1. Virus cases keep going up, and have reached one million in this state. The highest per capita rates are in the outlying rural counties which long assumed they were immune. But it's serious everywhere. It only increases my determination not to go anywhere or see anybody. I did keep a dental appointment on Tuesday - when I said this was the most adventurous thing I'd done in weeks, the dentist chuckled and said many patients had told him the same thing, which I found an encouraging remark - and I'm picking up our weekly take-out grocery order later today (Friday), but, well-equipped with food, I haven't been out of the house between. I do have a lengthy auto trip planned, possibly as early as this next week, but it's purely expeditionary and I may not even have to get out of the car.
2. Cats are kind of frantic, though. Tybalt keeps coming into my office, climbing behind the venetian blinds into the window, and then coming back out again. This is not good for the blinds, which I have to keep closed to keep back-glare off the computer screen. (I may have to replace the blinds eventually; I was able to mail-order replacement slats for the heavy vertical blinds in the dining room window, a couple of which had lost their grip and crashed to the ground, no thanks to cats.) But it was Maia, the quiet, peaceful cat, who jumped up onto the kitchen counter and knocked the menorah to the floor with a mighty crash. Exit cat, top speed.
3. It's not the petulance of the giant baby hiding out in the White House that worries me, it's the people enabling it. Aren't there any adults in the room? Even the few daring to peep their heads out seem frightened.
4. Latest New Yorker, whose cover shows a line of people waiting to vote, one of whom is a woman holding a book - that would be B. - ironically includes a brief article on a book-summation service, currently wrestling with Ghislaine Maxwell's deposition in the Jeffrey Epstein case. "Context is so important," says the firm's "content producer" (no context is provided to explain what that title means). He adds, "I don't get cultural references sometimes. I'm from Sweden."
And I hear in my mind's ear the ghostly echo of an old Flying Karamazov Brothers line: "I am Norwegian: I do not understand."
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Friday, November 13, 2020
Thursday, November 12, 2020
a few events
1. A few more online concerts have come my way. Two more from the so-far splendid Baltimore Symphony chamber concert series: one for strings, featuring Nielsen's Little Suite and Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, the former of which doesn't get played much and the latter of which is always an enriching treat to hear; and one for brass and winds - yes, they claim they've found a safe way to gather groups of these air-spitting players, and they're the ones who have to live through it, not me - which included a piano-and-winds sextet by Louise Farrenc, the leading 19C female French composer, as well as Stravinsky and Beethoven.
It was interesting to see, elsewhere online, a video of BSO music director (albeit not identified as such) Marin Alsop critiquing movies and tv shows with conductors in them. She gave points mostly for enthusiasm, which she considers a vital element (thus ranking highly Jack Black in School of Rock - see, classical people are not snobs), but she did criticize conductors who wave both hands in unison. You don't do that if you're a professional conductor, she said. So that made it very interesting to see one of the assistant conductors in the BSO videos doing exactly that.
Also heard, because this was one of the items on the list of a publicist who likes to send me e-mails, was the Neave Piano Trio, which I think lives in NYC, but which was either broadcasting from or at least sponsored by the chamber music series at the University of Idaho, a place I haven't been since 1982. I signed up for this one because of the staggering array of composers: Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke, and Jennifer Higdon. You don't get to hear a lineup like that - four very notable female composers spanning nearly two centuries - very often. True, I've never taken much to Beach, whose work seems to me to be comprised mostly of froth and treacle, and Clarke is rather modernistically astringent for my tastes. Both of these works met expectations, but it was good to hear all four together.
I have more online concerts - much more - scheduled for over the weekend. To hear music and then to write about it is my delight.
2. Another event that hit our calendars was the ordaining of a friend of ours as an Episcopal priest. The announcement she'd sent out a month ago didn't contain a link to the promised online event, but B. found it afterwards on M.'s FB page. We watched the better part of it. The ordaining bishop was also a woman, and it was a nice little ceremony, albeit much of it hidden behind various people's backs.
3. I've been reading a number of books on the moonshot program (the one that went to the Moon, silly, not something metaphorical), for reasons I'll explain later, not least because I have to call a halt to it soon for something more urgent. But that explains why, napping this afternoon, I was vaguely dreaming about training as an astronaut. For some reason this responsibility involved having my hair licked. I awoke to find that I was having my hair licked; thank you, Tybalt. Which I guess means that I am an astronaut, right?
It was interesting to see, elsewhere online, a video of BSO music director (albeit not identified as such) Marin Alsop critiquing movies and tv shows with conductors in them. She gave points mostly for enthusiasm, which she considers a vital element (thus ranking highly Jack Black in School of Rock - see, classical people are not snobs), but she did criticize conductors who wave both hands in unison. You don't do that if you're a professional conductor, she said. So that made it very interesting to see one of the assistant conductors in the BSO videos doing exactly that.
Also heard, because this was one of the items on the list of a publicist who likes to send me e-mails, was the Neave Piano Trio, which I think lives in NYC, but which was either broadcasting from or at least sponsored by the chamber music series at the University of Idaho, a place I haven't been since 1982. I signed up for this one because of the staggering array of composers: Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke, and Jennifer Higdon. You don't get to hear a lineup like that - four very notable female composers spanning nearly two centuries - very often. True, I've never taken much to Beach, whose work seems to me to be comprised mostly of froth and treacle, and Clarke is rather modernistically astringent for my tastes. Both of these works met expectations, but it was good to hear all four together.
I have more online concerts - much more - scheduled for over the weekend. To hear music and then to write about it is my delight.
2. Another event that hit our calendars was the ordaining of a friend of ours as an Episcopal priest. The announcement she'd sent out a month ago didn't contain a link to the promised online event, but B. found it afterwards on M.'s FB page. We watched the better part of it. The ordaining bishop was also a woman, and it was a nice little ceremony, albeit much of it hidden behind various people's backs.
3. I've been reading a number of books on the moonshot program (the one that went to the Moon, silly, not something metaphorical), for reasons I'll explain later, not least because I have to call a halt to it soon for something more urgent. But that explains why, napping this afternoon, I was vaguely dreaming about training as an astronaut. For some reason this responsibility involved having my hair licked. I awoke to find that I was having my hair licked; thank you, Tybalt. Which I guess means that I am an astronaut, right?
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
feel like practicing your Spanish?
Mark Evanier found an absolutely splendid Panamanian production of Fiddler on the Roof.
Monday, November 9, 2020
in memo Alex Trebek
the long-suffering (it seemed to me, from the shenanigans the contestants and the category listings put him through) host of Jeopardy!
Has anybody ever explained why they insist that answers be put in the form of questions? It's irritatingly artificial.
I am going to commit an open copyright violation here, because this is too good to leave out. The great Christine Lavin wrote words to the Jeopardy theme song:
Back in high school you were a square
Carried books and slide rules everywhere
You got straight A's year after year
They called you geek, they called you queer
For every one who laughed in your face
Now's your chance to put them in their place
Because you're on a TV show
Where your big brain
Earns
Big
Dough
Has anybody ever explained why they insist that answers be put in the form of questions? It's irritatingly artificial.
I am going to commit an open copyright violation here, because this is too good to leave out. The great Christine Lavin wrote words to the Jeopardy theme song:
Back in high school you were a square
Carried books and slide rules everywhere
You got straight A's year after year
They called you geek, they called you queer
For every one who laughed in your face
Now's your chance to put them in their place
Because you're on a TV show
Where your big brain
Earns
Big
Dough
Friday, November 6, 2020
invincible ignorance
Occasionally one comes across someone who is simply unable to grasp the concept that you're explaining to them. It isn't often that this is a trained computer repairperson.
The people fixing B's computer had said they would move her hard drive to a new box. But it turned out that they cloned the hard drive instead. A problem had turned up with the new drive, and I wondered whether this was also true of the old drive.
Another worker in the shop, overhearing this conversation, undertook to interject himself into the conversation. He explained at some length that if there's a problem with the old drive, it will automatically reproduce itself in the clone. If true, that raises the question of why bother to clone the thing at all, but I didn't raise that. I merely said that that was very interesting but it didn't address my question.
So what is your question, he said. I said, could there be a problem with the new drive that didn't come from the old drive.
He said that was merely the same question in different words. I said no, it's the inverse of the first question. I tried several ways to explain it, and finally he said I was just using circular logic.
That's when I lost my temper, and, having goaded me into this, he then shrugged and went back to work. It occurred to me to draw a Venn diagram of problems with the old drive, problems with the new drive, and problems with both, but when I showed it to him, he crumpled it up and threw it away without looking at it. Invincible in his ignorance.
It occurred to me later that there was a simpler way of explaining the difference. If problems with the old drive are A, and problems with the new drive are B, then he was telling me that
If A, Then B.
And I was asking if it was also true that
If B, Then A.
Those are fundamentally different statements, a basic concept in elementary logic, so it's really disturbing to find someone who thinks there's no difference between them, and accuses you of circular logic when you try to explain it. Invincible ignorance.
The people fixing B's computer had said they would move her hard drive to a new box. But it turned out that they cloned the hard drive instead. A problem had turned up with the new drive, and I wondered whether this was also true of the old drive.
Another worker in the shop, overhearing this conversation, undertook to interject himself into the conversation. He explained at some length that if there's a problem with the old drive, it will automatically reproduce itself in the clone. If true, that raises the question of why bother to clone the thing at all, but I didn't raise that. I merely said that that was very interesting but it didn't address my question.
So what is your question, he said. I said, could there be a problem with the new drive that didn't come from the old drive.
He said that was merely the same question in different words. I said no, it's the inverse of the first question. I tried several ways to explain it, and finally he said I was just using circular logic.
That's when I lost my temper, and, having goaded me into this, he then shrugged and went back to work. It occurred to me to draw a Venn diagram of problems with the old drive, problems with the new drive, and problems with both, but when I showed it to him, he crumpled it up and threw it away without looking at it. Invincible in his ignorance.
It occurred to me later that there was a simpler way of explaining the difference. If problems with the old drive are A, and problems with the new drive are B, then he was telling me that
If A, Then B.
And I was asking if it was also true that
If B, Then A.
Those are fundamentally different statements, a basic concept in elementary logic, so it's really disturbing to find someone who thinks there's no difference between them, and accuses you of circular logic when you try to explain it. Invincible ignorance.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
social distancing
Today I stopped in at a shop I don't often visit, to pick up an item I'd ordered. (Reasons why it couldn't have been delivered.) Found the front foyer of the shop roped off, with posted instructions to wait for an employee to let you in.
In the foyer was waiting a man whom I took for some store greeter, from the official-looking way he pointed at the bottle of hand sanitizer on a small table and mimed pumping the bottle and washing one's hands. It later turned out he was a customer who resorted to mime because his English was poor. He kept miming pumping and washing with more and more vigor and enthusiasm as I waited for him to move aside and give me room to do it.
Eventually we solved that one, and later still a clerk came by, asked what I needed, and then opened the rope and invited me in, while failing to provide room for me to move there. I waited, he gestured, eventually we got past that one also.
I've been in other shops which are a little more conscientious here.
Meanwhile, B.'s computer has crashed, for the third time in two months. In the repair place again.
In the foyer was waiting a man whom I took for some store greeter, from the official-looking way he pointed at the bottle of hand sanitizer on a small table and mimed pumping the bottle and washing one's hands. It later turned out he was a customer who resorted to mime because his English was poor. He kept miming pumping and washing with more and more vigor and enthusiasm as I waited for him to move aside and give me room to do it.
Eventually we solved that one, and later still a clerk came by, asked what I needed, and then opened the rope and invited me in, while failing to provide room for me to move there. I waited, he gestured, eventually we got past that one also.
I've been in other shops which are a little more conscientious here.
Meanwhile, B.'s computer has crashed, for the third time in two months. In the repair place again.
Saturday, October 31, 2020
evidence that hobbits didn't have daylight saving time
This came up in the course of today's Tolkien Society online pub quiz, in which one round was devoted to questions about the time of day that events happen. (Quick, what time did the auction of Bilbo's estate begin at the end of The Hobbit, and what time did Bilbo arrive home to find it finishing off?)
At Bilbo's Long-Expected Party, we are told that the fireworks started at six-thirty in the evening.
In mid-September, by British Summer Time, this is far too long before sunset at northern latitudes, and the fireworks won't be visible.
If it's GMT, however, that's just about sunset, and the perfect time to start the show.
At Bilbo's Long-Expected Party, we are told that the fireworks started at six-thirty in the evening.
In mid-September, by British Summer Time, this is far too long before sunset at northern latitudes, and the fireworks won't be visible.
If it's GMT, however, that's just about sunset, and the perfect time to start the show.
Sean Connery est mort
Memorable actor, less to say about his human qualities.
This list of Sean Connery Movies I Have Seen says more about me than it does about him:
The Man Who Would Be King
Robin and Marian
A Bridge Too Far
Time Bandits
The Name of the Rose
The Hunt for Red October
Observe the complete absence of James Bond, of Indiana Jones, of Murder on the Orient Express, of Zardoz or Outland or Highlander.
This list of Sean Connery Movies I Have Seen says more about me than it does about him:
The Man Who Would Be King
Robin and Marian
A Bridge Too Far
Time Bandits
The Name of the Rose
The Hunt for Red October
Observe the complete absence of James Bond, of Indiana Jones, of Murder on the Orient Express, of Zardoz or Outland or Highlander.
words and music
I had a few variably interesting online artistic experiences this week.
Most effective was a brief string-orchestra concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. I'd read of their series in an article in the Washington Post, and this one looked interesting enough to sign up for. Socially-distanced players in masks, wearing black, spread across a big blank stage. They played the Shostakovich so-called "Chamber Symphony", an arrangement of his inward-dwelling String Quartet No. 8, which came out here with the proper expression of drama. Also the Serious Song of Irving Fine, a post-Romantic work I hadn't heard in, oh, some forty years, plus what I was most there for, two movements from a string quartet by Florence Price, one movement slow and dreamy, one quietly uptempo. Both combined a 19th-century string quartet base with softly swinging melodies and rhythms influenced by African-American folk music, marking Price's kinship with William Grant Still.
One musical talk: Nicholas McGegan, recently retired from leading Philharmonia Baroque, gave one on "Bach and the Dance." This turned out mostly to be about the importance of dance to genteel culture in Bach's time, plus descriptions of various dance forms Bach used in his music, including their appearances sans titles even in his religious cantatas. McGegan didn't address the question I was hoping to hear about, whether the dance-titled movements in Bach's solo violin and cello music are intended to be heard as dance music or are merely nominal titles, a question on which musicologists are at odds. So I asked it in chat. McGegan didn't really address that specific point either, but said he'd led performances of Bach's orchestral suites to which dancing was actually being done.
One literary talk from the Wade Center, on whether reading Lewis's and Tolkien's descriptions of natural landscapes can lead the reader to greater sensitivity to real-world landscapes. Well of course it can. Next question?
And a play. I'd read a rave review of a production by the Mint Theater (of NYC) of Conflict by Miles Malleson, a supposedly unjustly-forgotten 20C British play. Strike the "un" and you have it. Set during the 1923 British general election, it depicts a flighty young well-off woman who's caught between the Conservative and Labour candidates for her constituency. (She wouldn't have had the vote yet, but that doesn't seem to matter.) The Tory is a smug older man who's been genteelly courting her; the Socialist is a rather desperate fellow she meets by contrived happenstance. She runs back and forth between them as each puts his political case to her, rebutting the arguments she repeats from the other one; and this goes on until the Socialist suddenly concludes one of their meetings by saying, "I want to kiss you" and does. Mind, she's given him absolutely no reason to want to kiss her except that she's young and female and in his boarding room, but apparently that's enough. It was enough for me: I turned it off at that point.
Also, I've put my hand back in the classical concert reviewing game with an article for the Daily Journal on local online concerts. For my next trick, I ought to review some of these upcoming events, a prospect - online concerts are not the real live thing, no matter how much I pretend they're alike - I'm anticipating with some trepidation.
Most effective was a brief string-orchestra concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. I'd read of their series in an article in the Washington Post, and this one looked interesting enough to sign up for. Socially-distanced players in masks, wearing black, spread across a big blank stage. They played the Shostakovich so-called "Chamber Symphony", an arrangement of his inward-dwelling String Quartet No. 8, which came out here with the proper expression of drama. Also the Serious Song of Irving Fine, a post-Romantic work I hadn't heard in, oh, some forty years, plus what I was most there for, two movements from a string quartet by Florence Price, one movement slow and dreamy, one quietly uptempo. Both combined a 19th-century string quartet base with softly swinging melodies and rhythms influenced by African-American folk music, marking Price's kinship with William Grant Still.
One musical talk: Nicholas McGegan, recently retired from leading Philharmonia Baroque, gave one on "Bach and the Dance." This turned out mostly to be about the importance of dance to genteel culture in Bach's time, plus descriptions of various dance forms Bach used in his music, including their appearances sans titles even in his religious cantatas. McGegan didn't address the question I was hoping to hear about, whether the dance-titled movements in Bach's solo violin and cello music are intended to be heard as dance music or are merely nominal titles, a question on which musicologists are at odds. So I asked it in chat. McGegan didn't really address that specific point either, but said he'd led performances of Bach's orchestral suites to which dancing was actually being done.
One literary talk from the Wade Center, on whether reading Lewis's and Tolkien's descriptions of natural landscapes can lead the reader to greater sensitivity to real-world landscapes. Well of course it can. Next question?
And a play. I'd read a rave review of a production by the Mint Theater (of NYC) of Conflict by Miles Malleson, a supposedly unjustly-forgotten 20C British play. Strike the "un" and you have it. Set during the 1923 British general election, it depicts a flighty young well-off woman who's caught between the Conservative and Labour candidates for her constituency. (She wouldn't have had the vote yet, but that doesn't seem to matter.) The Tory is a smug older man who's been genteelly courting her; the Socialist is a rather desperate fellow she meets by contrived happenstance. She runs back and forth between them as each puts his political case to her, rebutting the arguments she repeats from the other one; and this goes on until the Socialist suddenly concludes one of their meetings by saying, "I want to kiss you" and does. Mind, she's given him absolutely no reason to want to kiss her except that she's young and female and in his boarding room, but apparently that's enough. It was enough for me: I turned it off at that point.
Also, I've put my hand back in the classical concert reviewing game with an article for the Daily Journal on local online concerts. For my next trick, I ought to review some of these upcoming events, a prospect - online concerts are not the real live thing, no matter how much I pretend they're alike - I'm anticipating with some trepidation.
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