Category: Uncategorized

Responses to NPR’s Dropping World of Opera, Lisa Simeone Firing

A few responses to NPR dropping Lisa Simeone’s World of Opera because of her involvement in organizing protests in DC, and her firing as host of Soundprint for the same reason:

  • On his Baltimore Sun blog, David Zurawick says that NPR has a code of ethics and needs to enforce it.
  • Libertarian website Reason thinks that the lengths NPR goes through to prove its objectivity only emphasizes its editorial bias; better just to acknowledge it and let its employees be Prius-driving, yoga-loving, liberal lunatics. 

On a related note, Michelle Norris, whose husband is now an Obama 2012 advisor, recently quit her job as All Things Considered host to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.

Koyaanisqatsi and the "Crying Indian"

The so-called “crying Indian” ad is the most famous (or infamous) example of a patronizingly essentialist view of American Indians as environmental augurs:

I think Koyaanisqatsi is another. The only words you hear in the film are Hopi. Koyaanisqatsi means “life out of balance,” and the chorus that is part of Philip Glass‘s score intones three tribal sayings that can be interpreted as being warnings about the impact of human actions on the world.

It’s certainly not mean-spirited but can nonetheless be as limiting and de-humanizing as any cowboy-movie stereotype.

UB40 Goes Bankrupt

Well, at least it’s not an orchestra this time.

As reported in Digital Music News and the UK’s Daily Mail, UB40 recently declared bankruptcy. Lead singer Ali Campbell left years ago, alleging that the group’s management mishandled the group’s finances; I guess he was right.

Digital Music News points out that UB40 probably enjoys a “healthy royalty stream”–they’ve sold, apparently, 70 million records–but I don’t think anyone in that band ever wrote his own song. A couple of their famous covers:

What People Drink In the Famous Works of English Literature, Oliver Twist Edition

Gin and hot water seemed to be the cold-weather drink of choice for Dickens’s lowlifes in Oliver Twist. Mr. Bumble drank it, and so did Sikes. Fagin served it to Oliver.

Now that the nights are getting nippier, I thought I’d try it out. Let me tell you: gin and hot water is awful. It tastes like warm nail polish remover. Adding lemon juice helps, but not much. I found a recipe on Epicurious for a gin toddy that might be good.

I’m reading Treasure Island now, so I guess I’ll be drinking lots and lots of rum soon.

Philip Glass: "My Frontiers Are Behind Me"

In this short promotional video for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Philip Glass talks a little bit about his increasing interest in the classical-music tradition as a source of inspiration:

This has been going on for a while. Some people love his symphonies, string quartets, and the like; others don’t. Back in the fall of 2010, Robert McDuffie toured the country with Glass’s nod to Vivadli, American Four Seasons. In the Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein called it, “a Glass half empty.” Mike Paarlberg loved the piece, mostly for not sounding like Koyaanisqatsi.

Across the pond, two different reviewers for the same paper had very different opinions, as Richard Guerin points out. In the London Telegraph, Ivan Hewett hailed American Four Seasons as “classic art”; Michael White called it “unmitigated trash.”

Here’s the last movement. Decide for yourself:

Finally, Something the iPad is Good for

A couple of weeks ago, The Atlantic posted an article about the iPad’s usefulness as a replacement for hard-copy sheet music,  and included this video of James Rhodes making a big deal of his decision to go electronic:

About a year ago, Gizmodo expressed similar sentiments, declaring that the iPad is “perfect” as a sheet-music reader. Over at the Technology in Music Education blog, there is a review of music readers for the iPad. 

The music readers for iPads go beyond the gimmickry of Smule apps, but I’m sure there’s something disconcerting about relying on a computer in a performance setting. Paper music can blow off the stand, but if a tablet computer loses power, you’re out of luck.

A Mess of Mushrooms in Nova Scotia

Apparently, Nova Scotia had gotten a lot of rain before we arrived for our visit, creating perfect conditions (moist, dark, and cool) within Truro’s Victoria Park for mushrooms. This one was my favorite: 
This one was striking: 
There were a lot of this kind: 

Here are some others:

No one else seemed as fascinated by their presence as I was, but I just don’t remember seeing such an array of mushrooms in the park, or anywhere else in Truro. If you know the names of these, I’d love to hear from you. 

"So Short, So Tight": A Yuja Wang Sexy Dress Round-Up

I just spent the last hour or so catching up on all that was written about the form-fitting orange mini-skirt Yuja Wang wore earlier in August at a Hollywood Bowl performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The Well-Tempered Ear has a good discussion going. Worry Later notes that, when you Google Yuja Wang, the second autocomplete suggestion is “Yuja Wang boyfriend.”

For reviewer Mark Swed, the dress, “so short, so tight” was the triple-X highlight of his evening.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times (which cites some books on the subject of fashion and music), organist Cameron Carpenter, known for his own outrageous outfits, was quoted as saying that “What people are missing here is that Yuja might want to be seen to be making, as many us do, a personal statement without having played a note.”

WQXR posted a podcast and slideshow; flipping through the WQXR photos, it looks as if what is scandalous is youth.

There’s more on blogs hosted by the Washington Post and LA Weekly, and on the Los Angeles Times‘s Culture Monster blog.