by Michael D.C. Drout
- The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, reviewed by Richard C. West
- A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Stuart D. Lee, reviewed by Jorge Luis Bueno-Alonso
- Tolkien: The Forest and the City, edited by Helen Conrad-O'Briain and Gerard Hynes, reviewed by Patrick Curry
- Tolkien, by Raymond Edwards, reviewed by David Bratman
- "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2012," by Merlin DeTardo, Jason Fisher, David Bratman, Marjorie Burns, John Wm. Houghton, John Magoun
- "Bibliography (in English) for 2013," compiled by Rebecca Epstein and David Bratman
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
concert review: San Francisco Symphony
The idea behind Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra is that a concerto is normally a virtuoso display piece for a soloist. What the Boston Symphony commissioned in 1943 was a piece that would display all the members of the orchestra, thus the title.
Well, no matter how good Koussevitzky's Bostonians may have been, they couldn't possibly be a match for MTT's San Franciscans when they are on, and they were really on tonight. This was a performance of unsurpassable precision, verve, and power. Particular high points were the character and the chuckle that the bassoons brought to their duet in "Game of Pairs", and the revelation throughout of really interesting and complex string work that's not normally heard.
Mozart's Sinfonia concertante, also exquisitely played, was also something of a concerto for orchestra, as the soloists were principal concertmaster Alexander Barantschik and first violist Jonathan Vinocour.
There was also a short piece by Sam Adams commissioned by a youth orchestra - putting the SFS on that is a bit like asking a chess grandmaster to play tiddlywinks - that seemed carefully crafted to prevent the casual listener from telling whether the performance was any good or not.
Weird disagreement between the pre-concert lecturer and the program notes about the Bartók, not that the lecturer cited the dispute. Bartók's "Interrupted Intermezzo" is interrupted by a brief outbreak of the march theme from Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony (the one representing the invading Germans), which Bartók greets with a musical raspberry. The story that Bartók's son told is that his father put this in because he was so irritated at hearing the Leningrad over and over on the radio during its brief heyday.
The lecturer said that new research in the former Soviet archives has proven that the march theme is actually a melody from Lehár's The Merry Widow. What did they need new research to discover that for? The resemblance between the themes has been noted from the beginning, but they're not actually the same. Anyway, the lecturer said that there's a new theory that of course Bartók recognized the Merry Widow reference, and instead of thumbing his raspberry at Shostakovich, he is laughing with Shostakovich at the Germans by quoting the Merry Widow part of the theme.
Maybe. But the program notes say that no, Bartók didn't know it was from The Merry Widow until someone pointed it out to him.
And it's still not the same theme flat out, just one that borrows its opening note sequence and changes its character. Here's Lehár. Here's Shostakovich. And here's Bartók.
Well, no matter how good Koussevitzky's Bostonians may have been, they couldn't possibly be a match for MTT's San Franciscans when they are on, and they were really on tonight. This was a performance of unsurpassable precision, verve, and power. Particular high points were the character and the chuckle that the bassoons brought to their duet in "Game of Pairs", and the revelation throughout of really interesting and complex string work that's not normally heard.
Mozart's Sinfonia concertante, also exquisitely played, was also something of a concerto for orchestra, as the soloists were principal concertmaster Alexander Barantschik and first violist Jonathan Vinocour.
There was also a short piece by Sam Adams commissioned by a youth orchestra - putting the SFS on that is a bit like asking a chess grandmaster to play tiddlywinks - that seemed carefully crafted to prevent the casual listener from telling whether the performance was any good or not.
Weird disagreement between the pre-concert lecturer and the program notes about the Bartók, not that the lecturer cited the dispute. Bartók's "Interrupted Intermezzo" is interrupted by a brief outbreak of the march theme from Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony (the one representing the invading Germans), which Bartók greets with a musical raspberry. The story that Bartók's son told is that his father put this in because he was so irritated at hearing the Leningrad over and over on the radio during its brief heyday.
The lecturer said that new research in the former Soviet archives has proven that the march theme is actually a melody from Lehár's The Merry Widow. What did they need new research to discover that for? The resemblance between the themes has been noted from the beginning, but they're not actually the same. Anyway, the lecturer said that there's a new theory that of course Bartók recognized the Merry Widow reference, and instead of thumbing his raspberry at Shostakovich, he is laughing with Shostakovich at the Germans by quoting the Merry Widow part of the theme.
Maybe. But the program notes say that no, Bartók didn't know it was from The Merry Widow until someone pointed it out to him.
And it's still not the same theme flat out, just one that borrows its opening note sequence and changes its character. Here's Lehár. Here's Shostakovich. And here's Bartók.
Monday, May 18, 2015
concert review: Music@Menlo
Got a last minute call from my editor: want to cover the clarinet concert at Menlo? My clarinetist friend was out of town, so lacking time for anything else I went by myself, finding that in fact the press tickets had to be organized at the door, and this after the overhead sign at the ticket table clocked me in the head.
I was a little nervous that, of 7 pieces on the program, I was only sure that I'd ever heard two before, but I figured that not many others would have heard many either. They all turned out witty and lively - my eventual seatmate had never heard of Paul Schoenfield before, but I had, and on being asked what to expect I said "If you think that Bartók piece sizzled, this one will burn your skin off."
This was important for a reason beyond what I got into in the review. Menlo poses as a kind of temple of chamber music, and an air of solemn worship of Greatness tends to suffuse the place. Fortunately the performances are usually very good, because when they aren't there's nothing left but a stuffy smell. That's why it's so interesting, as well as a little out of character, that Menlo should have chosen these pieces and not, say, one of the Brahms clarinet sonatas, which would have been more typical of them and which would have totally altered this concert's character, not to mention dampen its irrepressibility.
I was a little nervous that, of 7 pieces on the program, I was only sure that I'd ever heard two before, but I figured that not many others would have heard many either. They all turned out witty and lively - my eventual seatmate had never heard of Paul Schoenfield before, but I had, and on being asked what to expect I said "If you think that Bartók piece sizzled, this one will burn your skin off."
This was important for a reason beyond what I got into in the review. Menlo poses as a kind of temple of chamber music, and an air of solemn worship of Greatness tends to suffuse the place. Fortunately the performances are usually very good, because when they aren't there's nothing left but a stuffy smell. That's why it's so interesting, as well as a little out of character, that Menlo should have chosen these pieces and not, say, one of the Brahms clarinet sonatas, which would have been more typical of them and which would have totally altered this concert's character, not to mention dampen its irrepressibility.
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