The Fredösphere

With two Alex Ross sightings under my belt, I can spot a trend. Alex's trademark look turns out to be coat but no tie. I'm not sure if the choice is aesthetic, practical, or political but he's gone tieless every single time I've seen him.

The latest event was The Rest Is Noise Stadium Tour, at Rackham Auditorium (not Michigan Stadium). Too bad Alex didn't post more snapshots of Rackham on his blog; it's one of the most intriguing buildings on the campus of the University of Michigan. Named after a major benefactor of the U, the building is noteworthy for its dignified neo-classical/moderne stylings and the not-to-be-missed shrine to Horace Rackham, a smallish oval sanctum sanctorum located close to the very center of the building. (A plaque on the wall informs the visitor of Horace's humility. No kidding.)

Alex's side-kick was the impressive Ethan Iverson, a pianist completely comfortable demonstrating the disparate styles of the 20th century. The day ended on a fun note (no! Twelve fun notes!) when Ethan asked members of the audience to shout out notes randomly to construct a melody that would become the theme for his concert-ending improvisation. An aggressive woman was first, shouting out "A double flat!" I thought, yeah, remove about 20 years of maturity from me, and I'd being doing the exact same thing.

On the drive home, the Wifeösphere and I speculated just how much of the improvisation was truly improvised. I suspect much of the form and many of the rhythmic gestures come from a "bag of tricks", which is de rigueur for such people. (Organists, especially, are expected to be able to improvise from a melody with no preparation, but few can do it as well as Ethan.) I admired the smart trick Ethan used to warm himself up to the melody, as it were: he began with a short, repeating pattern in the middle register and very slowly rang out the melody in the lowest register of the piano. The notes were so low, they were harmonically disassociated from the accompaniment. Voila! It didn't matter what the notes were. That arrangement could work for any melody at all. Neat.

My favorite line from the book made the cut and was quoted during the talk: the part about one needing a security clearance to understand Milton Babbitt's music. I was rather pleased with the Babbitt piano music Alex and/or Ethan chose for this show, and it changed my view of the old master of bleep-honk-snort.

Another surprise was the Ligeti (Alex pronounced it LIH-guh-tee; the rest of us better fall in line and stop treating it like a faux-Italianism: no more lih-JET-ee) which was quite dissonant, but showed a spark of wit I found very appealing. I have no doubt further listens will spread my love, something that hasn't happened so much for me with the that Ligeti vocal music made famous by Kubrick's 2001. Maybe the Ligeti piano piece was not as purely atonal as the example of serial music Ethan played, or maybe my implacable distaste for Schoenberg has something to do with the man's humorlessness. He certainly has a reputation for arrogance; am I hearing that attitude in the music? Is that possible?

So, I wonder how Alex feels, being on the receiving end of this review (assuming he notices)? The most entertaining part of his talk quoted (complete with verbal impressions) various bumptious critics, pro and con, reacting to Sibelius, who was, even by the extreme standards of our modern times, a polarizing figure. (I'm with Alex on Sibelius: pro.) Alex must be continuously aware of the possibility that a critic as high-profile, as prolific, and as quotable as himself must have expressed a misjudgment somewhere that a future Alex Ross will dredge up with relish. (Hmm. Dredge. Relish. Bad metaphor, bad!) Ah, well, we all have our occupational hazards.

Labels: Culture, local, Performance

Saturday, 23-Jan-10, 9:20am We enter the school. I'm surprised at the lack of crowds; already this is looking better than last year. I am holding a cane-sugar-sweetened Mexican Coke in a tall bottle of real glass, thus signaling I am not to be triffled with. Der Drübermensch checks in.

9:30am I chat with my friend Daryl. He, his wife, and son are the only people I know here. Soon they are distracted by tournament administration, however, and I am left alone. The first of many stretches of time to kill presents itself. I am not afraid. I am armed with novels, histories, notebooks and music manuscript paper. I know how to kill time. I am the time slayer. I will teach time to fear me.

10:10am Der Drübermensch's first game begins. I walk to the other side of the room. Der Drü has asked me to stay close by in past tournaments, but I see no other parents hovering today. I decide he has probably outgrown it. Also, as this is a local, non-rated tournament in a familiar location, the pressure is less. It is very unlikely I will need to kill a fellow dad out behind the school in a bare-handed contest of family honor at any time today. If I die, I die for points.

10:25am I glance up from the stage at the end of the caffetorium. From across the room I see Der Drü make a move. Did he just capture a queen?

10:40am My optimism was unfounded. Der Drü looses his first game. As is typical at this level, it was a war of attrition. In the end, his army of pawns was no match for an army of pawns plus one rook.

11:10am 2nd game. I think about Light, a novel by M. John Harrison, which I finished reading in the interlude. A literary SF novel; high probability of being my kind of book. Sheesh, what a chore to read. What Terry Teachout would call an eat-your-peas aesthetic experience.

11:35am Der Drü loses the see-saw battle. This is his first game ever that was truly close. His queen and support staff were converging on the enemy king, but his opponent's pieces were similarly deployed. In the end, it felt like Der Drü was simply one move behind. Check-mate on a crowded board.

11:45am Pizza. I try the new Domino's for the first time. They weren't lying. I move their pizza out of the Inedible column, into the Reasonably Good column. As I am loyal to the local company, this feels satisfying.

12:25pm Game 3 begins and the tournament is, incredibly, ahead of schedule. I begin reading René Girard's The Scapegoat. The sudden shift to a sympathetic author is bracing. I do not like you, M. John Harrison / I do not like green eggs and venison. (Note to self: edit out this self-indulgent crap later.)

12:50pm Loss #3. The first frustrating game for Der Drü, since it was played on a tiny board and its unfamiliarity made him overlook a line of vulnerability.

1:15pm Pizza slice #3. This is boredom eating. I run into Daryl; he and I discuss Bay Bucks, Social Credit Theory, and Chestersonian Distributism.

2:35pm Der Drü, on the cusp of his first win! But, what is this? Why won't he capture that knight (his enemy's last powerful piece) and finish the kid off? Why, having promoted a pawn, does he start promoting another? Is he toying with the poor kid?

2:50pm A break, and a dad is subjecting his son to a post-mortem. "What's your move here?" Silence. "Look. At. The. Board." Yikes. And yet, I can sympathize, although I generally confine my yelling to the inside of my head.

3:05pm René Girard's thesis emerges: myths are records of acts of violence against scapegoated outsiders: panics, persecutions & pograms in times of pestilence. Interesting.

3:10pm Round 5—or is it? why is the tournament director ordering all games halted? Where did Der Drü go? Ah, here he comes. All is well. The games begin.

3:18pm The Scapegoat, borrowed via inter-library loan, is marked on every page with notations. Who are these markers, these defiling scribblers in books they don't own? Makes me want to assemble a mob to find these offenders and subject them to some persecution.

3:42pm Game 5 is a chessathon. Der Drü ahead, then behind, then ahead again! Now, nothing but kings and pawns on the board. And just like the ending of that Searching for Bobby Whatshisname movie, Der Drü and the pint-sized Evildoer sitting opposite him are marching pawns down the board. Said pawns arrive in consecutive turns, just like in the movie! No joke. And now, Der Drü extends a hand, graciously offering a draw. That movie, again! Unlike that snotty little fool from the movie, my son's opponent accepts the offer. Stop searching, gentlemen: my son, the new Bobby Fisher, is alive and living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Labels: Culture, CuteKid, local, Mythos

The Collage Concert is a showcase for ensembles and soloists of the University of Michigan School of Music (and Theater & Dance, as I must start calling it since that's what it's been called for years now). It began as part of the annual Michigan Music Educators conference, but has endured even as the conference has found a new home. Professor Emeritus Gustav Meier is credited with bringing the collage concept to Ann Arbor. As a student I performed in it but had not been back as a spectator ever, until last Saturday.

The concert's format is simple to describe, but terribly difficult to pull off: the final note of each piece overlaps with the first note of the following piece. Using light cues, the eyes of the audience are directed to various parts of the stage as (for example) wind ensemble is followed by piano soloist is followed by jazz band is followed by a marimba quartet is followed by choir is followed by brazilian singers and drummers are followed by the school's cast of Evita . . . etc., etc.

Think of the planning nightmares! There's the politically delicate task of choosing soloists and ensembles such that each department gets a chance to show off. Then there's the insane job of choosing music such that coincident starting and ending notes are consonant (yes, they do impose that requirement on themselves).

The show is simply the most densely entertaining thing I've ever seen, even more than a Michael Daugherty opera. It perfectly accommodates modern attention spans. Even music chosen from the most rigorous of the bleep-honk-snort schools of composition becomes a welcome diversion. And, if you truly hate what you're hearing, the consolation comes immediately to mind: this too shall pass, in about four minutes from now.

I'm already recommending next year's Collage to all my somewhat-but-not-very-classically-inclined friends. I hope I never miss another one.

Labels: local

I interrupt the criminal neglect of my duty to my widespread blog audience (hi, Aunt Virginia!) to report on a trip to the Big House.

Michigan Stadium and I have experienced a rocky relationship, one consisting of a few hours together followed by more than 20 years of resentful separation.  My one previous visit remains a miserable memory:  packed into a row that was overfull before we squeezed into it; a complete inability to see the field, not to mention the players; enjoying only passes in a game that contained all too few (this was Bo Schembeckler's three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust era); and--worst of all--a growing suspicion I was in the presence of tens of thousands of fools, since attending a UM game was obviously a fool's exercise.

I'm honestly befuddled by the dramatic difference between that experience and Saturday's.  Although in the end zone, our seats gave us a perfectly fine view.  Getting into the stadium took time, especially because skybox construction interfered with some of the stadium entrances, but my expectations were so low, they were exceeded magnificently.

I would not have chosen to return to the Big House were it not for Der Drübermensch's pleading.  My fine young 10-year-old sports fanatic had been dreaming of this day ever since attending a tailgate party fund raiser for his boychoir last fall, where he found out that UM football is a very, very big deal.

Like the devout of all other religions, practitioners of UM football worship attend carefully to its rites and rituals, eschewing any deviation from tradition.  Of all details, I was most charmed by the gleaming white gloves worn by director Scott Boerma, which must have been a real sacrifice on what was a warm late summer day.  Note in the photo the band with its line of tuba bells; the student section behind them can be seen by the line of demarcation where the yellow shirt-wearing students end and the fatcat alumni in their center-field seats begin.  Note the luxury skyboxes towering above, which, even in their incomplete state, make the ancient press box look seedy by comparison.

Football is the stuff dreams are made of, and not doubt many in the crowd envy the (true) freshman quarterback who lead the defeat-weary UM team to a convincing victory.  Others might envy coach Rich Rodriguez whose name the crowd chanted.  For me, my moment of envy came late in the game when Neil Diamond's voice blasted from the speakers:

Sweet Caroline!
[ooh-ooh-ooh!]
Good times never seem so good

and 109,017 voices sang his song with him.  They'll be singing it long after the men of the gridiron are broken down old men, and forgotten.

Labels: Culture, local, Religion, Sports

Saline (emphasis on the second syllable, please), Michigan hosts a Celtic Festival every summer.  Think Renaissance Fair and you'll get the idea:  the creative anachronism crowd, but with more bagpipes.  We attended for the first time this year.  My impressions:

• The jousting competition was very satisfying, even if there were only three competitors. This is an expensive, high-commitment, weird, and rather dangerous sport.  I got the impression if one walks away from a tournament with only a few bruises and a sprained wrist, one considers the day a success. The time spent cantering and colliding is a small part of the whole; the riders spend a fair amount of time walking their horses into position. This means there's plenty of time to talk to the crowd, and inevitably trash talk has become an integral component of the entertainment. Also appreciated was the judge/master of ceremonies/FAQ answerer, a dead ringer for a bearded Jeremy Irons.  No fatalities, sadly, something that can happen when a splinter of balsa wood impales the brain via the eye slit.
• I couldn't help but notice the base drummer with obvious African ancestry among all the redheads in the pipe & drum bands, especially since he brought to mind the cover art from this sad, dreadful movie.
• Once again, the local high school provided instrumentalists, and by backing them up with a thumping electronic rhythm section, made them listenable from the point of view of the average audience member. See my previous paean to the Saline Fiddlers: same principle.
• The food was disappointing. Domino's Pizza had a booth, along with some Italian sub thing and a tent selling Hawaiian chicken of all things, and maybe I should have gone with one of those.  Instead I went to the trailer selling authentic Celtic food.  The Welsh pasty might have been good when it was fresh, but it sat around long enough for the puff pastry to turn dry as a Judge Bork martini. Sucker that I am, I obeyed the hype and also ordered a can of "Scotland's other national drink," a soda pop named Irn Bru that tastes like orange baby aspirin.  Not terrible, mind you, but definitely sub-fabulous.  Ah well, the Walkers shortbread cookies at the end redeemed the meal.
• People from the Society of Creative Anachronism really, really don't mind taking the time to explain their coats of arms.

Labels: Culture, local, LovableOddballs

My friend Jeremy experienced high levels of excitement in his life yesterday involving the recovery of a lost cellphone.  He was quite eager to share his story with readers of the Fredösphere, and I am only too happy to oblige him.  Enjoy.

So my wife "lost" her cell phone, which happens from time to time. This time we hadn't found it in over 2 weeks and I was starting to get annoyed/worried.

On a whim, I called today and it RANG. Now a cell phone doesn't ring unless it's connected to the network. It goes straight to voice mail otherwise. After ringing for a while, it went to voice mail....

At this point, my first thought is that a Good Samaritan picked it up, dusted it off, plugged it in, and was hoping someone would call to claim it. So I called back. A male voice answers and the conversation goes something like this:

"Hey! You have my wife's phone!" I say.
"Huh?" he says
"You have my wife's phone! Awesome! Who are you? Where are you?"
"Who is this?" he asks
"This is Jeremy"
"Who's your wife?"
"She's Jackie and you have her phone"
"Jackie?"...

Er... Huh? What just happened? Immediately I call back, assuming we've been cut off. The call goes to voice mail after one ring.

OKAY, I think... The phone was stolen. But it wasn't stolen by someone smart.... It was stolen by someone who would actually PICK IT UP.

Now I'm on a mission. I'm curious who this guy is, where he is, how he wound up with the phone, etc. Guess what? AT&T has a new feature: FamilyMaps! I add Jackie's phone to the plan (free for 30 days thank you!) and quickly locate the culprit to within 1/2 a mile. HE STILL HAS THE PHONE ON.

Well, now that I have some idea that the phone is still within 15 minutes of home, I figure I might as well try to call the guy back. The second conversation is even more odd:

"You have my wife's phone, I'd like it back" I say
"Who are you?"
"Jeremy"
"Who is your wife?"
"Jackie"
"You want to know how I wound up with this phone?"
"Listen, I really don't care too much how you wound up with the phone, I'd just like it back, no questions asked"
"You don't care?"
"Hey, I'll even throw in a $10 finder's fee"
"$10? I have to come up with $40?"...

Once again... Huh??? Why did he hang up? What $40? I personally figured that paying him $10 to get the phone back was fine since the phone insurance deductible was $50 so anything less than that and I'm saving money.

So some time passes... I'm not entirely sure what to do. He isn't calling back, he keeps hanging up... How to I converse with this guy?

LIGHT BULB: Text message.

So I sent the following:
"You have 2 options:
1) I call the police
2) You give me back the phone, recover some of your losses, and you're free and clear."

He responded with (and I quote):
"Yea can cum get da phone"

Okay! Now we're getting somewhere! I ask for his address or a place to meet. He responds with:
"Meet me n west willow on calder ma dads is a state police just 2let ya knw n he is wit me rite knw n a under cover car so cum on"

In English:
"Meet me at the West Willow Church near Calder St. My father is a State Police Officer just to let you know, and he is with me now in an under cover car. Make haste."

Now I have a place to go! Woo hoo! So, I went. I personally figured that if he had to make up something about a State Police officer father, he was probably more scared than I was.

So I headed over with $10 in my pocket. It turns out that West Willow Church isn't ON Calder, nor is there a street named West Willow, but I called our friend and he directed me once I got to the neighborhood. Remember, I knew where he was because of FamilyMaps :-)

I pulled over to the side of the road near where he was standing, popped out of the car, and said:
"Hi, thanks for meeting me"
"This is your phone?"
"Yes, my wife's"
"You sure?"
"Yes, quite sure"
"You got my money?"
"I do. Here you are" at which point I pull out the $10 and hand it his way. It's about here that I notice the switchblade knife he has in his other hand. Blade out. "$10? You said $20" he says
"No, I said $10" and I leave the money extended.
"You sure this is your phone?"
"Yep. What's the knife for?"
"Just so you don't try anything funny"
"Ah"
"Take off your shirt!!"
"What?"
"Take off your shirt!"
I realize he wants to check me for a WIRE. Now I don't know what TV shows he's watching, but wearing a wire to catch a guy who has a CELL PHONE? Seems a bit much. I lift up my shirt, but don't remove it.
"Nothing there" I say
"This really your phone?"
"Sure is"
"Ah hell, I don't care" and he takes the $10 and hands me the phone.

It's pretty obvious he's scared out of his mind... So I figured I might as well see if there's anything more interesting to the story of how he came about having the phone. I presume most of it is made up, but the story he told is that "some guy" was going to prison and asked him to hold on to his phone while he was there. Our pal, being the nice guy he is, said "sure thing" and proceeded to make about 500 minutes of phone calls on it :-) He also answered quite a few calls for "Jackie" and was kind enough to inform them that she no longer had the phone.

He asked me if the guy who went to prison was my son. Since Cameron is 9 years old and at school, I was pretty confident with my answer of "no".

We parted ways. I never got his name, I never even asked.

So there you have it. My cell phone adventure.

The phone itself was in great shape. It had been completely wiped of anything related to Jackie and had a new address book for people like "Tay" and "Dads". I promptly reset the phone and now Jackie is going to have to answer calls for our friend for the next several weeks.

Oh, and I never did see his dad, though maybe he was VERY undercover.

Sorry for the length. I think I remembered all the good stuff :)

Jeremy

Labels: fun, local

The Vocal Arts Ensemble of Ann Arbor, they who lately gave me my latest premiere (of The Moon That Dreamed of Earth) are performing Menotti's The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore on May 9.  The piece is a bear and illness has left them desperate for more baritones.  In spite of that, director Ben Cohen asked me to join the group for this performance, something I was overjoyed to do.

I first became aware of TUTGATM through the miracle of modern television, believe it or not.  It was years ago, at my parent's home; I suppose that must mean I was in my late teens or early twenties.  No doubt it was a PBS station airing a performance, one that included dancers as is commonly done.  I was blown away by the spastic athleticism of the score (obviously Menotti was not taking his Ritalin) and the theatricality of the whole production—the semi-operatic work needs singers and dancers with a flair for drama.  After that magical night in front of the teevee it would be years before I heard of the piece again (and only lately that I purchased my first recording of the piece, downloaded via iTunes) but I never forgot it.

As you can see from the poster reproduced above, VAE will be joined by People Dancing.  Ben has told me some of his ideas for the performance, which includes dancers interacting with the singers on some level (I'm a bit fuzzy on those details, as was Ben at the time we had our conversation) and I can't wait to see what he comes up with.  You'll also notice Bill Bolcom will get a premiere in this concert also, Lady Liberty.  This will be my first chance to sing something written by the ol' Gorgon himself.  (And I say that with the greatest of affection.)

Labels: Choral, Composer, local

Forgive me, but I for one am not ready to sign on so glibly to the idea that monkey butlers are better than human ones.

Now that we have that taken care of, let's move on to the subject on everyone's minds:  money.  I've been amused by the Depression-era Social Credit Party ever since I first heard of it and its zany policies of forbidding the service of alcoholic drinks on commercial aircraft flying in its airspace (that of the province of Alberta, Canada) which imposed upon Canadian airlines unusual disciplines of timing.&nbps; More profoundly weird than that, however, was the party's share-the-wealth experiment in "funny money." Actually called prosperity certificates, these were intended to stimulate economic activity by depreciating the longer they were held.  Hoarders, beware!  (It would be interesting to learn just how closely the SCP is related to the similarly bipolar Minnesotan Farmer-Labor Party, and why one drifted into the respectable right while the other into the respectable -- can I say that? -- left, but I am not the man to tell that tale.)

In light of this, I was surprised and amused to hear that, in these troubled times, the idea of a currency with an expiration date has gained, uh, currency again with an example from Austria cited.  At the same time, my friend Victor informs me of yet another weird experiment in roll-yer-own script, the Traverse City regional Bay Bucks. 

What is it about cold, forbidding climes that encourages the printing of money?  Now even the moon is getting into the act.

Labels: Culture, local

We got word from the Ann Arbor Boychoir that our son, Der Drübermensch, would be needed for a special recording session on a Sunday afternoon.  The choir had been hired by John Higbie, a veteran visual effects specialist from Hollywood.  John recently moved to Michigan and is wrapping up post-production of his first directorial effort, a science fiction movie called Magic Mentah (previously called Amsteroid).  He wanted the boys voices to add Ligetiesque spookiness to some of the space scenes.

Science fiction and choirs?  In my own backyard?  Of course I wanted to find out more.  I attended the recording session and met John, an incredibly sane, likeable person (i.e., not what you expect in a movie director).  John's movie has been in post for some time now and he hopes to release it in 2009.  He'll work the festivals and he expects the movie to be available on DVD.  (When that happens, I'll let you know.)

I asked him why he chose science fiction as a subject.  He told me his experience in visual effects can be best put to use in that genre.  Since the movie's plot involves dead Egyptian gods as well as spaceships, I suppose a more precise categorization would be science fantasy.

The still you see here shows an asteroid in the shape of a human figure; that's one of the gods.  To the right is a transparent green brain.  In the clip John showed me, the brain rotates and approaches the camera, until you are close enough to see a live actor inside.  John has done an excellent job marrying the CG and live-action coordinate systems here; the two are linked seamlessly.  Clearly, the guy is a pro.

The big green brain is accompanied by the boy's voices:



If you had heard the original, you'd be especially impressed by John's mixing and filtering of the sound tracks.

John will be in Ann Arbor this Thursday for some filming.  If all goes well, I'll be interviewing him for the Starship Sofa podcast.  I've already discussed Magic Mentah on an earlier episode (Round Table No. 6; scroll down).

I'm terribly excited to see this kind of production happen in Michigan.  Magic Mentah is just the latest example of movies with modest budgets having a fighting chance at commercial success.  It reminds me of Primer, another SF film made on a budget of a few thousand dollars.  (Although, Primer did not have any visual effects that I remember.)   Definitely see Primer if you don't mind extremely obscure SF-al concepts bandied about with minimal explanation.

I'll be reporting again on Magic Mentah.  Watch this space.

Labels: local, movie, sci-fi, SoundClip

Neal Stephenson came last night to Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor to sign copies of his new novel Anathem.  He rocked, but I was especially interested in the crowd, which self-selectively skewed nerdy (of course) but also less unhip than you would expect.  All of the questions from the audience were coherent and succinct; a few of the more intense fans seemed to be bursting with the urge to make long, arcane speeches, but resisted admirably.  The signing line moved more than twice as fast as I estimated, and in general I found the crowd conforming to my personal preferences (for efficiency and public reticence) to a higher degree than any I can remember.  We Neal fans are ... special.

I'm kicking myself for being too reticent. One of the first questioners asked Neal a faith-n-reason question which was a somewhat more concise version of the question I wanted to ask.  The guy was wearing a tee-shirt with the slogan, "Opiates are the religion of the people."  Clearly, this is a kindred spirit, yet when I almost literally bumped into him in the store afterwards, I failed to start a conversation.  This lost opportunity drove me to self-loathing far more than my other loss of the evening, when I wasted all my one-on-one time with Neal explaining to him how to spell "Fredösphere" when he signed my copy of his book.

Labels: local, sci-fi

Michael Blowhard, drink your heart out:  I found another raw milk production shut-down story, and it's got a local angle.  I agree with the tone set by the author, who sounds open-minded but unconvinced about the possible benefits of raw milk and the organic movement generally (in my case, call me a full-blown skeptic of organic).  Yes, the crack-down is way out of proportion to the crime.

I received this link from my co-worker Victor, who just within the last month has become, uh, involved with the co-op mentioned.  He's not the only one drinking the milk kool aid among my friends...and I've been very tempted to join myself.  This issue isn't going away anytime soon.

Labels: Food, local

The Catholic Church:  they've made some ... changes.  (Tip o' the red hat to the Sci-Fi Catholic.)

Meanwhile...

I'm going to get all Alexy Rossy on you and muse for a bit about the health of orchestras in the heartland.  We spent the weekend with some friends in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on their advice attended the "Picnic Pops" concert of that city's Symphony.  This is not the kind of event I would choose on my own, and I admit the first half disappointed.  Grofé, Gottschalk:  the programming choices were neither canonical nor bold, but they did fit the New Orleans theme, necessitated by the guest appearance of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

PHJB isn't really my thing either, but they were at least compelling.  This concert gave me a chance to think hard about something I've been wondering about:  is Dixieland Jazz the only example of a truly popular countrapuntal style?  Where else do casual listeners tolerate so much independence of voices?  Is there a secret we lovers of counterpoint ought to learn and exploit?  These are not a rhetorical questions; if you have insight, please leave a comment.

The outdoor ambiance (on a ski slope) facilitated dancing, which really made the evening for my daughter and me.  Generally speaking, the best parts of the experience (landscape, picnic atmosphere, alcohol for those imbibing it, guest artists playing jazz at a very high level, kinesthetic interaction) had nothing to do with this idea that paying 100 instrumentalists to play together all at the same time is the right thing to do.  Still, the concerts are genuinely popular, and Grand Rapids has the corporations (Chase Bank) and the aristocracy (the De Vos family) to keep it funded, so bully to them.  I'll have to attend one of their regular concerts and report back.  (Hint to the GRS bosses:  Sibelius might lie at the exact center of the intersection of my and the popular tastes.)

One final bit of weirdness:  ever since reading the excellent Benjamin Britten biography written by Humphrey Carpenter, I can't help associating BB with Grand Rapids, since that city was, implausibly, bizarrely, the scene of ... well, apparently we don't know exactly what, but it was where ... oh, go read the book.  Still, the idea that this very conservative, very Dutch (Corrie ten Boom Dutch, not modern-day Amsterdam Dutch) town was destined to become a landmark in Britten's personal oddysey is something I couldn't quite put out of my mind as violinists sawed away, patrons sipped wine from plastic cups, the sun set, and my kids frolicked on a swing set off in the distance.

Labels: Counterpoint, Culture, local

No doubt I'm the last to find out.  The new movie Jumper was partially filmed right here in Ann Arbor.

Labels: local, movie

While at my parents last week, and on my mother's advice, we stopped at a used book store in the nanocity of Orland, Indiana.  The town is a terribly quaint and slightly melancholy place with a village green and an empty row of classic store fronts in a state of disrepair.  In the store I purchased two science fiction titles--it would almost be more precise to say I purchased the two science fiction titles--but the real finds were in the absurdly well-stocked classical CD section.

My music collection naturally reflects my tastes, which is to say, it is freakishly deep and narrow.  I own nothing by Beethoven, for example.  Let that sink in:  I own no recordings of any Beethoven music.  This was not planned; remember, I'm not on some kind of anti-Beethoven crusade.  (He's not Haydn, after all.)  Only in the last few years have I begun to aspire to stylistic omnivorousness.

The point is, it's not hard for me to find music I don't own.  For example, in Orland I bought the four Brahms symphonies and Handel's Water Music, plus a no-name group singing barbershop classics.  (There is evidence the quartet is Fred, but they get no credit on the cover.)  These are disks you might find anywhere.  But who would imagine finding disk with Le Sacre and Apollo in rural Indiana?  And imagine my excitement at finding a Chanticleer disk I didn't yet own.

I'm enjoying the Stravinsky especially.  I find it impossible to listen to Le Sacre; Apollo is first on the disk, and when its sane nobility completes, I'm so satisfied, I can't bring myself to shift gears into Le Sacre's grinding rhythms.

Lean your ear in close to the computer.  Do you hear that melody:  Duh-DA duh-DA, duh-DA duh-DA?  That's the first movement of the Apollo which I'm listening to right now.  As Bjork would say:  gorgeousness!

Labels: local

Fumes from newly refinished wood floors compelled the Fredöfamily to seek shelter at my parent's farm for a couple of days earlier this month.  The time away was slow-paced and enjoyable.  On Saturday my parents took us on a field trip to the surrealistically anachronistic Greenfield Mills.

In my adolescent years I hauled many wagonloads of wheat to Greenfield, so the visit stirred deep memories.  Just seeing the old, dorky slogan "New Wrinkle Four For Quality" preserved on the face of the main building like an artifact out of a time capsule was enough to stir deep and indescribable feelings in me.  Not all of them are positive:  old man Wrinkle could get grumpy if I delivered wheat with high moisture content, and I couldn't help taking it personally.

The mill produces and sells all kinds of flour products, but the truly odd side of the business is the electricity generation.  They are the smallest utility in the state of Indiana, serving only twelve customers.  Multiple generations of the Wrinkle family maintain the dam, the generator, and the transmission lines:  not your typical family business, to say the least.  As we toured the mill, I half expected to hear a lecture on the superior virtues of small-batch hand-generated electricity, how it was "richer" or "more complex" or "healthier" than the vulgar homogenized current produced giant corporate utilities.  I imagine the Wrinkles have cousins in Pennsylvania in the oil refinery business.

Labels: Culture, local

Leonard Slatkin is coming to Detroit? That's good news.

Labels: Culture, local