English suites and others no. 22

Our next Celtic stop is Cornwall. Malcolm Arnold was not Cornish, but he lived at St Merryn on the north coast of that county for several years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and threw himself into the musical life of the community, organizing Cornish music concerts and writing Cornish-inspired works.

Among them was a set of Four Cornish Dances along the lines of the English Dances we've previously heard. Like them, these are based on original material, but they sound like folk tunes, each evoking some aspect of Cornish life.

Of the four, only No. 1 (0.00) actually sounds much like a dance, and that an irregular one, the first beat of each repetition stomping on the last beat of the previous one. Perhaps it's for fishermen wobbly after getting off the boats. No. 2 (1.36) is slow and spooky, perhaps evoking a trip down a Cornish tin mine. No. 3 (4.45) is an entirely serious Methodist chapel hymn. No. 4 (7.21) seems to mix the moods of all the other three into one.

two concerts reviewed

The Menlo Festival asked me to attend their latest winter series concert, a pairing of Brahms and Dvorak. So I slipped it into my Daily Journal schedule and reviewed it.

And then SFCV sent me off to hear some Schubert songs with the piano accompaniment arranged for string quartet. That was rather different.

Also on the program was Britten's Second Quartet, a work for which I needed to do a little study, so I checked the score from the library. And therein I found something unannotated which I couldn't explain: all over the chaconne movement were brackets covering phrases of two or three notes. They looked like the mark put on a note for a mandatory downbow stroke, but those are only on single notes, and as such these wouldn't make musical sense. (Also, I later noticed some on pizzicato notes, so no: not bowing.) They could be ties, indicating notes should be played together as a flowing phrase, but ties are rounded: these were square. So they must mean something else.

B. didn't know. The retired professional cellist who gives the pre-concert talks didn't know. So I asked the quartet at the post-concert Q&A. Three of them didn't know either, which is really disconcerting considering they'd just given a professional performance of the piece. They hadn't found out what the composer was telling them?

But the first violinist knew. They're rhythmic instructions specific to a chaconne. A chaconne is in 3/2, a slow triple time, with the emphasis normally on the second beat. These brackets appear on pairs of beats to indicate when the emphasis should be on the other beat. OK, that makes sense, and I see crescendo markings and accents that confirm this.

contentious remarks

1. I saw a number of posts asking if readers were going to watch the State of the Union. I don't know why: I don't recall ever being asked about watching them before, why should I now? I find my desire not to see that man is strong enough that I even turn off parody versions of him.

2. I've been seeing a lot about how the tale of a woman's date with Aziz Ansari (of whom I'd never previously heard, btw) has become a generational divide, particularly among women. Younger ones are appalled by his behavior, older ones say it was just a bad date, what's the deal? One reply even said what he was guilty of was not reading her mind, even though her objections to his advances weren't just implied through body language.

I thought that I'd be with the older cohort on this, until I read the actual account. Then I was appalled. Not so much that he specifically ignored her objections, but just at the boorishness and heavy-handedness of his advances. People who think that he wasn't smothering her agency must have no idea what a genuinely consensual romantic or sexual encounter is like.

3. A while ago I wrote a mocking advice list of How Not to Respond to Angry People, which received some approbation. I've recently seen an account of a perfect example of this in real life, one employing a technique I hadn't mentioned.

It's in this story about an audience member who hijacked a panel at ConFusion, an sf con. The problem wasn't anything done by the moderator, who wrote the post: she seems, at least in this her own account, to have behaved judiciously. It's something else she mentions: one of the other panelists "backed me up and pointed out that it was not Q&A period and not his turn to talk," so "This man got up and stormed out in a huff." And "as he departed," that same panelist "cheerfully sa[id], 'Bye!' to him."

It's the cheerful "Bye!" that did it. The best word I can think of for that is smug. It's fortunate that the departing man didn't turn around, come back, and punch the panelist in the snoot, because it wouldn't have been out of character if he had. If someone wants to stalk off, don't sneer at them as they go. De-escalate, don't reinforce and compound bad behavior.

postal price calculator

This is just to show how difficult it is to find out simple things. I have all the steps recorded in my browser, so I shall reconstruct them here.

B. wants me to mail this birthday card she's bought and prepared to her sister. It's an ordinary flat envelope, but it's rather large. I'm vaguely aware that the USPS charges extra postage costs for extra-large envelopes, but how large is extra-large? I shall visit their web page to find out.

Here's the front page. Where shall I go? Pull-down menu reads "Mail & Ship". In the menu is "Calculate a Price." Looks about right.

Which takes me here. It wants to know origin and destination zip codes. That's only relevant for large packages, not for one-ounce cards, but I fill it in anyway. It's not a postcard, it's not a box, it's an envelope, so I click on "View Flat Rate Envelopes."

Now it wants to know the weight. Christ. 0 pounds, 1 ounce, OK? Now, "Letter" or "Large Envelope". Well, uh, what I'm trying to find out is which category it is. Just to be safe, I click on "Large Envelope".

Another option page. It's rigid, OK?

Ack! $24.70? $24.90? Even $6.70? I'm looking for something that should cost 50 cents or a dollar!

Try again. Oh look, up at the top of the page, a pull-down menu for "Pricing." Price Charts in HTML, that looks good.

And another list. Domestic, First class mail, that's what I want.

At last, here's the right prices. It's clear on how much a stamped letter costs, how much a large envelope costs. But I still don't know which I have. That's what I'm trying to find out, and it's getting kind of annoying not finding it.

Oh look, there are footnotes. Scroll down. They don't help.

But wait! Underneath the footnotes! In obscure small type! Behind a sign reading "Beware of the Leopard." "See this page for size dimensions."

THERE IT IS! AT LAST! The size in inches of what qualifies as a letter! It took ten steps and a lot of hunting around on web pages and lucky observations to get it, but there it is. And the card is well within the limits, so one stamp will do. But what a nuisance confirming that.

Warning: bizarre and grotesque.

Grotesque 1: At a large Asian supermarket in San Jose, pork meat was delivered to the store by piling it high, unwrapped, in shopping carts from the Costco across the street and rolling it in the front door during business hours. A customer snapped photos of this and caused a Facebook uproar.

Bizarre 1: This was covered more extensively (above) in the Washington Post a continent away than locally, although there is a link to a local paper online article about it.

Bizarre 2: The customer posted this on FB as a warning not to seat children in those shopping carts rather than as an issue in meat delivery, although she added that she would only buy packaged foods from this market.

Grotesque 2: I wouldn't buy fresh meat from them anyway. I've been in other San Jose area outlets of this particular Asian supermarket chain, and the first thing that struck me was the rancid stench that hits you as you walk in the door. Other Asian markets I've been in are not like that.

Bizarre 3: Neither the market nor the delivery company will take responsibility for this strange delivery method, though both are eager to blame the guys who pushed the carts, who were fired as soon as the news came out. However, I can easily imagine them being low-level grunts who were never trained in sanitary procedures and who were ordered to do this by supervisors who expected their instructions to be obeyed without objection. In which case the responsibility would hardly be theirs.

Grotesque 3: The market has said they've discarded the meat. But there's no suggestion that they would have done so if it hadn't become a public scandal. Nor is there anything about cleaning and disinfecting the shopping carts.

David Oberhelman

The flu season has been particularly bad this year, with many fatalities, and that's struck home because it's taken David Oberhelman.

David O. was a stalwart of the Mythopoeic Society (where there are many Davids: we also have David E., David L., and David B. among the prominent members, all present or former officers), where he was Awards Administrator for many years before stepping down at the end of last year.

At tabulating votes and keeping rein on the discussions among the awards committee members, David O. did an admirable job; and he presided over the awards ceremonies at Mythcon each year, which was a greater challenge to him because he had the most severe case of stage fright I've known personally: tough enough that it sometimes physically prevented him from giving conference presentations. But he got through the ceremonies, and not just ours: here he is, at left, giving a best paper award to a presenter at the Southwest Popular Culture Association last year. Duty to facilitate the organizations he belonged to was a strong sense in him. He was also friendly, an involving conversationalist, and a good man to have around.

David O. was a librarian at Oklahoma State University, and it was increasing responsibilities at his job there which had caused him to step down from his Mythopoeic Awards post. He is survived by his cats. He will be missed.

English suites and others no. 21

Having spun out my collection of favorite English suites, what's next? Now I'm going to embark on a little tour of the five Celtic nationalities of the British/Irish archipelago, one stop for each.

This will mostly be tourist music, as of the five composers only one is a native of the nation represented. But it will also mostly be folk music, as four of the five works are based on folk music.

Our first visit is to Wales. Sir Edward German, though born just over the English border (as was David Lloyd George), was thoroughly of Welsh descent: his name was actually the Welsh forename Garmon, and his real last name was Jones, than which there is nothing more Welsh.

German is best-remembered for his turn-of-the-20th-century operettas, successor after the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan as the leading British composer in this form, until taking up Sullivan's mantle of collaborating with the irascible W.S. Gilbert drove him to swear off the theatre.

In the course of events he also wrote this memorable Welsh Rhapsody on delightfully catchy Welsh folk tunes. It's not a suite, actually, but an integrated composition with symphonic development to its melodies, mixed in with thematic material of German's own. Accordingly I'm giving two timings for each section, one where the section begins and then when the folk song first appears in full.

The folk songs are: Ymadawiad y Brenin (The Departure of the King) (0:01/0:08); Hela'r Ysgyfarnog (Hunting the Hare) (4:48/4:58) mixed with Clychau Aberdyfi (The Bells of Aberdovey) (5:51); Dafydd y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock) (8:38/9:12); Rhyfelgyrch Gwyr Harlech (Men of Harlech) (13:54/14:50).

addendum

You know what I forgot to mention about the Lou Harrison centenary concert?

Pianist Sarah Cahill's iPad failed on her, twice. This was the one she was trying to read her piano part from, so it was kind of vital. She provided commentary on this: it had just been charged, it was on 99%, and it still died.

Fortunately the violinist also had the piano score, so Cahill borrowed that.

Lesson: Put not your faith in technology. Especially if you're playing the low-tech work of Lou Harrison.

another Lou Harrison centenary concert

I couldn't resist this. I don't count myself a big fan of or expert on Lou Harrison's music, but I've always enjoyed listening to it.

A full slate of tasks and errands to do on Wednesday, plus a heavy rainstorm, made the trip up to the city seem wearisome and tightly-scheduled enough that I thought of skipping out on it, but in the end I applied the General Grant theory of how to get somewhere (just point yourself in the right direction and go), and since where I had to be was just outside a BART station at the unusually late starting time of 8:30, it worked. Indeed, the introducer thanked the audience for coming out in the heavy rain, which makes a change from introducers thanking us for coming out instead of watching some sporting event, which they invariably do when possible.

The performers were a passel of folks I know from Garden of Memory and other newer-music events: pianist Sarah Cahill, violinist Kate Steinberg, William Winant and his Percussion Group, and the more conventionally respectable Alexander String Quartet. So we had small-ensemble chamber music pieces for piano, string quartet, and parts of the previous combined with various percussion instruments, including a full gamelan, which occupied large swathes of the stage. This led to exchanges like this, when Cahill as emcee of the show asked Winant to explain what he'd be playing:

CAHILL: So these are rice bowls?
WINANT: Yep, everyday rice bowls in various sizes. Played with chopsticks.
CAHILL: Where did they come from?
WINANT: They came from Lou Harrison's kitchen. So did the baking pans over there.

As with Lou's teacher Henry Cowell pressing his forearms on the piano keyboard, or his fellow student John Cage fastening small bits of hardware to its strings, this found-materials battery - which also included a set of auto brake drums Lou salvaged from a junkyard - produced not a raucous din but gentle tinkles and washes of sound. Of all the attractive pieces, the best was a 1986 work called Varied Trio, for violin, piano, and the assorted percussion. As in some similar Cowell pieces, one performer or another would sit out some of the brief movements.

The concert was overambitious in one respect: intended to last 60-75 minutes, it went close to two hours, which is a long time to go without an intermission, especially after 8:30.

Ursula K. Le Guin: speaking for myself

Oh very well. Buried among my un-uploaded web files, I found one of my collected Le Guin book reviews, and another of the introduction to her work that I wrote when she was Mythcon Guest of Honor in 1988. I prepared these when I first put up a personal web page in the early 2000s, but I never loaded them, I'm not sure why. Oh yes, I remember why I didn't load the essay: it was already seriously outdated by then, and I meant to add annotations, a la UKL's own reprinting of From Elfland to Poughkeepsie, but I never did that either. Well, I'm not doing it right now, but I can put the files up.

So here's what I had to say about the living Le Guin, and it will speak for what I wish to say now.

The 1988 introduction, unrevised.

The reviews, except for:

Gifts, Voices, and Powers, which I had already uploaded for some other commitment.

And lastly, a favorite recent Le Guin quote, from the essay "Living in a Work of Art", on her childhood Maybeck home, from her recent collection Words Are My Matter. Here's a variant on Hide-&-Seek that I didn't know, but admire the ingenuity of:

Does anybody play Sardines any more? For Sardines, you have to have a large house, quite a lot of people, and darkness. One person is It. Everybody but It waits noisily in one room, long enough for It to find a hiding place somewhere else - under a bed, in the broom closet, in the bathtub, anywhere It pleases. Then the lights go off, and separately, in silence, everyone hunts for It. When you find It, you say nothing: you simply join It in the hiding place. If that's a broom closet there may be room for quite a few; if it's under a bed, there are problems. One by one other humans find the site, and squash themselves into the sardine can, and suffocate giggles, and try not to move, until at last the final hunter finds them and they all burst free at once. It's a good game. Our house, with its endless nooks and corners, was a perfect Sardines house.