Weirsdos Come Home

In response to Mall Diva's Christmas card in the last post, Karen writes, "Your daughter Sylvia is an awesome photographer, as well as one hellava graphic artist! Surely she could sell her Christmas card design to any number of snowless-state stationary stores on the numerous exits of Interstate-10."
Thanks a lot, Karen. We are gratified to see that Mayuko Fujino, a professional artist of our cyber-acquaintance, favorited it on Flickr. But when we took a bunch of these cards down to the local used book/coffee shop hot spot, the owner said Mall Diva needed to do fancy handwriting to make them saleable. Whatever. Mayuko Fujino's opinion means way more. I think Mall Diva undervalues her artistic talents. For her, art is just a hobby, but I sometimes think I shouldn't have distracted her from it with all the music stuff.
Anyway, here is a sketch Mall Diva made of her friends and her at Bowdoin International Music Festival, whence she returned the day after Toyplayer and I returned from points west. Enjoy.

Weirsdos Westward II: Happy Holidays

A Mall Diva Christmas card.

After Tulsa, Toyplayer and I headed up to Kansas City, where we played cards, Scrabble, charades, and hang man and watched THE INCREDIBLES, CARS, and WALL-E. Grandma Weirsdoer had never seen THE INCREDIBLES and CARS before, and she liked them a lot. We also took her some of Mall Diva's inimitable stationery, because we had noticed she had run out.
The visit was nicer than usual because Grandma Weirsdoer's roommate had stolen some meds and had to be hospitalized, so she was gone, and the roommate before her had left a DVD-player and TV, so we didn't have to be out in the big room with everybody as much. Also, they have moved the smokers farther away from the building, and I think they are taking fewer of them, so second-hand smoke is not as much of a problem as it used to be.
Our home away from home was the 54th Street Grill and Bar, where Toyplayer consumed many a Devil's Den Burger, and I enjoyed Boulevard beer and great salads.

Reader Response III: Bach to School

Note the original instruments (no chin rests on the violins and violas, no endpin on the cello, funny looking bows) and the Baroque pitch--lower than A=440, which is standard now.

In response to the preceding post, RBUD noted the similarity between Vivaldi and Bach: "I am just noticing how much Vivaldi sounds like Bach. Has anyone else ever noticed this? Is it just the instruments? Autumn sounds to me like it would be at home among the Brandenburg Concertos."
Bach's dates, 1685-1750, roughly correspond to the Baroque period, RBUD. Further, whereas many great composers are innovators, Bach was more of a culmination of all that came before. Thus you may well hear similarities between Bach and Vivaldi, Telemann, Corelli, and many other Baroque composers in Bach's music. (Handel, who was a contemporary of Bach, seems to me more distinctive.)
I am no musicologist, but I would say that on the whole Bach's use of harmony and counterpoint is more sophisticated than that of his predecessors. A particular weakness of Vivaldi and Telemann seems to me to be their use of sequences, that is the same pattern begun on consecutive notes, which can be very repetitious and predictable. In Vivaldi's defense, however, he often wrote for children, since he worked at a school for wealthy, illegitimate girls. Sequences are pedagogically useful because while each requires a distinctive set of finger movements, the ear can relate new sequences to the pattern, which allows students to check whether they are in tune or not. Sequences are also useful in teaching phrasing, as they are easily identifiable and should usually be played with crescendos or decrescendos.
weirsdo

Reader Response II: Back to Music School

In a late response to RBUD's lament regarding his knees in the autumn of life, I cited the poem that accompanies the first movement of Vivaldi's Autumn. I was reminded of this not only because the word that RBUD was redefining was "autumn," but because the scales in the first movement represent grape harvesters who have been sampling the finished product too heavily and keep falling down.
Karen then helpfully linked to two versions of Autumn on YouTube, the one above, with authentic Baroque instruments and a recorder soloist, and this one (just the first movement of the concerto), with modern instruments and Itzhak Perlman on the violin solo.

She wanted to know my thoughts on these.
Neither is my favorite, Karen. If I had to choose, I guess I would take the recorder version. The tempo is sprightly, and I like the feel the original instruments give to the sound; but Vivaldi wrote it for violin, and in my view a recorder just doesn't have the sophistication of tone that characterizes the violin in any age and makes people love it (not that there's nothing to love in recorders, and of course I may be biased).
I normally like and admire Itzhak Perlman, and I do not know whether or not he harbors the animosity toward period instruments and performance practices that have rendered his friend, Pinchas Zuckerman a scandal in the classical music realm and, I hear, prevented good students from winning in contemporary competitions. But this recording, with its logy tempo and rich vibrato, seems to me to substitute romantic anachronism for the purity and vitality that one can hear in the recorder version.
I had to look around a bit, but here is Gidon Kremer doing what I consider to be a good version on modern instruments, but with a sensitivity to Baroque performance practices.
Let me know what you think.

Reader Response I

People seemed interested in the Panamanian gold figures. I didn't think the link did them justice, so I picked out some more. I couldn't find my favorite frogs, though.



--weirsdo

C. J. D.'s Gyro Query Answered

C. J. D. wanted to know who these gyros Toyplayer had fallen in love with were. A friend of mine once said, "Gyro meat is to lamb as particle board is to wood." I believe this video confirms his view:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I think it is called "gyro" because of the way they turn the cylinder to make the meat, but that's just a guess. Anyway, as you can see from the photo, it's gyro meat, tomatoes, and tzatziki sauce (made from yogurt), with lettuce and onions optional (and eschewed by Toyplayer). All rolled in a pita wrap. What's it called in the UK, by the way?
One other note: the more conservative of my Greek boyfriends in grad school told me that it is important not to confuse the vowels in "tzatziki," as "tzitzaki" means "goat" in Greek, and is used to refer to a woman who can't keep house well. Not that they're sexist or anything.

Weirsdos Westward I

Toyplayer and I recently returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Weirsdo grandparents. We went on a lot of outings with the Grandparents Weirsdo, including visits to the Phillips (as in Phillips Petroleum) mansion in Tulsa (now the Philbrook Museum) and the Phillips ranch outside Tulsa (now Woolaroc, combination museum and wild animal park), as well as to the Gilcrease Museum and the Tulsa Historical Society.
This picture of Custer's Last Stand (not necessarily historically accurate) is from Woolaroc, but we saw a LOT of Western art at the Gilcrease Museum as well.

I think my favorite Western art is landscapes like this one by Thomas Moran, who studied with Turner. The Gilcrease also had a fantastic exhibit of Panamanian gold (be sure to look at more than just the first couple of images in the slideshow: the artistry is amazing, and the style unique).
At the Philbrook, we enjoyed the building itself (like an Italian villa, with new wing tastefully added behind and beautiful gardens that were far too hot to walk in), the collection (including beautiful Renaissance paintings), and a special exhibit of Rauschenberg works. (Well, I enjoyed this last, and I think Toyplayer did too, more or less. I can't say as much for the grandparents.) Unexpected was a disturbing exhibit of photos of slave castles, structures I had never heard of before.
At the Historical Society we were interested to see pictures of the Brady shoe store, general store, and hotel. Tate Brady is my mother's step-father's father.
And at Woolaroc we enjoyed driving through the grounds and looking at the animals,

then going into the museum to take in a magnificent hodge-podge of Western art and artifacts.
As always, we ate well, thanks to the generous hospitality of the Grandparents Weirsdo and eateries of Tulsa. Toyplayer and I went to one of our favorite restaurants alone, however. The Submariner Sandwich Shop is a little hole-in-the-wall in a strip mall, but it is family run, with good Middle Eastern and American food, and Toyplayer is in love with their gyros. It is just a tad too informal and exotic for the Grandparents Weirsdo, who stay home and have sandwiches and jello.

Special On at Steak Through the Heart!

In response to the preceding post, the Cheesemeister wrote, "Of course my knee-jerk reaction is that all Nazis should be made into lunch specials at Steak Through the Heart. It would be a fitting end to them." Sadly, we have no Nazis around to give their response to this, thus providing "balanced coverage." Hamster Brittney of the Netherworld did want to let everyone know, however, that Steak Through the Heart has a Sour Kraut Lunch Special on RIGHT NOW. Hurry in and discover a whole new way to appreciate Nazis.

Weirsdo Explores Further

In response to the previous post regarding National History Day projects sympathetic to Nazis and the concept of "balanced coverage" as explicated by Masterymistery, the Cheesemeister wrote, "Both of you have valid arguments and this is a great illustration of balanced discussion and debate. It is something we see far too little of these days."
Indeed, Cheesemeister, I'm not sure it's even a debate. I agree that the idiots responsible for rewarding these projects were probably swayed by the concept of "balanced coverage," and I think M. M. and I may agree that allowing Nazis to have their say and investigating their point of view might be valuable, though I can't tell for sure. I also think we would agree that, as in the instances of balanced coverage M. M. adduces, a full understanding of the issue should not lead to the conclusion that such fringe views have an equal claim to validity!

Masterymistery Explored

In response to the preceding post's concern over pro-Nazi exhibits at National History Day, Masterymistery writes,

Weirsdo, I think part of it is similar to the "balanced coverage" issue, in which all participants have equal standing irrespective of whether it's merited.
Using the example from your post, it's the same syndrome that would see Hitler and a holocaust survivor being given "equal opportunity" to express their respective views.
Or another example: an interview on the subject of childhood vaccination involving a professional medical practitioner and a misinformed parent who has read something on the Net to the effect that 1 in a trillion children develop adverse effects.
"Balanced coverage" is a worthy goal, in the appropriate context. But when it's at the behest (as it so often is these days) of an ignorant, uninformed, ethically challenged journalist in search of ratings, it can be highly un-productive.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I actually believe that it is right to give Nazis the opportunity to express their views (otherwise how will we know how horrible they are?), and I don't even think it is wrong to investigate whether or not Nazis were unfairly treated. I certainly think it understandable that naive and uninformed students might believe this was a subject worth pursuing. My problem is with the parents, teachers, and most of all judges responsible for supporting projects that concluded the Nazis were inhumanely treated, projects that won first, second, or possibly third prizes in their states and were consequently exhibited in a nationwide competition. My overall argument in the post was that judges too often seemed uninformed and overly swayed by factors other than historical accuracy and how well informed and balanced the students' presentations were.