Vanitas Vanitatum

Continuing on about Jazz, Art Tatum is one of those great players who will play more notes than you ever thought imaginable.

Willy sums it up very nicely here.

For your listening enjoyment, listen here. This is "Have You Met Miss Jones" performed by Art Tatum. I don't think he ever met my old piano teacher. She'd probably wonder what color he was imagining as he played.

But why Vanitas Vanitatum? Itunes is great like that, searching for what you want you end up with something completely different. I always chuckle, while listening through all of my Pablo Casals, suddenly I'm listening to Petey Pablo. There's something completely different. ("Vanitas Vanitatum" is a Schumann Piece for cello and piano.)

Daily Reads

Haven't seen this make the URJ website yet. Wonder why. 

Candy Bomber!

Israel and Iran. 

Reading Roundup

Happy Birthday to a hero. 

Everyone's reading George Eliot these days. 

I like his columns so far. This one's good, too. 

Flying Pig

I got my official digital pictures from the Flying Pig Half-Marathon that I ran on May 3. The Flying Pig race is a big Cincinnati event. It was very well organized and I really enjoyed it. 

I wouldn't be all that excited about the finish time but maybe it's more impressive if I tell you that, due to starting line traffic and first mile bottlenecks, the official clock read 20:00 at mile 2. So, I must have really started spinning my wheels to make up for that somewhere. 

In these pictures you'll see that I have my ipod on, but I actually didn't listen to it until mile 11 or so. I was too engaged in plotting my strategery in all the race traffic, and trying to make sure I at least got ahead of the people in piggy ears and pink tutus. 

I was anxious about the snacks, expecting maybe bacon flavored Gatorade, but I didn't see any pig stuff until the post-race expo down by the river with all the vendors. But I would like to mention one water station sponsored by Smuckers. Most water stations have gatorade, and sometimes orange slices or banana chunks, which are hard to eat while running. This one had little teaspoons of peanut butter, followed by little spoons of jelly. Brilliant!

Reading

Fun, explanatory video on the budget. 

In the mail. 

Faith and tolerance.

Well, I really liked the book. 

More on the awareness of true evil (see link to Roger Simon a few posts back). 

One Quiet Night

Recently, "One Quiet Night" showed up in my mailbox. This is it too.

I had been meaning to get this album for quite some time on the recommendation of jazz guitarist I played with only on a few occasions. I got "Bright Sized Life" back in the summer/fall just as I moved out to California. Even though music by Pat Metheny and even the Metheny Mehldau record has been in my collection for some time now, I never really paid much attention to it until this past year.

"One Quiet Night" is by no means a new album, but that doesn't mean it isn't still good. It is Pat Metheny solo on the baritone guitar. You might think, "Really? It sounds like he's already down two points." But he manages to pull it off, I think. Having the baritone guitar allows him to hit lower notes than if he were on a normal guitar, thus he produces a much fuller sound.

Overall, the album is mellow, but that doesn't make it boring whatsoever. As is typical, Metheny's compositions are harmonically rich making them a pleasure to listen to. Anne said that when she listened to "Bright Sized Life" she claims to have just fallen asleep. Yes, I think that Metheny's music just has a mellower aspect than say Oscar Peterson, but just about anything will if you've only had 4 hours of sleep.

Just as with most jazz performances, what makes them interesting is not usually the tune itself, it is what the performers do with the tune. By contrast, if you compare playing a tune like "All the things you are" and playing one of the Mendelssohn string quartets. If both performances were played with strictly the notes on the page, hands down, the Mendelssohn quartet would be more interesting. That's because there are about 20 notes actually written for "All the Things you are." What makes the performances comparable is how the jazz is interpreted. For example, Oscar Peterson would make more notes come out of a piano than you would have ever though possible, Brad Mehldau plays it in 7/4 time, Keith Jarrett would have the most long-winded phrases, and Pat Metheny would play it slower, smoother, and just prettier than everyone else, cherishing every note he plays (I think). And that's kind of how, "One Quiet Night" comes across.

Reading

The awareness of evil leads people to religion. I can't remember right now where else I've read that, but I know I have. 

I agree that the RAC is taking the wrong stance. For my views on school vouches and school choice, view the Milton Friedman Choir singing about it on my sidebar links. But I wish Commentary hadn't labeled their post that way. The RAC really does not speak for all of Reform Judaism (even if they think they do). If an Orthodox political action group had taken a particular stance, I wonder if Commentary would have labeled the post "Orthodox Judaism says....." such and such. Again, I agree with the substance of the post but wish there had been a bit more sensitivity with the headline. I will also admit that I am probably somewhat  hypersensitive on the point. 

Bet it was fun to be a student in his class. 

California

Reason # 27 why California is just great:

If you think you are strange, there's always someone loonier.
Cyclecide

Lone Survivor

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Marcus Luttrell give a talk at the Cincinnati Library. The event was held in the lobby of the downtown branch, and it was packed - standing room only. I was very glad to see this. 

Luttrell and three of his teammates were part of Operation Redwing in Afghanistan in 2005. They were on a reconnaissance mission high up in the Hindu Kush mountains and were ambushed by over 100 Taliban fighters. His three teammates were killed and Luttrell was severely injured - I think he mentioned that his pelvis was broken, at least one of his legs was broken, he had been shot in the back, and he had bit his own tongue in half after being tossed off the mountain by an RPG blast. Then he endured torture at the hands of the Taliban, who found him after he was taken in by Afghani villagers. The first rescue mission was shot down by more Taliban fighters; the second rescue mission took six days to get to him. This is the very bare bones story. The book is fast-paced, conversational, and well worth the three to four hours it will take you read it. I think I first read the book in 2007. Before I read this book, I don't know if I quite understood what a hero was. I know I didn't understand that we still have them today, in America. 

Luttrell is a recipient of the Navy Cross. His fallen teammate Mike Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor. After multiple surgeries and time to heal, Luttrell actually went back for another 7 month tour in Iraq. 

I had seen a clip of Luttrell on the Today Show.  Luttrell understated his injuries and the trauma afterwards, as is typical of SEAL modesty and humility, and didn't elaborate any more than he had to. So I didn't expect the enthusiastic, very funny, and very affable man who took to the podium last night. I certainly didn't expect the Texas twang which flowed at a mile a minute, yet was completely understandable. I suppose he had to talk fast, to get that whole story in an hour. By the way, Luttrell also speaks Pashtun. 

The man who introduced Luttrell set a great tone for the evening. He opened by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls..." and I thought, who says boys and girls anymore? How delightful! He continued, "....and I am glad to see young people here tonight because it is important that you learn about bravery, honor, and courage. You will learn about it tonight." I was very glad to hear such....well, old school values being promoted. No worries about whether the boys and girls would be damaged by hearing such gruesome accounts, and/or by seeing a man who had killed a lot of Taliban, and proudly, and was about to talk about that in some detail. No, the attitude seemed to be that the earlier children learned about this, the better. I agree. I don't think the SEALS go in much for self-esteem benefits. 

I'm not going to completely recount his talk because most of it is in the book. I'll recommend the book once again here. It really changed my perspective about what real dedication is, and how incredibly brave and honorable some people are. And that I should, um, probably quit whining about my hangnail and my really hard final exams.  

But I have to share a few highlights from his talk because they are so darn funny. As I said, I hadn't expected to laugh while hearing about this very sad, and very inspiring account. 

•Luttrell frequently used a phrase that I liked a whole bunch. To make sure that we were on the same page, instead of saying "Am I clear? Is that making sense?" Luttrell always said, "Y'all pickin up what I'm throwin down?" Loved it. 

•He said that before starting BUD/s training, they all had to take psychiatric evaluations..."That's just to make sure that we're crazy. You really do have to be, to be in this program."

•A man walked up to the stage about five minutes in to say that they couldn't hear in the back. Luttrell switched mikes, then said "That was a bold move, sir. Coming up here like that. You bout got yourself shot." This got a big roar of approving laughter. 

•His father told him and his twin brother that he expected them to be in the military for some time after college, with the reasoning that "Before yall exploit this country, yall are gonna serve it." He grew up near Huntsville, Texas.

•The attrition rate is pretty high for the SEALs training - I think he said out of a starting class of 200, only 14 made it, or something close to that. He said the best stories always come from people who didn't go through SEALS training. "I mean, I could probably kill you with my thumb, too, but it'd take a while, so I'd just rather shoot ya, you pickin up what I'm throwin down?"

•"People talk a lot about gays and the military these days....lemme tell you, there's definitely no homophobes in the SEALs. We were always so cold so we loved getting as close as possible to each other. If another guy said he had to pee, while we were in that Pacific ocean water, we'd swim over to him just to share in the warmth."

•On when he and his teammates were happened upon by some local goatherders, one of whom almost accidentally stepped on his rifle butt: "That upset me so I stood up and - you know, if you want to get someone's attention real quick and they have a big long beard - just grab that beard hard, and pull it towards you. That's what I did." This is really good advice. 

•When he was being kept by the Afghani villagers (and tortured by the Taliban every night) he said his favorite part of the day was when the village elder came and gave him a big green putty ball to chew on - opium. "Look, I was pretty beat up, but when I had that stuff, I felt like I could run all the way home to Texas. Now I know how they do it - those suicide bombers. You feel like you can just fly, or do absolutely anything."

He ended his talk, somewhat abruptly, with his rescue by Army Rangers ("I can't believe I was saved by the Army"). He said after that there's a whole 'nother story but that's not what he was there to tell. He knows that veterans, and especially SEALS, normally don't like to talk about what they've been through. He just made a promise to God, while he was getting shot down the side of the mountain, that he would make sure his friends and their bravery was never forgotten. He was there last night just to tell their story. 

I didn't get pictures because there were many, many, many people who had known that they had to get there early enough to buy the book and get a special letter to get a place in line. I would have had to wait until all of them had gone through the line (probably 2 hours?). It was still a great privilege to hear him speak, in person. 

Himmelfarb's new book

I was pretty excited to get my new book in the mail last week. Gertrude Himmelfarb's book, The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot, promised a combination of some favorite interests: George Eliot, Judaism, Himmelfarbian political views. All that's missing is the Navy (and actually, that's in there too, sort of)*. 

The book is an easy, quick read and of course, very enjoyable. Himmelfarb is a great writer and doesn't put in any academic/scholarly/deconstructionist analysis sort of hooey. I don't think it is at all necessary to have read any Eliot in order to understand and appreciate the book. I think she does an excellent job of summing up the main points and memorable segments of Daniel Deronda, which is the main book being discussed here. 

I had a big pile of sticky-markers to mark sections that had new and /or exciting points, as I usually do when I read. But I actually didn't mark anything until about halfway through. This is because, as I mentioned, there is a lot of recap. Not only of Eliot's novels, but of her journey in reading various philosophers - which means, a lot of recap of your standard 19th and 18th century Western philosophy. 

I think Himmelfarb does a nice job tracing Eliot's intellectual path to come to learn about Judaism, but in the end doesn't really answer the question why. Oh well. It's an interesting path nonetheless. 

I started really perking up when Himmelfarb points out that even though Mordechai is the predominant Jewish figure, the book is named after Daniel. Why? "Judaism, for her, although unique in its faith, its people, and its history, was of a whole with the culture and history of mankind...this is why Deronda the disciple, not Mordecai the prophet, is the eponymous hero...Deronda embodies the wholeness of Judaism, retaining the virtues of the English gentleman while discovering and abiding by his true faith as a Jew..."

Well, I've been up to my ears in readings on Moses Mendelssohn and Leopold Zunz in my prep for final exams this week, so this certainly rings a bell, somewhere, on something. 

The epilogue is really the best and most interesting part of the book. For example, Himmelfarb wonders how else a book about Jews would have been written by a typical person informed by Victorian attitudes toward Jews. Himmelfarb thinks it is more probable that a hero would have been someone like Klesmer - a "rational" Jew who is cosmopolitan and progressive. But for Eliot, "Her Jewish question was not the relation of Jews to the Gentile world, but the relation of Jews to themselves, to their own people, the beliefs and traditions that were their history and their legacy. This Jewish question was predicated upon a robust Judaism...not a defensive, beleaguered Judaism but an affirmative, even an assertive one."

Well, I certainly like that idea of Judaism too, and I think Deronda embodies that. But then I feel that she starts to exaggerate the point, when she brings in Nathan Sharansky.  In comparing ideas from Nathan Sharansky's tract Defending Identity with various letters from Eliot, Himmelfarb finds that both seem to have the idea of "Judaism as a communal faith finding its expression in a national identity." Both the character Deronda and Sharansky came to discover their Jewish identity rather late, and both were excited to find that belonging to a common world or nationality "gives strength not only to community but to the individual as well." 

This reminded me of how Himmelfarb took a turn in an essay on the Reform Act of 1867, in a collection called Victorian Minds. The essay is mainly about Disraeli, of course. By the end of the essay Himmelfarb is vehemently asserting that Disraeli and his move to pass the Reform Act was far from an anomaly but in fact was -and is-  the very essence of political conservatism. And that in fact conservatives have always been about being flexible and not too ideologically-bound compared to liberals, in any context, and so on and so forth.  I got the sense that Ms. Himmelfarb might have been relying too much on contemporary political views in defending past political heroes. 

That isn't to say that I didn't fully enjoy both that essay and this book and those particular areas of concern. I actually agree with them, pretty much. But I think that under hard scrutiny, there might be a few too many holes. 

Deronda was the first book by Eliot that I read. I was absolutely amazed to find a Victorian novel that was periodically dotted with quotes from Zunz and the Talmud. I was also delighted by the beautiful language and amazingly pin-point descriptions of Eliot (you think to yourself, yes, that's just the way it is sometimes, isn't it?). When I came to the famous pub scene with Mordecai and his buddies, I was blown away. Why is this not standard reading amongst liberal Jewish leaders? 

*Okay, here is the sort-of connection between all this and the Navy. Disraeli, who may have in some way been an influence on  Eliot's choice of protagonist (same three-syllable D name, Jewish, dark complexioned) appointed Sir Joseph Porter to be First Lord of the Admiralty in his government. Porter was mocked because he apparently had absolutely no experience with ships or the Navy whatsoever (he started out as a newsboy). Porter was probably the inspiration for the Admiral in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic HMS Pinafore. While Queen Victoria's reaction to the operetta was supposedly "We are not amused," Disraeli was in fact highly amused and started calling Sir Porter "Pinafore."

And Himmelfarb notes that "this insistent moral theme, 'that idea of duty,' pervaded all of Eliot's novels...Indeed, it became her trademark." It's true, Deronda gets a bit annoying in this way. The same way that Ralph Rackstraw, from that same operetta, is comically annoying in his insistence on duty. You see where I'm going with this? I'm not entirely sure either. 

But I do know that I grew up in a family odd enough that, at an early age, the children knew many of the lyrics to HMS Pinafore. Then I joined the Navy. Then I read a lot of books about Disraeli and by George Eliot. That's really all it is. 

Not In Kansas

Glen Elder State Park

Over the past week, I drove some 1300km around Kansas looking at field sites for an upcoming VLF recording campaign. We surveyed a bunch of sites to find optimal sites for when we return at the end of the month to do more detailed and precise recordings.

Our receivers are designed to effectively record all electromagnetic radiation in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 30 kHz (the VLF frequency region). We are interested in two sources of radio noise, sferics, or the impulsive signal that comes from all lightning strikes, and VLF transmitters like NAA or NPM. These transmitters are operated by the Navy.

The primary objective of the recording campaign is to capture the waveforms of many sferics and characterize them such that we can learn information about how far they have traveled in the Earth-Ionosphere waveguide and what may have perturbed their propagation in the waveguide.


This picture is from somewhere in Kanopolis State Park, KS. I actually know EXACTLY where this is, I just can't tell you.

Who knew Kansas was dotted with State Parks? I sure didn't. Almost every lake or reservoir has a small State Park attached to it. Just big enough for a few horse trails and some campgrounds. And hopefully a VLF receiver.

Condiments.

My family knows of my serious aversion to ketchup. Not just on hamburgers. Anywhere. 

On hamburgers, I prefer guacamole as the condiment. But I can deal with a mustard-decorated Whataburger. 

'Brothers at War'

I saw this movie about a month ago - had to schlep all the way over to Dayton, to the movie theater closest to the Air Force Base, to find it. It was definitely worth it. I'm glad to see that Kyle Smith rates it a "good to go" as well. 

Smith mentions how the film has some real "psychological complexity," both in regards to the soldiers and in terms of the Rademacher brothers' family dynamics.  Smith comments on a scene in which a bunch of "trained death dealers" return from a 5-day surveillance trip on the Syrian border - and unwind by watching The OC. 

One section of the movie follows an American soldier who is in charge of training a group of Iraqi policemen (or maybe they were with the Iraqi army? I wasn't sure.). Anyway, it sure looked like one of the most frustrating jobs out there. But what really impressed me was not just the difficulty of the job, but how the U.S. soldiers gave it their all, were proud of the Iraqis for any bit of progress, and truly believed in them. It showed some serious heart and dedication.

The opening sequence nicely captures Rademacher's personality and the way that following these impressive servicemen and women can give one's perspective a necessary tweak. Jake (the filmmaker) is talking to a U.S. soldier and says, "Yeah, see, a bad day for me is like, there's no cream cheese for the bagels out on the craft services table..."

Later in the movie you get the rest of that conversation. The same U.S. soldier finds a dead Iraqi citizen in the middle of the road, where the Iraqi policemen/army was supposed to have been patrolling. He says, "Yeah, see, what's your worst day like? This is my everyday...." (I'm obviously paraphrasing and trying to remember from a month ago). 

Go see it, if it's playing near you. 

Review

The Wall Street Journal book review of Willard Spiegelman's new book Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness was so good and enjoyable to read itself that I immediately ordered the book from Amazon. 

The book is short - just under 200 easy pages - so I was able to read it pretty quickly. I was very disappointed. I found the book unbearably elitist and condescending. I mainly got the impression that Spiegelman would be happy if only he could live in (pick: Venice, Copenhagen, Bavaria, New York, etc, you get the idea), and go to world-class art galleries all day. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the unenlightened backwater of Dallas, which is inhabited by knuckle-draggers. But if you happen to live in a big eastern seaboard city, or can regularly attend ballroom dancing classes, there might be a chance for you to find happiness with compromising your intellectuality. 

The book does, as the review says, focus mainly on the point that one can be an intellectual and be happy, at the same time. But I don't see this as a big revelation. In fact, I think that assuming the opposite is pretty silly. It's sort of a silly argument for a whole book. 

I was also intrigued by the review because of the subjects that Spiegelman picks to write about: writing, reading, walking, swimming, listening - all things that I already enjoy doing. (except swimming in indoor lap lane pools.) So I thought it would be pleasantly self-affirming to read about how they give others pleasure, too. 

He did make a few points that I liked, and I'll list a few. 

•In recounting the joys of translating the classics from Latin, he writes that "the study of Latin accomplished something that my studies in English and French had failed to do: it made me aware of how poetry actually works. My native language did not have the same effect on me; because I understood it, I mistakenly thought that I could read it less carefully." My experience with biblical poetry confirms this. 

•He likes to read while eating. Me too. 

Okay, on to a few places that show why I was put off:

•On walking - "Dallas, TX, my latest residence, offers plenty of resistance to walkers...it is mostly physically unappealing, and it is hot..." and he follows up by contrasting how awesome a time Kierkegaard probably had walking around in Copenhagen, instead. There are some very pretty parts of Dallas - White Rock Lake, for example. I think it's enjoyable to amble along quiet streets in Highland Park and admire the landscaping. My mom, sister, and I, and even the dudes, love taking walks in Dallas. We have a quiet and beautiful neighborhood, with lots of big shady trees, to walk in. We like checking on the turtles in this one little backyard pond halfway through. Spiegelman refers to the opening scene of Mrs. Dalloway in which the said Mrs. goes out to get the party flowers, and how she waxes about the smell of lilacs: "For someone like me, so long resident in Texas, the mere fact of lilacs in redolent bloom and chestnut trees (both species unavailable in Dallas) gave a promise of sensuous bliss." Spieg, you are trying to write a book about happiness, right? So why the complaining about what you don't have? Why don't you also appreciate the southern mountain laurel or magnolias? 

•The rest of his stuff about walking is mainly how great walking is in Venice. I bet it is. But something about going on and on about how great it is to walk in old European cities doesn't quite jive with the premise about ordinary happiness, to me. I had expected to see, maybe, the joys of taking an early-morning walk in the suburbs, with squeals of little kids, smells of breakfasts, etc...

•He writes briefly about how he is an atheistic Jew, but that he likes going to Quaker meetings. He writes, "Even a religious Refusenik like me has been known to enter places of worship, for a wedding or funeral..." Gee, how kind of him. And how irritating to refer to atheism with the term Refusenik. The suffering that the real Refuseniks endured because of their religion.....

•On listening to music: His favorite example of how a visual production matched the music was this one: a 1976 production of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, "performed on a mostly bare stage and opening with the nuns in their habits splayed facedown on the raked floor in the form of a cross. The opera ends with an ascent to the scaffold as the huddled women  sing their final prayer to the Virgin and march to an invisible guillotine..." I do believe he was serious. 

•In his chapter on "listening," he discusses playing music at some length, but doesn't seem to make any distinction between the two activities. Odd. 

•Finally, he is impressed that the Quakers are allowed to convene in Dallas, "in the land of guns, in a state that loves the death penalty." I doubt that any Texans love the death penalty. Some might think it is necessary. That's a very different thing. And to say otherwise is just plain mean. In the beginning of the book he quotes The Nichomachean Ethics: How does one become just? By doing just deeds. Who does just deeds? The man with the sense of justice. (He does follow this with a quote from Legally Blonde. Another early tip-off). Anyway, he uses Aristotle's reasoning to apply to happiness: you get happy by doing happy things.  What's the point of his condescending snark about the people who fund his university? It made me unhappy. 

What made me happy again was the arrival, on the following day, of Gertrude Himmelfarb's new book, The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot. 

The evening reads

Wow. This sure is a must-read. Addresses: Jews and classical music, Jews and the draw toward radical leftism, Rosenzweig....

Far from a coward - at least now. 

On a very different note - did someone say beauty pageant scandal?

No, not the one we've been hearing about on an endless news loop. 

Doom

History of doom-mongering....

Looks like an interesting book, but I dunno, it's just that doom-mongering seems like it can be so much fun. 

Put on the Fools-cap and Grin....

Ross Douthat's column on the Arlen Specter Switch addresses the issue of politicians and their supposed principles. Well.....

I recently finished Adam Kirsch's excellent new biography of Benjamin Disraeli.  The Specter spectacle reminds me of what Disraeli said upon becoming Prime Minister: "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."  [Although, from what I've read elsewhere, Specter might actually be slip-sliding down that greasy pole. ]

For example, the way that Disraeli rather easily gave up his fight the Corn Laws, after so vehemently fighting Peel on the issue, "seemed to justify the charge that he had never cared about them at all, but merely used the issue for his personal advantage...To the very end of his life, Disraeli was regarded by his foes, and sometimes by his friends, as essentially an opportunist." (from Kirsch). 

But, I mean, what is the business of politics, after all....?

From Disraeli to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda ( not so great of a leap):

"'Confound it, Dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these things in public?....If you would seize an occasion of this sort to make an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time...'

'I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir,' said Deronda. 'But I cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession.'

'Why not?....the business of the country must be done...'

'I don't want to make a living out of opinions,' said Deronda; 'especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other men. I daresay many better fellows than I don't mind getting on to a platform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honour for a party...'

'I'll tell you what, Dan,' said Sir Hugo, 'a man who sets his face against every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable fellow. There's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good style - one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas...It's no use having an Order in Council against popular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little acting.'

'One may obliged to give way to an occasional necessity,' said Deronda. 'But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am forced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and in another to buy a pocket foolscap and practise myself in grinning. I can't see any real public expediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public man I might mistake my own success for public expediency.'"

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, Arlen Specter.....

Different Tastes

This one's for the sister:

Maybe I'll go see the movie after all. 

and this one's for the Dad. I know you like this stuff. Ew. 

Old Music Review

Just to get some of that up here, too. This is a from a good while ago......

I really enjoy going to chamber music. It gets better and better the more you go. Maybe its because it is always such a joy to actually hear the real instruments, hear real acoustics and not your speakers. Maybe it is because you know that it is a complete escape: you are guaranteed not to see anyone you know there, yet still have a great time. However, there is still something to be said for getting to hear some of the most dramatic, beautiful, and sometimes just your favorite tunes played by the best musicians.

There was no bitter pill to swallow with the Kalichstein, Laredo, and Robinson trio this evening. They put on an excellent concert featuring Beethoven and Shostakovitch, thats it. They opened with a Beethoven apparently composed for a young student of his, which I had never heard before, but it was wonderful.

They then played Shostakovitch Trio Op. 67. You should listen to it again. It is perhaps one of the most dramatic pieces written for piano trio. It is definitely one of my favs, and I have an excellent recording of the Trio Wanderer doing it. I did not realize that the opening of the andante is played such that the higher pitched notes are actually played as harmonics on the cello while the lower tones are just the lower register of the violin. It definitely explains the peculiar quality of the sound and eerie texture that you hear in that opening. Mr Kalichstein, the pianist, was kind enough to say a few words before they played this piece describing some aspects of the piece. He said that Shostakovitch was very aware of politics and the world around him, and this was often reflected in his music in subtle ways. This particular piece was apparently composed just after he learned of the Nazi concentration camps. I don't know if this is true, but it sure is a nice thing to say and a great motivation for the very heavy mood of the piece.

The one thing, however, is that they moved through the large, high gravity chords that begin the Largo (and allegretto) sections perhaps a little too quickly. They moved faster than the Trio Wanderer's recording, which I think doesn't do justice to the weight and foreboding nature of those chords.

They concluded with the Archduke trio by Beethoven, which was simply marvelous. The real talent of the KLR trio is in their ability to completely control the weight and texture of each note, and do it together. I remember one phrase in which the cello and the piano were so completely together, and that they were playing exactly the same tone and feel of staccato from their respective instruments. Beautiful.

However, I had the unfortunate luck to sit next to the biggest Boob in the audience. I thought that as you got older, your sense of etiquette and respect for others improved. Not so with this fellow. He was fidgitier than I was when I was 8. Every minute, he shifted his weight around, moved to scratch himself in such a way as to produce the most noise. And then his watch went "beep beep" three chords into the Largo section of the Shostakovitch. He even had the audacity to check his cell phone for messages during the first movement of the Beethoven. I almost smacked him. I can't believe that his wife sitting on the other side of him let him get away with it too.

Furthermore, it was the strangest professional concert setting I have ever been to. They played in some side theater at the Mountain View Performing Arts center which was really a theater space that they had brought risers and chairs into and covered the floor with tasteless black matting of the variety that you would normally find covering something like a basketball court when it is being used for some event other than basketball. Needless to say the venue was not acoustically excellent nor beautiful, it was surrounded by the typical black theater curtains. Can the city of Mountain View, home to Google, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and many others I'm sure, not afford to build a first class performance venue?

As usual, I was by far the youngest person in the audience.

Feynman and, maybe, Maimonides

Dave sent me this quote a few days ago, along with a video he made. He's a little tied up in preparations for a secret gold-digging trip to Kansas (was that too much info, Dave?) but I wanted to get it up here, anyway. 

"I have asked you to imagine these electric and magnetic fields. What do you do? Do you know how? How do I imagine the electric and magnetic field? What do I actually see? What are the demands of scientific imagination? Is it any different from trying to imagine that the room is full of invisible angels? No, its not like imagining invisible angels. It requires a much higher degree of imagination to understand the electromagnetic field than to understand invisible angels. Why? Because to make invisible angels understandable, all I have to do is alter their properties a little bit- I make them slightly visible, and then I can see the shapes of their wings, and bodies, and halos. Once I succeed in imagining a visible angel, the abstraction required- which is to take almost invisible angles and imagine them completely invisible - is relatively easy.

[skipping some stuff]
"When I start describing the magnetic field moving through space, I speak of the E- and B- fields and wave my arms and you may imagine that I can see them. I'll tell you what I see. I see some kind of vague shadowy, wiggling lines-here and there is an E and B written on them somehow, and perhaps some of the lines have arrows on them."

-Feynman (Vol. II 20-8)

Alternatively, it kind of looks like oobleck.

www.stanford.edu/~straussd/oobleck.avi

[end note from Dave]

The quote sort of reminded me of some things I've been studying for my theology exam - in particular, the notes I have from a class on Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed: that ""As to His essence, the only way to describe it is negatively. For instance, He is not physical, nor bound by time, nor subject to change, etc. These assertions do not involve any incorrect notions or assume any deficiency, while if positive essential attributes are admitted it may be assumed that other things coexisted with Him from eternity." Unrestrained anthropomorphism and perception of positive attributes is seen as a transgression as serious as idolatry, because both are fundamental errors in the metaphysics of God's role in the universe, and that is the most important aspect of the world." 

I suppose the reason the Feynman quote reminded me of this was the common theme of the limits of language - perhaps also the ultimate limits of our own imaginations and cognitive abilities.