Monthly Archives: December 2008

Some more love from NY Magazine:

8. Alarm Will Sound
The energetic ensemble Alarm Will Sound, conducted by Alan Pierson, doesn’t hop from program to program but develops its shows over months. Its last undertaking culminated in an evening called “a/rhythmia,” where they played an orchestration of a player-piano piece by Conlon Nancarrow— one that couldn’t be performed by human hands.

Word up NY Mag, we love you too!

Finally, 7 years after the fact, we hear of some good that came out of the tragedy of 9/11:

[Eric Roth] whipped up a [Forrest Gump] sequel back in 2001, one that would continue with the story just two minutes after the original ended, and handed it in on September 10, 2001. Then came 9/11, and it was decided that the sequel was no longer relevant. “The world had changed. Now time has obviously passed, but maybe some things should just be one thing and left as they are.”

God bless the cigar-chomping executive who made that fear-based, but exalted, decision.

Yay no more bad John Lennon overdubbing!

(disgusted shiver…)

I think this pop-up banner, over the music player, of classmates.com (what is this, 2001??), really highlights what Myspace is secretly trying to say to people: “We’re the new Friendster. We’re at the point where we’ve begun losing money and we will make your experience progressively more sucky until we consist only of teens from Indonesia. Thanks for playing. Enjoy Facebook for the year or so until it too joins the social networking purgatory.

I think this pop-up banner, over the music player, of classmates.com (what is this, 2001??), really highlights what Myspace is secretly trying to say to people: “We’re the new Friendster. We’re at the point where we’ve begun losing money and we will make your experience progressively more sucky until we consist only of teens from Indonesia. Thanks for playing. Enjoy Facebook for the year or so until it too joins the social networking purgatory.

Gurf points to conservative criticism of Obama’s cabinet appointments as being ‘too elitist’:

The Ivy-laced network taking hold in Washington is drawing scorn from many conservatives, who have in recent decades decried the leftward drift of academia and cast themselves as defenders of regular Americans against highbrow snobbery. Joseph Epstein wrote in the latest Weekly Standard — before noting that former president Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College — that “some of the worst people in the United States have gone to the Harvard or Yale Law Schools . . . since these institutions serve as the grandest receptacles in the land for our good students: those clever, sometimes brilliant, but rarely deep young men and women who, joining furious drive to burning if ultimately empty ambition, will do anything to get ahead.”

The libertarian University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, who is not related to Joseph Epstein, worries that the team’s exceptionalism could lead to overly complex policies. “They are really smart people, but they will never take an obvious solution if they can think of an ingenious one. They’re all too clever by half,” he said. “These degrees confer knowledge but not judgment. Their heads are on grander themes . . . and they’ll trip on obstacles on the ground.”

If you’ll excuse my zeal:

Fuck. Off.

If there is one dumbass notion in America that needs to die a painful fucking death it’s that the people in charge of our country should be expected to have a healthy amount of ‘street smarts’ or ‘small town cred’.

No.

No, they don’t.

They could have handlebar moustaches, monocles, and a glass of cognac worth more than your family surgically grafted onto their fucking jewel-encrusted hands for all I care. If they are the most qualified to lead the country then they should lead. I don’t want a White House Chief of Staff I could have a beer with. I want a White House Chief of Staff that will pour a fucking beer on my head, tell me I’m an insignificant nobody, and then go help fix our messed-up-ass country, get it?

Maybe I’ve been listening to too much Webern recently but look, populism has its place. Sometimes I want a greasy meal at the Waffle House, sometimes I want to listen to bad radio pop, but down-to-earth populism has little relevance past communication for matters involving the governing of our massive country. I want geniuses running this country, straight up.

We tried the average Joes.

Didn’t work out so well, did it?

Keeping the same theme as my last post. Hey, it’s Saturday. You don’t want anything serious, do you?

-via TheBrownDump

I suppose I should feel excited about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and perhaps it is just my overbearing cynicism that overshadows any true optimism about this, but there’s just something vaguely unsettling about it. It’s hard to place a finger on, but I’ll give it a shot.

It’s kinda like Grandma making a YouTube video. It’s cute, you appreciate she figured out how to work the thing, but there’s something faintly depressing about it. Yes, it’s nice to see Grandma up on the internets, but does she belong there? Wouldn’t you rather see her just making cookies or something? Ya know, something Grandma-ey?

Ok, my analogy is stretching a bit, but here’s the deal. I’m often wary of sensationalist actions and events that seek to thrust classical music into the mainstream, even though many of them are made with the sincerest best of intentions. Similar attempts were made with The Disney Orchestra (which many of my friends were in) and Mr. Holland’s Opus. What did they do? They made a bunch of people feel warm and fuzzy, but their actual effect is questionable. These projects seem aimed more at stirring the guilt of the public for its glaring lack of support than they do at attempting to produce great art or creating a lasting effect on the consciousness of our society, a consciousness that – perhaps unconsciously – views classical music as something arcane and elitist.

Still, I felt kinda warm and fuzzy reading about Tan Dun’s and MTT’s efforts, two genuine forces for good in the classical music world. But you know what else made me feel warm and fuzzy? Charlie Bit My Finger.

My optimistic side tells me that the culture of YouTube is the perfect thing to encourage art and music in young people. As kids, my generation (and all before mine) grew up relatively isolated with our artistic endeavors. Young people now have endless avenues to explore, share, and learn about theirs; it’s the kind of encouragement we could only have dreamt of. Whereas I grew up hiding my classical music side from my friends, young musicians can now seek friends and support in their musical lives with YouTube as their primary tool.

So is it a movement or a Google P.R. move? Or both? Can the classical world be saved by a serious of stunts? I mean, we can pretty much rule out any great art coming from this project, yes? Something tells me Tan Dun’s “Internet Symphony No. 1 — Eroica” (yes, that’s the real title) ain’t exactly gonna be something for the music history books.

What I’d rather see is a long-term investment. A site connecting students and teachers via video, or live-streaming. The creation of an online infrastructure connecting young musicians who could support and collaborate with each other. Something that would benefit many as opposed to the few.

My worry: thousands of young musicians are going to make videos of themselves for this project. 99% of them are going to be assed-out. About a hundred people are going to have a badass time playing a big show at Stern. How does this help the classical world as a whole, aside from publicity? Wouldn’t a better project be something that would help the culture – the musicians, not just the winners of an audition?

Maybe it’s just the classical music world’s first shot at finally doing something with this crazy internet thing. Yes, at its core the whole idea is very old-fashioned. But maybe it’ll be good for Grandma. Maybe just what Grandma needs is to get herself up on her feet to dance around for a bunch of people. Maybe that will get her confidence up so she can actually do something worthwhile. :)