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15 May
It is possible, though I doubt it (it is the whole point of this postlet), that LBD is a recognized term of art in these tinsel teasers on sign-on pages. (Remember the one, a few issues back, that reported Lorraine Kelly tumbling from her horse, whereas a newspaper had reported the story at least a fortnight earlier - not so much breaking news as breaking new ground for peddling old tat!)
For those not initiated (right trouser leg rolled up, etc.), I shall not spell it out*, though I was probably helped - when appeared words appeared to be missing in the headline - by the image below, because that would spoil the Fun of Who Is In The Know, i.e. who is manipulated into using some stupid expression or contraction, but merely continue with my would-be contentious proposition:
Is this a WAG** in the making, or an MCD (to refer gratuitously, for the sake of cross-pollination, to Pork and beef on the same plate) - what some might call a defining moment, when that unhelpful term is contracted to its initials?
Although many acronyms (and some contractions) are no easier to say than the original text, are we heading for A Contracting Universe (ACU)?:
With LSL, she skipped down the catwalk in an LBD, courtesy of NBC, and, after a VAC, went home for a NLS
End-notes
* Though 'skimpy' is already part and parcel of the 'L' of LBD. More asutute readers may surmise, then, that it does not represent London Bomb Disposal, Lesotho Bisexual Dilettantes, or Liverpool Ballroom-Dancing.
** An amazing acronym, not only because the words 'and' merits a letter of its own (after all, it was WMD, not WOMD (which might have been mistaken for WOMB, I guess)), but also two categories of women in a relationship (with a man) are brusquely yanked together!
In fact, though celebrities are not, of course, unfaithful or promiscuous, X's WAG could also be (in the other capacity) Y's WAG - KK, for example, is shown dating other men when, as far as I am aware, the man whom she married, and who alleged just weeks after that she had not been sincere in marrying him, has not yet been announced to have divorced her.
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Tuesday 15 May 2012
Monday 14 May 2012
The motto of Cambridge Drawing Society
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15 May 2012
It would be much funnier to have a Drawling Society, where you could hear a good Jimmy Stewart or even Tom Hanks (as a modern-style Drawler), but we have what we have.
A few things puzzle me about its recent publicity material:
* It begins by saying 'Art Exhibition / At the Guildhall / Cambridge Drawing Society / 1882 - 2008', but I cannot construe the dates, which appear to suggest that the Society has been disbanded several years earlier: overleaf, we are told, no more helpfully, that members 'are proud to maintain the century-long tradition of annual exhibitions in Cambridge'*
* The motto of the Society (at the top of that side) is given as Nulla dies sine linea
* Even if one could misconstrue dies as in apposition to lives**, not as a Latin word that is probably best known from Carpe diem (a phrase re-energed by that otherwise regrettable vehicle for the largely regrettable Robin Williams), it is clear enough what it means
* So to render it Draw a line every day oddly turns it into an instruction, when the Latin is clearly a statement, and, to my mind wrongly, focuses attention on the act of drawing, whereas the sentiment is one about time and of maintaining a habit, day to day, and one has to infer that line is to be made***
* The flyer directs us to Apelles, quoting a story about him that, maybe, I searched long enough to find, but hiding behind pictures in his shop-window to hear comments from passers-by, amongst the many anecdotes and accounts of him and his great technical skill (as no work of his survives the intervening 23 centuries (and we do not know definitely, except by reference to his having been said to be at the court of Philip of Macedon, when he lived), does not seem the best to have chosen to illustrate the motto****
* It seems that Pliny who is the so-called Elder is a major source for knowledge and appreciation of the abilities of Apelles, since we cannot see them displayed in any work: writing around the time of Christ, he would have spoken Latin, but I doubt that the motto, if authentic, would have been in anything other than Greek originally (Apelles is said to have been from the Greek island of Kos)
* It, too, expands the text, but what the Wikipedia® entry gives as a translation is, all in all, more accurate: Not a day without a line drawn
You never know, it could also apply to blog postings!
End-notes
* Actually, for what it is worth, I overlooked this comment: The first public exhibition took place in 1906 in the old Guildhall.
** As one teacher of English was said to have done with the Beckettt title Malone Dies.
*** The Wikipedia® entry goes into detail about a cobbler, one of whose comments (about how a shoe had been painted) Apelles heeded and remedied the mistakes, but whose subsequent comment about a leg earnt him a rude and surprising rebuff from the hidden painter.
**** Not least not to introduce, as if in a non-sequitur, the observation that visitors can write comments in a book, and vote for their favourite picture
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15 May 2012
It would be much funnier to have a Drawling Society, where you could hear a good Jimmy Stewart or even Tom Hanks (as a modern-style Drawler), but we have what we have.
A few things puzzle me about its recent publicity material:
* It begins by saying 'Art Exhibition / At the Guildhall / Cambridge Drawing Society / 1882 - 2008', but I cannot construe the dates, which appear to suggest that the Society has been disbanded several years earlier: overleaf, we are told, no more helpfully, that members 'are proud to maintain the century-long tradition of annual exhibitions in Cambridge'*
* The motto of the Society (at the top of that side) is given as Nulla dies sine linea
* Even if one could misconstrue dies as in apposition to lives**, not as a Latin word that is probably best known from Carpe diem (a phrase re-energed by that otherwise regrettable vehicle for the largely regrettable Robin Williams), it is clear enough what it means
* So to render it Draw a line every day oddly turns it into an instruction, when the Latin is clearly a statement, and, to my mind wrongly, focuses attention on the act of drawing, whereas the sentiment is one about time and of maintaining a habit, day to day, and one has to infer that line is to be made***
* The flyer directs us to Apelles, quoting a story about him that, maybe, I searched long enough to find, but hiding behind pictures in his shop-window to hear comments from passers-by, amongst the many anecdotes and accounts of him and his great technical skill (as no work of his survives the intervening 23 centuries (and we do not know definitely, except by reference to his having been said to be at the court of Philip of Macedon, when he lived), does not seem the best to have chosen to illustrate the motto****
* It seems that Pliny who is the so-called Elder is a major source for knowledge and appreciation of the abilities of Apelles, since we cannot see them displayed in any work: writing around the time of Christ, he would have spoken Latin, but I doubt that the motto, if authentic, would have been in anything other than Greek originally (Apelles is said to have been from the Greek island of Kos)
* It, too, expands the text, but what the Wikipedia® entry gives as a translation is, all in all, more accurate: Not a day without a line drawn
You never know, it could also apply to blog postings!
End-notes
* Actually, for what it is worth, I overlooked this comment: The first public exhibition took place in 1906 in the old Guildhall.
** As one teacher of English was said to have done with the Beckettt title Malone Dies.
*** The Wikipedia® entry goes into detail about a cobbler, one of whose comments (about how a shoe had been painted) Apelles heeded and remedied the mistakes, but whose subsequent comment about a leg earnt him a rude and surprising rebuff from the hidden painter.
**** Not least not to introduce, as if in a non-sequitur, the observation that visitors can write comments in a book, and vote for their favourite picture
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Indecent haste?
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14 May
Ever wondered why all sorts of biographies (whenever they were written) seem to be in the bookshops so quickly after this or that prominent person's death?
Well, for one thing I think that it is to try to capitalize on the moment, and we must all surely know, at some level, that - death being a certainty - many newspaper obituaries have been prepared and are kept ready for the next edition after the subject's death in which they will appear.
Just imagine that someone, a bit like the guy who (on a machine that moulds the plastic) makes the piece that you take off the back of your phone to get the battery out and change the SIM card, has the job of maintaining a library, archive or database of these pre-written death-notes, and others of writing, refining and updating them!
For another, a person's death marks the beginning of open season in the UK: alive, that person could claim that his or her character has been defamed by what you wrote or said, but, rightly or wrongly, the law of England and Wales says that the right to defend one's character dies with the person who possessed it. (Some other claims can be brought (or continued) by a person's estate after one's death, but one for libel or slander can no longer be commenced.) As I have said, open season - and all the competition in the world to get to press ahead of with this or that juicy anecdote or revelation.
It may not just have been weeks apart, though it seemed like it, that, hard on the heels of the death of Samuel Barclay Beckettt, Cronin and Knowlson's competing chunky books (one approved by the Beckettt estate, but I forget which) joined the only one thitherto, Deirdre Bair's from the 1970s, to make three.
What I wonder is this, because I am not aware that any other title with such pretensions (come to think of it, both titles are, actually, pretty pretentious) has appeared since: if the publishers had not raced to produce their authors' view of Becekettt, would we have a better or different one from the one only now starting to emerge with the publication of the second volume of his letters?
Is all this just inevitable, or would those books, if not available so seemingly soon after 22 December 1989, have benefited from the delay? I should, I guess, look to see if they have been reissued in a revised or new edition, but maybe you will, and let me know...
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14 May
Ever wondered why all sorts of biographies (whenever they were written) seem to be in the bookshops so quickly after this or that prominent person's death?
Well, for one thing I think that it is to try to capitalize on the moment, and we must all surely know, at some level, that - death being a certainty - many newspaper obituaries have been prepared and are kept ready for the next edition after the subject's death in which they will appear.
Just imagine that someone, a bit like the guy who (on a machine that moulds the plastic) makes the piece that you take off the back of your phone to get the battery out and change the SIM card, has the job of maintaining a library, archive or database of these pre-written death-notes, and others of writing, refining and updating them!
For another, a person's death marks the beginning of open season in the UK: alive, that person could claim that his or her character has been defamed by what you wrote or said, but, rightly or wrongly, the law of England and Wales says that the right to defend one's character dies with the person who possessed it. (Some other claims can be brought (or continued) by a person's estate after one's death, but one for libel or slander can no longer be commenced.) As I have said, open season - and all the competition in the world to get to press ahead of with this or that juicy anecdote or revelation.
It may not just have been weeks apart, though it seemed like it, that, hard on the heels of the death of Samuel Barclay Beckettt, Cronin and Knowlson's competing chunky books (one approved by the Beckettt estate, but I forget which) joined the only one thitherto, Deirdre Bair's from the 1970s, to make three.
What I wonder is this, because I am not aware that any other title with such pretensions (come to think of it, both titles are, actually, pretty pretentious) has appeared since: if the publishers had not raced to produce their authors' view of Becekettt, would we have a better or different one from the one only now starting to emerge with the publication of the second volume of his letters?
Is all this just inevitable, or would those books, if not available so seemingly soon after 22 December 1989, have benefited from the delay? I should, I guess, look to see if they have been reissued in a revised or new edition, but maybe you will, and let me know...
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Sunday 13 May 2012
What do we mean by 'an industry'?
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13 May
I have been listening, with half-an-ear, to a programme on Radio 3.
It is clear that they now talk about the heritage industry, by which they mean organizations such as The National Trust, not those consumer outlets that sell replicas of items from a previous era.
Now, I concede that the word 'factory', as used in reference to trade in India, may only have come to mean a building where something is made through the process of industrialization, but this is a little too close to contemporary, a little too much of turning everything into an industry.
We have the film industry, the porn industry, the hospitality industry, probably the industry industry, and what industrial archaeology looks at seems oddly divorced from all these usages, in its concern with engines, pumping-stations, cotton-mills, and - dare I say it - other factories.
Perhaps it will end up with a section of activity looking at these selfsame redundant meanings - or maybe already has one...
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13 May
I have been listening, with half-an-ear, to a programme on Radio 3.
It is clear that they now talk about the heritage industry, by which they mean organizations such as The National Trust, not those consumer outlets that sell replicas of items from a previous era.
Now, I concede that the word 'factory', as used in reference to trade in India, may only have come to mean a building where something is made through the process of industrialization, but this is a little too close to contemporary, a little too much of turning everything into an industry.
We have the film industry, the porn industry, the hospitality industry, probably the industry industry, and what industrial archaeology looks at seems oddly divorced from all these usages, in its concern with engines, pumping-stations, cotton-mills, and - dare I say it - other factories.
Perhaps it will end up with a section of activity looking at these selfsame redundant meanings - or maybe already has one...
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The Janet and John books
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13 May
Those of a certain age may be familiar with - the existence, at any rate, of - this pair.
If so, their names - in that order - will be as locked as Jack and Jill, but what is the appeal?
* Unlike Jack with Jill, John is courteous, and lets Janet go first
* In both cases, there is the - almost necessary to observe - catch of alliteration
* If John did go first, how would it sound, with the falling notes of 'Janet' finishing the phrase, as against the ruggedness of John, a syllable that one has to go out of one's way to prolong, and which provides a solid close?
* But what about Jason, Janet and Jason?: if we could delve into the minds - or, better still, working papers - of those who designed these books, what prejudices about class or even perceived sexual orientation might have militated against Jason
Paula and Peter, anybody...?
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13 May
Those of a certain age may be familiar with - the existence, at any rate, of - this pair.
If so, their names - in that order - will be as locked as Jack and Jill, but what is the appeal?
* Unlike Jack with Jill, John is courteous, and lets Janet go first
* In both cases, there is the - almost necessary to observe - catch of alliteration
* If John did go first, how would it sound, with the falling notes of 'Janet' finishing the phrase, as against the ruggedness of John, a syllable that one has to go out of one's way to prolong, and which provides a solid close?
* But what about Jason, Janet and Jason?: if we could delve into the minds - or, better still, working papers - of those who designed these books, what prejudices about class or even perceived sexual orientation might have militated against Jason
Paula and Peter, anybody...?
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Saturday 12 May 2012
I was once (nearly) a steward at Cambridge Wordfest... (3)
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13 May
Of course, come the full Spring Wordfest (13 - 15 April), I received my reward:
* First pick of which four- to five-hour stewarding slot I wanted to fill, which meant that, by being present at three events in a row, I could guarantee hearing those speakers who most interested me
* Two complimentary admissions to events when off duty
* Free tea and coffee at the bar
* Extra discount on items boought from the Wordfest book-stall
* A refund of around £9.00 to reflect my travel expenses on the night of the 'wasted' training last year
Or maybe that is what would have been nice to be offered, rather than just sent an unitemized amount that did not even compensate me for not hearing the speakers at the events in my shift, and getting to go free into those during the rest of the day that had not sold out
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13 May
Of course, come the full Spring Wordfest (13 - 15 April), I received my reward:
* First pick of which four- to five-hour stewarding slot I wanted to fill, which meant that, by being present at three events in a row, I could guarantee hearing those speakers who most interested me
* Two complimentary admissions to events when off duty
* Free tea and coffee at the bar
* Extra discount on items boought from the Wordfest book-stall
* A refund of around £9.00 to reflect my travel expenses on the night of the 'wasted' training last year
Or maybe that is what would have been nice to be offered, rather than just sent an unitemized amount that did not even compensate me for not hearing the speakers at the events in my shift, and getting to go free into those during the rest of the day that had not sold out
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Monday 7 May 2012
Video: Kim Kardashian shows off beach body
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7 May
Another meaningless phrase!
Not 'Kim Kardashian', which denotes something, but 'beach body':
Does KK have a different body, when at breakfast (probably in a bikini just at the moment, since she is pictured in Mexico), only employing this one at the beach - a bit like a stunt or body double?
The clothes that she may wear for Cancún, lunch at the Bowery, and the red carpet may differ, but, hour to hour, I suspect that it is the same body, just as it is for that infamous photograph of Daniel Craig at the seaside, or even the likes of Neil Kinnock stumbling on the shingle, or for the gaga lady.
As for Kim, when she appeared with fewer clothes still in Playboy, what sort of body was that, by this 'beach body' reckoning? A glamour body, bimbo body, or unbashful body?
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7 May
Another meaningless phrase!
Not 'Kim Kardashian', which denotes something, but 'beach body':
Does KK have a different body, when at breakfast (probably in a bikini just at the moment, since she is pictured in Mexico), only employing this one at the beach - a bit like a stunt or body double?
The clothes that she may wear for Cancún, lunch at the Bowery, and the red carpet may differ, but, hour to hour, I suspect that it is the same body, just as it is for that infamous photograph of Daniel Craig at the seaside, or even the likes of Neil Kinnock stumbling on the shingle, or for the gaga lady.
As for Kim, when she appeared with fewer clothes still in Playboy, what sort of body was that, by this 'beach body' reckoning? A glamour body, bimbo body, or unbashful body?
PS Just so that Kim doesn't feel left out (or unwanted), here she is with that body on a beach:
Pork and beef on the same plate
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7 May
According to the BSE* story (which some may remember: that health-scare before the next one brightened our days), what was supposed to everyone who had ever eaten a burger - and befell only the unlucky few who developed CJD - was the result of mixing pork and beef.
I can still think of few places where they meet - or where a T-bone steak could have a bone - except: certain sausages, a mixed grill, and those carveries where one can have (usually by paying slightly more**) lamb, beef, turkey, and pork (or some subset thereof) for one's roast meal.
End-notes
* Of course, our press and t.v. being what they are, the abbreviation of a scientific term to BSE wasn't good enough, and we had to have mad cow disease instead as their preferred term. (I used to abbreviate it to MCD.)
** One such place used to call it The Full Monty.
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7 May
According to the BSE* story (which some may remember: that health-scare before the next one brightened our days), what was supposed to everyone who had ever eaten a burger - and befell only the unlucky few who developed CJD - was the result of mixing pork and beef.
I can still think of few places where they meet - or where a T-bone steak could have a bone - except: certain sausages, a mixed grill, and those carveries where one can have (usually by paying slightly more**) lamb, beef, turkey, and pork (or some subset thereof) for one's roast meal.
End-notes
* Of course, our press and t.v. being what they are, the abbreviation of a scientific term to BSE wasn't good enough, and we had to have mad cow disease instead as their preferred term. (I used to abbreviate it to MCD.)
** One such place used to call it The Full Monty.
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Sunday 6 May 2012
Setting what text to music?
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7 May
Well, I have heard, in the last week, Mark Padmore's choice of a text, which Jonathan Dove turned out to end up setting several years later, and now more in the collaboration between Jim Tomlinson, Stacey Kent and Kazuo Ishiguro in a song (to whose words the link takes you) called Postcard Lovers.
Honestly, I cannot feel that either poem was worth the attention, and it puts me in mind again of writing about Elgar putting together his own libretto for The Apostles...
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7 May
Well, I have heard, in the last week, Mark Padmore's choice of a text, which Jonathan Dove turned out to end up setting several years later, and now more in the collaboration between Jim Tomlinson, Stacey Kent and Kazuo Ishiguro in a song (to whose words the link takes you) called Postcard Lovers.
Honestly, I cannot feel that either poem was worth the attention, and it puts me in mind again of writing about Elgar putting together his own libretto for The Apostles...
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Russia ahead in this blog's Top Ten
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6 May
In terms of page-views, Russia is now well ahead of the UK [now updated on 18 May]
1,191 Russia [1,480]
866 United Kingdom [889]
579 United States [625]
116 Germany [117]
53 Brazil [55]
43 Ukraine [46]
36 Australia
32 France
27 The Netherlands
18 Japan
And page-views since The Agent began all this Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival business?
Well, 3,333 of course!
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6 May
In terms of page-views, Russia is now well ahead of the UK [now updated on 18 May]
1,191 Russia [1,480]
866 United Kingdom [889]
579 United States [625]
116 Germany [117]
53 Brazil [55]
43 Ukraine [46]
36 Australia
32 France
27 The Netherlands
18 Japan
And page-views since The Agent began all this Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival business?
Well, 3,333 of course!
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What Paul Said to Whom and Why
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6 May
Perfect for all churches, congregations, chosen and cults - bulk ordering advised!
Those who care to preorder this title (as, according to Amazon®, the word has it), can do so at www.TheAgentApsley.co.uk/slushfund in the knowledge that, whether it is a gift for others or for themselves, they will make someone very happy.
Buy 10 copies and receive just eight - NB limited offer
If you don't know Tahiti, I'd be very glad - for a fee - to show you around...
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6 May
Perfect for all churches, congregations, chosen and cults - bulk ordering advised!
Paul's Epistle to the Swedish
Those who care to preorder this title (as, according to Amazon®, the word has it), can do so at www.TheAgentApsley.co.uk/slushfund in the knowledge that, whether it is a gift for others or for themselves, they will make someone very happy.
Buy 10 copies and receive just eight - NB limited offer
If you don't know Tahiti, I'd be very glad - for a fee - to show you around...
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Saturday 5 May 2012
Pasta made from durum wheat
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5 May
Perhaps we have become accustomed to this assertion
I don't doubt its truth, but - except through familiarity with the fact that pasta-packets usually make it - I have no notion what it means (and so wonder whether that might be true of most of us), any more than if it stated, with just as much specificity*, made from wheat grown in Co. Durham (or in Dumbartonshire).
Unrelatedly, a woman from The Czech Republic** gave my parents what my mother called 'a peck on the cheek' - not spotting that it could have been descrbed as a Czech on the peak, if they had been on an eminence.
And what about the word surreal (or even surrealist)? I do have to agree with what was mentioned in passing yesterday in that day's issue of The Guardian***:
'I feel the word "surreal" has been totally overused as a fancy word for weird'
For, having read a fellow writer's piece about surrealism in films, which was pegged almost entirely (for factual basis) on the well-known collaboration that was Hitchcock / Dalà (and with scant, if any, mention of the other collaboration, Buñuel / DalÃ****, or of the former's significant career as a director), I despaired at what the author went on to identify as evidence of surrealism in more modern (but mainstream) cinematic works.
That said, there seems to be as little chance of stopping misuse of this word***** - so carefully employed to be in opposition to the boring or bourgeois - as of its beleaguered friends random, manic, psychotic, and (surely not for want of anything better to say) like.
End-notes
* A word that - I am led to believe that - T. S. Eliot, if he did not revel in it, used more than others did.
** My mother and father both resolutely, because instinctively, used the name Czechoslovakia in telling more about this woman.
*** g2, p. 8.
**** If Dalà is to be believed, that should be Dalà / Buñuel, but, it any case, they gave us, of course, A Dog and a Toilet (amongst other things).
***** Except, of course, by seeking to impose a totalitarian regime (one with a competent secret police!).
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5 May
Perhaps we have become accustomed to this assertion
I don't doubt its truth, but - except through familiarity with the fact that pasta-packets usually make it - I have no notion what it means (and so wonder whether that might be true of most of us), any more than if it stated, with just as much specificity*, made from wheat grown in Co. Durham (or in Dumbartonshire).
Unrelatedly, a woman from The Czech Republic** gave my parents what my mother called 'a peck on the cheek' - not spotting that it could have been descrbed as a Czech on the peak, if they had been on an eminence.
And what about the word surreal (or even surrealist)? I do have to agree with what was mentioned in passing yesterday in that day's issue of The Guardian***:
'I feel the word "surreal" has been totally overused as a fancy word for weird'
For, having read a fellow writer's piece about surrealism in films, which was pegged almost entirely (for factual basis) on the well-known collaboration that was Hitchcock / Dalà (and with scant, if any, mention of the other collaboration, Buñuel / DalÃ****, or of the former's significant career as a director), I despaired at what the author went on to identify as evidence of surrealism in more modern (but mainstream) cinematic works.
That said, there seems to be as little chance of stopping misuse of this word***** - so carefully employed to be in opposition to the boring or bourgeois - as of its beleaguered friends random, manic, psychotic, and (surely not for want of anything better to say) like.
End-notes
* A word that - I am led to believe that - T. S. Eliot, if he did not revel in it, used more than others did.
** My mother and father both resolutely, because instinctively, used the name Czechoslovakia in telling more about this woman.
*** g2, p. 8.
**** If Dalà is to be believed, that should be Dalà / Buñuel, but, it any case, they gave us, of course, A Dog and a Toilet (amongst other things).
***** Except, of course, by seeking to impose a totalitarian regime (one with a competent secret police!).
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Thursday 3 May 2012
The Dave-ings of an Arranged Mind (2)
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4 May
[Very much] following on[, going forward,] from the first piece [of its kind] in this series - which is no more one for having the same title than constituents of many a t.v. series - here are more [random] jottings that nevertheless cohere (or do they?)
What do all or any of the items in this list have in common (if anything)?:
1. Frank Key
2. The Florida Keys
3. Sarah's Key
4. Gonville & Caius
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood
6. St Peter
7. Sara Keays
8. Key to the door
9. Major Keys
11. Sarah Keay
12. Alicia Keys
13. Aldous Huxley
By all means submit your answers - on a postcard only* - whilst waiting my inventing some...
End-notes
* Submissions (or falls) by any of the following means will, in especial, be harhsly punished:
Arsebook
e-mail
Twatter
facsimile
Link-tin
telemessage
Bookface
psychic transmission
Zen's Reunited
hymn-numbers
text-message
smoke-signals from St Peter's
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4 May
[Very much] following on[, going forward,] from the first piece [of its kind] in this series - which is no more one for having the same title than constituents of many a t.v. series - here are more [random] jottings that nevertheless cohere (or do they?)
What do all or any of the items in this list have in common (if anything)?:
1. Frank Key
2. The Florida Keys
3. Sarah's Key
4. Gonville & Caius
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood
6. St Peter
7. Sara Keays
8. Key to the door
9. Major Keys
11. Sarah Keay
12. Alicia Keys
13. Aldous Huxley
By all means submit your answers - on a postcard only* - whilst waiting my inventing some...
End-notes
* Submissions (or falls) by any of the following means will, in especial, be harhsly punished:
Arsebook
Twatter
facsimile
Link-tin
telemessage
Bookface
psychic transmission
Zen's Reunited
hymn-numbers
text-message
smoke-signals from St Peter's
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Wednesday 2 May 2012
Tally for the day
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2 May
So far, Haydn pronounced as if he were Charlie Haden, and an Agnus Dei that sounded like Agnes Day*
Naming no Radio 3 names, but, respectively, before Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 this evening, and during this afternoon's episode of Arvo Pärt Total Immersion
End-notes
* Not as bad as it could have been - Angus Deayton, anyone?
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2 May
So far, Haydn pronounced as if he were Charlie Haden, and an Agnus Dei that sounded like Agnes Day*
Naming no Radio 3 names, but, respectively, before Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 this evening, and during this afternoon's episode of Arvo Pärt Total Immersion
End-notes
* Not as bad as it could have been - Angus Deayton, anyone?
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Trout-fishing in Essex
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3 May
Sorry, I keep getting that one confused with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), for a screening of which on Thursday afternoon I have a ticket: worryingly, if only for the publicity employed by the film's distibutors, searching for it on Google® by typing in just Yemen brings up no immediate results.
We shall see, and at least it's not
* Fishing for Cod Russian in the Quietly Flowing Don
* Dolphin Fishing in the English Channel
* Tuna Hunting in my Kitchen Cupboard
* or even Catching Red Snappers in the Bedroom
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3 May
Sorry, I keep getting that one confused with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), for a screening of which on Thursday afternoon I have a ticket: worryingly, if only for the publicity employed by the film's distibutors, searching for it on Google® by typing in just Yemen brings up no immediate results.
We shall see, and at least it's not
* Fishing for Cod Russian in the Quietly Flowing Don
* Dolphin Fishing in the English Channel
* Tuna Hunting in my Kitchen Cupboard
* or even Catching Red Snappers in the Bedroom
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All a-titter
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2 May
Cousin Marmaduke has just - according to your preference - twittered, tweeted or twat - again, according to your preference - about, concerning or regarding* drugs offered to him by Barney Strong:
It seems that - word is on the street - they will, if he takes them, 'wake the beast' in him
But he's never liked Mark Rylance that much**, so why would he want to?!
End-notes
* Not to mention 'anent' or 'abune'.
** And hated La Bête.
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2 May
Cousin Marmaduke has just - according to your preference - twittered, tweeted or twat - again, according to your preference - about, concerning or regarding* drugs offered to him by Barney Strong:
It seems that - word is on the street - they will, if he takes them, 'wake the beast' in him
But he's never liked Mark Rylance that much**, so why would he want to?!
End-notes
* Not to mention 'anent' or 'abune'.
** And hated La Bête.
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Medium* comment: TULISA CROWNED WORLD'S SEXIEST WOMAN (according to AOL®)
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2 May
As I am sure that the authors of this item well know (i.e. it is tongue in cheek, but in such a way as to appear 'dumb'), this caption to the headline is an absolute non-sequitur:
Singer proves that sex tape scandal hasn't hit her popularity
No, and nor, with any relevant electorate, would circulation - and even rating - of the said tape**! (I wonder if it has an entry on IMDb...)
** According to AOL® (again) on 4 May, Amanda Holden told Alan Carr that she watched it.
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2 May
As I am sure that the authors of this item well know (i.e. it is tongue in cheek, but in such a way as to appear 'dumb'), this caption to the headline is an absolute non-sequitur:
Singer proves that sex tape scandal hasn't hit her popularity
No, and nor, with any relevant electorate, would circulation - and even rating - of the said tape**! (I wonder if it has an entry on IMDb...)
End-note
* As opposed to media.
** According to AOL® (again) on 4 May, Amanda Holden told Alan Carr that she watched it.
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Tuesday 1 May 2012
The possibilities for confusion in enthusiasm
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2 May
Giving effect to what it says, how would you summarize the following*?:
Warlock's cycle is a monument to an idiosyncratic composer whose career was cut off too soon by his tragically short life
It is possible to read these phrases quickly and seem to understand the message, but I suspect that it may not really be self evident, even in context, that an idiosyncratic composer and Warlock are one and the same person (deemed to be writing his own monument in the song-cycle being discussed).
My own feeling is that the writer of these programme notes, at or around the time of compiling them, may have been overeager to say several things and have conflated them:
* Warlock died early
* His career - not surprisingly - died with him**
* It was regrettable, in terms of that musical career and what Warlock might yet have written, that he died when he did
* Whether it was seen as - or intended by - Warlock as a monument to him, it is suggested that it is one
* The work itself may be idiosyncratic,
* Presumably one can infer that it is, if it is a monument to Warlock, and if he was an idiosyncratic composer
For me, rather too much message for just 21 words, and in danger of being radically incoherent, when notes of this kind should ideally open up easily to examination in the concert-hall
End-notes
* Taken from notes (by Jo Kirkbride) in a concert programme.
** However, I do acknowledge that, in the case of a composer in the position of Delius, it was his health / incapacity that threatened to cut short his career (or cut it even shorter***).
*** More shortly?
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2 May
Giving effect to what it says, how would you summarize the following*?:
Warlock's cycle is a monument to an idiosyncratic composer whose career was cut off too soon by his tragically short life
It is possible to read these phrases quickly and seem to understand the message, but I suspect that it may not really be self evident, even in context, that an idiosyncratic composer and Warlock are one and the same person (deemed to be writing his own monument in the song-cycle being discussed).
My own feeling is that the writer of these programme notes, at or around the time of compiling them, may have been overeager to say several things and have conflated them:
* Warlock died early
* His career - not surprisingly - died with him**
* It was regrettable, in terms of that musical career and what Warlock might yet have written, that he died when he did
* Whether it was seen as - or intended by - Warlock as a monument to him, it is suggested that it is one
* The work itself may be idiosyncratic,
* Presumably one can infer that it is, if it is a monument to Warlock, and if he was an idiosyncratic composer
For me, rather too much message for just 21 words, and in danger of being radically incoherent, when notes of this kind should ideally open up easily to examination in the concert-hall
End-notes
* Taken from notes (by Jo Kirkbride) in a concert programme.
** However, I do acknowledge that, in the case of a composer in the position of Delius, it was his health / incapacity that threatened to cut short his career (or cut it even shorter***).
*** More shortly?
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Vaughan Williams and Blake
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4 May
[For what it is worth, Wikipedia® would probably call this posting 'a stub']
After a performance, earlier in the week, by Nicholas Daniel and Mark Padmore of Ten Blake Songs by Vaughan Williams, and as someone who enjoys the composer's music, and is interested in the painter / engraver / writer's works, I wanted to know more about the genesis of these settings.
It is clear that I shall have to borrow an authoritative and detailed biography of VW to know more about the subject, but, in the meantime, the notes that appear on a page on hyperion's web-site are a useful starting-point.
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4 May
[For what it is worth, Wikipedia® would probably call this posting 'a stub']
After a performance, earlier in the week, by Nicholas Daniel and Mark Padmore of Ten Blake Songs by Vaughan Williams, and as someone who enjoys the composer's music, and is interested in the painter / engraver / writer's works, I wanted to know more about the genesis of these settings.
It is clear that I shall have to borrow an authoritative and detailed biography of VW to know more about the subject, but, in the meantime, the notes that appear on a page on hyperion's web-site are a useful starting-point.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
What's the difference between a t.v. celebrity and a judge? (2)
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May Day
The last posting seemed popular enough - maybe even with those who Interpret Acts, as well as with those who appear to be dozing when they are being shown something - so why not some more...?
What's the difference between a judge asleep on the job and a t.v. celebrity?
* With the t.v. celebrity, the performance does not improve
* The judge is just taking judicial notice of sheep, but the t.v. celebrity mistakes them for adoring fans - and acts accordingly, claiming to be too busy to sign autographs
* In one case, the lack of movement increases the resemblance to a sheep. In the other, you realize that you can say something without being interrupted
End-notes
NB These jokes were part of the VE Day celebrations, but, under the agreement reached at Yalta, it was agreed that they could not be told again until a 65-year exclusion period had expired
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May Day
The last posting seemed popular enough - maybe even with those who Interpret Acts, as well as with those who appear to be dozing when they are being shown something - so why not some more...?
What's the difference between a judge asleep on the job and a t.v. celebrity?
* With the t.v. celebrity, the performance does not improve
* The judge is just taking judicial notice of sheep, but the t.v. celebrity mistakes them for adoring fans - and acts accordingly, claiming to be too busy to sign autographs
* In one case, the lack of movement increases the resemblance to a sheep. In the other, you realize that you can say something without being interrupted
End-notes
NB These jokes were part of the VE Day celebrations, but, under the agreement reached at Yalta, it was agreed that they could not be told again until a 65-year exclusion period had expired
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Monday 30 April 2012
The Tower of Pritter
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May Day
Once upon a time, on his album Up (2002), Peter Gabriel included a track in which he had taken the phrase signal to noise (from the world of hi-fi) and created a song - which, of course, one can interpret as one will (just as one can, say, the song 'Wallflower' from a much earlier album: whose theme is used in Birdy (1984), a film on whose music I commented in The Future or How do you choose a satisfying film? (Part 2))
On my interpretation of what some might find a limited (because repetitive) lyric, Gabriel is clearly distinguishing between what is valuable (the signal) and what might impede it (the noise). Therefore its own message (something like, from memory, turn up the signal, keep out the noise) is just as applicable to finding the occasional real news-story amongst what else appears in a number of our alleged newspapers as it is to that convenient triangle of factors - perhaps unthinkingly beloved by those who run training courses on assertiveness or communication skills - that purports to establish as empirical fact that some very low percentage* of what we (think that we) say is in our (choice of) words**
I have given counter-examples elsewhere, but, on what level of perversity as to the power of actual words does one have to be on to think that contextual data supply all 93% of what is meant to be lacking in simply saying?:
* You're fired!
* I want you to sleep with me
* You're standing on my foot!
* You've won first prize
* This duck is delicious
* Do you mind if I sit here / take this chair?
Bombard yourself, as Splatter can (I mean Twatter), with messages from an unlimited number of people, though, and you might - amongst 'the noise' - miss someone asking you to tea / to bed / for a drink.
Or following Bassfuck in a crowded bar on your preferred mobile device, highly meaningful though I'm really sure that all of its content is, might make you unaware that you are some banknotes and a credit-card or two lighter than when you started the evening.
Remember: the value of the Internet can go up as well as down
End-notes
* Usually between 7 and 11%.
** As Cher successfully suggested in her cover-version of 'The Shoop Shoop Song' in Mermaids (1990), it's in his kiss.
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May Day
Once upon a time, on his album Up (2002), Peter Gabriel included a track in which he had taken the phrase signal to noise (from the world of hi-fi) and created a song - which, of course, one can interpret as one will (just as one can, say, the song 'Wallflower' from a much earlier album: whose theme is used in Birdy (1984), a film on whose music I commented in The Future or How do you choose a satisfying film? (Part 2))
On my interpretation of what some might find a limited (because repetitive) lyric, Gabriel is clearly distinguishing between what is valuable (the signal) and what might impede it (the noise). Therefore its own message (something like, from memory, turn up the signal, keep out the noise) is just as applicable to finding the occasional real news-story amongst what else appears in a number of our alleged newspapers as it is to that convenient triangle of factors - perhaps unthinkingly beloved by those who run training courses on assertiveness or communication skills - that purports to establish as empirical fact that some very low percentage* of what we (think that we) say is in our (choice of) words**
I have given counter-examples elsewhere, but, on what level of perversity as to the power of actual words does one have to be on to think that contextual data supply all 93% of what is meant to be lacking in simply saying?:
* You're fired!
* I want you to sleep with me
* You're standing on my foot!
* You've won first prize
* This duck is delicious
* Do you mind if I sit here / take this chair?
Bombard yourself, as Splatter can (I mean Twatter), with messages from an unlimited number of people, though, and you might - amongst 'the noise' - miss someone asking you to tea / to bed / for a drink.
Or following Bassfuck in a crowded bar on your preferred mobile device, highly meaningful though I'm really sure that all of its content is, might make you unaware that you are some banknotes and a credit-card or two lighter than when you started the evening.
Remember: the value of the Internet can go up as well as down
End-notes
* Usually between 7 and 11%.
** As Cher successfully suggested in her cover-version of 'The Shoop Shoop Song' in Mermaids (1990), it's in his kiss.
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The Symphonies of Saint-Saëns, and so on
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May Day
We are not confused by what Widor called Organ Symphonies¹, because we all know the Organ Symphony, made indelible (as to its last movement, at any rate) by that pop treatment in the late 70s!
If we know that it is Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3, we know that there must be others (though he could have destroyed them²), but they are never mentioned, and there seems no question of playing them.
So, as I dilated elsewhere, with Saint-Saëns as with Bruch, and we might, at best, hear
* Danse macabre
* The Carnival of the Animals
* One of the piano concertos³
* If operatically minded, Samson et Dalilia or one of a number of others
Well, maybe I shall try to find a CD of any of these other two or three symphonies, which might be indicative of whether conductors give them the time of day
If I find one, I might even buy it - at the right price - and waffle on about it in another posting...
End-notes
¹ Actually, he called them Symphonie pour orgue (but that amounts to the same thing) . Of course, the Toccata from No. 5 (Op. 42, No. 1) most often gets an airing, usually detached.
² It appears that he wrote four others, but withdrew the first, and that what is known as No. 3 is the last of the five that he wrote.
³ Of which (I have them on a two-CD, with, as I recall, a crazy need to change discs mid-concerto!), I think that I like No. 4 best - it may be that it is the one with the jaunty theme that I find reminiscent of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the so-called Emperor).
The Beethoven, at any rate, has that bouncy, Tigger theme in the last movement, which Imogen Cooper, as soloist in a live performance, convinced me could sound other than ridiculous (and said afterwards, as I recall, that playing it was a question of properly addressing the fact that it contains a hemiola).
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May Day
We are not confused by what Widor called Organ Symphonies¹, because we all know the Organ Symphony, made indelible (as to its last movement, at any rate) by that pop treatment in the late 70s!
If we know that it is Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3, we know that there must be others (though he could have destroyed them²), but they are never mentioned, and there seems no question of playing them.
So, as I dilated elsewhere, with Saint-Saëns as with Bruch, and we might, at best, hear
* Danse macabre
* The Carnival of the Animals
* One of the piano concertos³
* If operatically minded, Samson et Dalilia or one of a number of others
Well, maybe I shall try to find a CD of any of these other two or three symphonies, which might be indicative of whether conductors give them the time of day
If I find one, I might even buy it - at the right price - and waffle on about it in another posting...
End-notes
¹ Actually, he called them Symphonie pour orgue (but that amounts to the same thing) . Of course, the Toccata from No. 5 (Op. 42, No. 1) most often gets an airing, usually detached.
² It appears that he wrote four others, but withdrew the first, and that what is known as No. 3 is the last of the five that he wrote.
³ Of which (I have them on a two-CD, with, as I recall, a crazy need to change discs mid-concerto!), I think that I like No. 4 best - it may be that it is the one with the jaunty theme that I find reminiscent of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the so-called Emperor).
The Beethoven, at any rate, has that bouncy, Tigger theme in the last movement, which Imogen Cooper, as soloist in a live performance, convinced me could sound other than ridiculous (and said afterwards, as I recall, that playing it was a question of properly addressing the fact that it contains a hemiola).
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What makes free jazz the equivalent now of punk rock in the 70s?
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May Day
Well, I often listen to all of Jazz on 3 (with the ever-present Jez Nelson), so it's not that I have a general aversion to contemporary jazz, but I am highly coloured by the experience of hearing Evan Parker, in a trio, play a small venue, when how the first set ended made me think, quite wrongly, that the second might not be so unrelenting, whereas I shouldn't have come back.
No, what I have in mind took an hour or so on the show very recently, with crass vocals - both the words and how they were delivered - and a deliberate emphasis on, whether or not people could do so (I have no way of knowing), not playing well.
There is no merit in naming the bands, but I suspect that, for the sake of good / bad publicity, some punk rockers hammed up their musical inexpertise, or did not trouble to develop any ability that they had. Some bands, as punk was never a uniform approach, achieved a raw effect by actually by putting basic rhythmic elements together with a rough-hewn melody, not peddling the others' feigned or lacking competence, but betraying a desire to create rebellious music that was worth hearing in its own right, rather than as a necessary element ina riotous sideshow. (Other bands were more musically sophisticated still, but consistent with fitting into the general picture of punk.)
This jazz that I heard on Jazz on 3, which I shall dub runk pock, was deliberately of the emperor's new clothes type, which free jazz can be at risk of seeming or being. However, although I know that I cannot play a saxophone as Parker does, I do also know when I hear what could be done by a few mates of mine and me with some musical instruments, mikes, recording-equipment, and, of course, beer: if I ever wanted to hear such a thing, I would just play the recording, and at least know that I was the one taking the piss.
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May Day
Well, I often listen to all of Jazz on 3 (with the ever-present Jez Nelson), so it's not that I have a general aversion to contemporary jazz, but I am highly coloured by the experience of hearing Evan Parker, in a trio, play a small venue, when how the first set ended made me think, quite wrongly, that the second might not be so unrelenting, whereas I shouldn't have come back.
No, what I have in mind took an hour or so on the show very recently, with crass vocals - both the words and how they were delivered - and a deliberate emphasis on, whether or not people could do so (I have no way of knowing), not playing well.
There is no merit in naming the bands, but I suspect that, for the sake of good / bad publicity, some punk rockers hammed up their musical inexpertise, or did not trouble to develop any ability that they had. Some bands, as punk was never a uniform approach, achieved a raw effect by actually by putting basic rhythmic elements together with a rough-hewn melody, not peddling the others' feigned or lacking competence, but betraying a desire to create rebellious music that was worth hearing in its own right, rather than as a necessary element ina riotous sideshow. (Other bands were more musically sophisticated still, but consistent with fitting into the general picture of punk.)
This jazz that I heard on Jazz on 3, which I shall dub runk pock, was deliberately of the emperor's new clothes type, which free jazz can be at risk of seeming or being. However, although I know that I cannot play a saxophone as Parker does, I do also know when I hear what could be done by a few mates of mine and me with some musical instruments, mikes, recording-equipment, and, of course, beer: if I ever wanted to hear such a thing, I would just play the recording, and at least know that I was the one taking the piss.
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The Dave-ings of an Arranged Mind (1)
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30 April
Well, let's see where this goes*:
1. Cameron is a Scottish name
2. David is a Biblical name
3. Blair is a Scottish name
4. Eric Blair (also known as George Orwell) made Barnhill, on the Isle of Jura, hame**
5. Brown actually sounds Scottish, as well as being it
6. As did John Smith, at rest on the Isle of Iona
7. In both cases, certainly with less affectation than Billy Connolly*** in Mrs Brown (1997)
8. Osborne, whose first names were originally Gideon Oliver****, first had paid employment, with the NHS, in a way reminiscent of Defoe: he had to make computer entries of the names of the dead of London****
9. In rotten Boroughs*****, votes cast by those actually dead may have exceeded those of the living
10. Which inevitably brings us, once more, to the question of Gogol and Dead Souls (1842)
11. But, in the UK, we pride ourselves on knowing The Government Inspector (1836 (revised 1842))
12. Apparently, a bit like the origins of Tomkinson's Schooldays****** (1976), Pushkin was supposed to have told Gogol an anecdote, from which Gogol then derived his play
13. Which takes us neatly to Public Schools, judges (again!), fags, and whipping-boys!
End-notes
* A little game called Thirteen Degrees of Archery.
** Although he did much work on what he came to call Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is a common misconception, amongst those who know about his connection with Jura, that he died there.
*** Were Pamela and Billy made for each other? (No, I don't mean anatomically - not even in a Ken-and-Barbie sense!) Well, one was a welder, and the other was born in the Anderston district of Glasgow, and both have disguised their natal history, by, eerily, electing to speak with the accent that really belongs to the other.
Yet for all that Billy says cock and fuck, Pamela was far more genuinely provocative, even in just a few seconds, with her well-known American Express gag. (Plus beautifully amusing in taking off the quiddities of how the news was read at that time.)
**** On both counts, according to Wikipedia®.
***** Concerning which I owe all my knowledge to Blackadder the Third (1987) (as do some students theirs of The Great War to Blackadder Goes Forth (1989).
****** Palin and Jones******* collaborating to great effect in many of the Ripping Yarns
******* Yes, Bridget and Sarah!
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30 April
Well, let's see where this goes*:
1. Cameron is a Scottish name
2. David is a Biblical name
3. Blair is a Scottish name
4. Eric Blair (also known as George Orwell) made Barnhill, on the Isle of Jura, hame**
5. Brown actually sounds Scottish, as well as being it
6. As did John Smith, at rest on the Isle of Iona
7. In both cases, certainly with less affectation than Billy Connolly*** in Mrs Brown (1997)
8. Osborne, whose first names were originally Gideon Oliver****, first had paid employment, with the NHS, in a way reminiscent of Defoe: he had to make computer entries of the names of the dead of London****
9. In rotten Boroughs*****, votes cast by those actually dead may have exceeded those of the living
10. Which inevitably brings us, once more, to the question of Gogol and Dead Souls (1842)
11. But, in the UK, we pride ourselves on knowing The Government Inspector (1836 (revised 1842))
12. Apparently, a bit like the origins of Tomkinson's Schooldays****** (1976), Pushkin was supposed to have told Gogol an anecdote, from which Gogol then derived his play
13. Which takes us neatly to Public Schools, judges (again!), fags, and whipping-boys!
End-notes
* A little game called Thirteen Degrees of Archery.
** Although he did much work on what he came to call Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is a common misconception, amongst those who know about his connection with Jura, that he died there.
*** Were Pamela and Billy made for each other? (No, I don't mean anatomically - not even in a Ken-and-Barbie sense!) Well, one was a welder, and the other was born in the Anderston district of Glasgow, and both have disguised their natal history, by, eerily, electing to speak with the accent that really belongs to the other.
Yet for all that Billy says cock and fuck, Pamela was far more genuinely provocative, even in just a few seconds, with her well-known American Express gag. (Plus beautifully amusing in taking off the quiddities of how the news was read at that time.)
**** On both counts, according to Wikipedia®.
***** Concerning which I owe all my knowledge to Blackadder the Third (1987) (as do some students theirs of The Great War to Blackadder Goes Forth (1989).
****** Palin and Jones******* collaborating to great effect in many of the Ripping Yarns
******* Yes, Bridget and Sarah!
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The things we say! (2) - 'Mary makes friends again with her mother
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30 April
Assurance: No mention of that work from whose title - almost certainly alone - we know that it is, in part, about influence on others*!
Josef was very good at making friends, but fell down in keeping them
Odd, then, that the English language seems to suggest that we keep a friend in the same way that we keep:
* Someone's seat on a busy train
* A pet
* A tidy ship - or a good cellar***
* At our personal trainer's exhausting regime
* Someone sweet, happy, etc.
* Up a subscription to Punch (having 'taken it out')
* A friend waiting, because of traffic
* On making the same mistakes, keeping on, or even trucking
* On ad nauseam, etc., etc.
In other words, possibly quite a very much longer list of cognate uses of the verb to keep, some at least of which, I would say, are present to our minds when, as Michaela (and as people do), we make the proposal to Josetta Let's keep a house of ill-repute!
I'd also say that all the connotations, not only of to make, but also of to keep, are 'with us' when we proffer the olive-branch (the gesture made to Noah?).
And so, I suggest, when Mary says to Mother Let's (make it up and) be friends again, the possibility both of reforging that relationship, and of seeking to sustain that link (which might break again), and there all at once, along with tinges of
* Compulsion : I'll make you regret that
* Influence : He made her cry last night
* Creation : John made a lovely cake!
Need I provide the others?
End-notes
* Though I shall comment: (a) consider the word of Italian origin influenza from which we derive flu**, and (b) the usages of the phrase under the influence, which maybe relate the worlds of hypnosis, and of drugs and alcohol.
** Those who write flu' are clearly deluded, and probably spend too long not on the phone, but on the 'phone.
*** What Thurber, very amusingly, talks about (in quotation of a one-time teacher of his) as container for the thing contained, in describing the figure of speech called metonymy, where the wine (bottles) contained in the cellar are referred to by the container, i.e. the cellar, or, in This is a very good bottle!, the bottle, when meaning the wine.
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30 April
Assurance: No mention of that work from whose title - almost certainly alone - we know that it is, in part, about influence on others*!
Josef was very good at making friends, but fell down in keeping them
Odd, then, that the English language seems to suggest that we keep a friend in the same way that we keep:
* Someone's seat on a busy train
* A pet
* A tidy ship - or a good cellar***
* At our personal trainer's exhausting regime
* Someone sweet, happy, etc.
* Up a subscription to Punch (having 'taken it out')
* A friend waiting, because of traffic
* On making the same mistakes, keeping on, or even trucking
* On ad nauseam, etc., etc.
In other words, possibly quite a very much longer list of cognate uses of the verb to keep, some at least of which, I would say, are present to our minds when, as Michaela (and as people do), we make the proposal to Josetta Let's keep a house of ill-repute!
I'd also say that all the connotations, not only of to make, but also of to keep, are 'with us' when we proffer the olive-branch (the gesture made to Noah?).
And so, I suggest, when Mary says to Mother Let's (make it up and) be friends again, the possibility both of reforging that relationship, and of seeking to sustain that link (which might break again), and there all at once, along with tinges of
* Compulsion : I'll make you regret that
* Influence : He made her cry last night
* Creation : John made a lovely cake!
Need I provide the others?
End-notes
* Though I shall comment: (a) consider the word of Italian origin influenza from which we derive flu**, and (b) the usages of the phrase under the influence, which maybe relate the worlds of hypnosis, and of drugs and alcohol.
** Those who write flu' are clearly deluded, and probably spend too long not on the phone, but on the 'phone.
*** What Thurber, very amusingly, talks about (in quotation of a one-time teacher of his) as container for the thing contained, in describing the figure of speech called metonymy, where the wine (bottles) contained in the cellar are referred to by the container, i.e. the cellar, or, in This is a very good bottle!, the bottle, when meaning the wine.
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The things we say!* (1) - 'How are you placed?'
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
30 April
In just writing an e-mail, I came out with the question:
How are you placed on 8 May?
Naturally, my being an Agent, I couldn't leave it at that, so a foot-note:
It's a weird way of asking a question, if you think about it...
After a riotous Bank Holiday, I will have been placed on a very high shelf, and will be inaccessible for days!
End-notes
* Although (as an Agent) I would normally write 'The things that we say!'.
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(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
30 April
In just writing an e-mail, I came out with the question:
How are you placed on 8 May?
Naturally, my being an Agent, I couldn't leave it at that, so a foot-note:
It's a weird way of asking a question, if you think about it...
After a riotous Bank Holiday, I will have been placed on a very high shelf, and will be inaccessible for days!
End-notes
* Although (as an Agent) I would normally write 'The things that we say!'.
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Sunday 29 April 2012
Snippets of Shakespeare (with thanks to Radio 3)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 April
Some responses to hearing (part of - my fault, not Radio 3's!) the new radio production of Romeo and Juliet to-night
1. What are we to make of Friar Lawrence?
Not really what Prokofiev did in that singing melody that he gave to him in the ballet (and the piano suite that derived from it - at least, until I check, I think that it was in that order (not that the piano writing was fleshed out for orchestra)).
I have little idea whether it is still fashionable to call Shakespeare plays such as Measure for Measure (and All's Well that Ends Well) by the name 'problem plays' (or who originated that term), but the Duke's ethics in MfM seem no more dodgy than the friar's!
2. Whisky in Shakespeare
Not that it was called that in this play, but that is, essentially, what the acqua vitae* that is called for when Juliet's body is found, after she has taken the friar's concoction and so appears dead (but might be capable of being revived).
3. Overacting in Shakespeare
As the scene unfolded, it may have been the performance, but the reactions - in particular of Juliet's father - seemed overblown (and even ridiculous) in an age much more used to mortality at any age (Juliet's certainly being no safeguard) than ours.
For me, almost reminiscent of Lady Macbeth's awkwardly incriminating interjection, roundly put down as inappropriate given that the king has been killed, to the effect not in our house!
4. Sun and Moon
For those who have read - or dare to read - Lunch on the moon?, my own lines needfully do not bear comparison with:
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she
(Act 2, Scene 2)
5. Another link with Macbeth
Macduff, when he enquires after his wife, is told that she is 'well' (meaning, as used, really that she is at rest), and only comes to the realization about 'all my pretty chickens and their dam' a few lines later.
Here, with the economy that we will see below when Juliet kisses Romeo, Romeo introduces the word, in its usual sense:
How doth my Juliet? That I ask again,
For nothing can be ill if she be well.
To which Balthasar, his servant, directly replies:
Then she is well and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
6. The apothecary
Since the seeming source, in Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562), not only narrates the story, but gives characters speech, it should be possible to see how much invention there was in Shakespeare's Act 5, Scene 1, when, 60 lines in, Romeo procures poison**...
That said, before he does so, the Act opens with 11 lines' worth of a dream, in which Romeo begins by questioning the 'flattering truth of sleep', but also showing that, maybe, he is tempted to credit it, and, in any case, feels better for it (until the question in line 15, quoted above, to Balthasar):
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne
And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts
The purchase of the dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear / As will disperse itself through all the veins, put me in mind of a similar transaction in The Canterbury Tales, in the tale told by the Pardoner of the three young men who boast that they will seek out the villain Death to punish him - and find him.
7. The kiss
Brooke's narrative has Juliet kiss*** Romeus, but very differently from Shakespeare's portrayal of the touch of lips:
A thousand times she kist his mouth as cold as stone
Shakespeare's kiss is not only more tantalizing (as Romeo is clearly not long dead, and so might more nearly have been alive****), but there is a telescoping of several elements in barely more than half-a-dozen lines:
What's here? A cup clos'd in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!
Two-and-a-half lines later, Juliet has stabbed herself, not having time for the long speeches and decisions of Brooke's narrative, as she does not want to be prevented from following Romeo in death when she hears voices.
No time for any more kisses than one, no time for farewells, but, more affectingly, the affectionate rebuke of her dead lover, and the conceit of wanting to share the means of death (with all its overtones) in that kiss.
End-notes
* Revd E. Cobham Brewer's delightful A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, in an old edition that I have, reassuringly tells us, in the entry before, about Aqua Tofana:
A poisonous liquid containing arsenic, much used in Italy in the 17th century by young wives who wanted to get rid of their husbands.
Fair enough, one might think, but the entry puzzlingly continues (and concludes):
It was invented about 1690 by a Greek woman named Tofana, who called it the Manna of St Nicholas of Bari, from the widespread notion that an oil of miraculous efficacy flowed from the tomb of that saint. In Italian called also Aquella di Napoli.
** Which sounded like a woman, on Radio 3, not a man, make of which change what one will...
*** Sure a Freudian slip, I typed 'kill' just now!
**** I am reminded of Leontes, at the end of The Winter's Tale, kissing what he thinks a statue of his dead wife Hermione, and finding it warm to his lips' touch.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 April
Some responses to hearing (part of - my fault, not Radio 3's!) the new radio production of Romeo and Juliet to-night
1. What are we to make of Friar Lawrence?
Not really what Prokofiev did in that singing melody that he gave to him in the ballet (and the piano suite that derived from it - at least, until I check, I think that it was in that order (not that the piano writing was fleshed out for orchestra)).
I have little idea whether it is still fashionable to call Shakespeare plays such as Measure for Measure (and All's Well that Ends Well) by the name 'problem plays' (or who originated that term), but the Duke's ethics in MfM seem no more dodgy than the friar's!
2. Whisky in Shakespeare
Not that it was called that in this play, but that is, essentially, what the acqua vitae* that is called for when Juliet's body is found, after she has taken the friar's concoction and so appears dead (but might be capable of being revived).
3. Overacting in Shakespeare
As the scene unfolded, it may have been the performance, but the reactions - in particular of Juliet's father - seemed overblown (and even ridiculous) in an age much more used to mortality at any age (Juliet's certainly being no safeguard) than ours.
For me, almost reminiscent of Lady Macbeth's awkwardly incriminating interjection, roundly put down as inappropriate given that the king has been killed, to the effect not in our house!
4. Sun and Moon
For those who have read - or dare to read - Lunch on the moon?, my own lines needfully do not bear comparison with:
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she
(Act 2, Scene 2)
5. Another link with Macbeth
Macduff, when he enquires after his wife, is told that she is 'well' (meaning, as used, really that she is at rest), and only comes to the realization about 'all my pretty chickens and their dam' a few lines later.
Here, with the economy that we will see below when Juliet kisses Romeo, Romeo introduces the word, in its usual sense:
How doth my Juliet? That I ask again,
For nothing can be ill if she be well.
To which Balthasar, his servant, directly replies:
Then she is well and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
6. The apothecary
Since the seeming source, in Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562), not only narrates the story, but gives characters speech, it should be possible to see how much invention there was in Shakespeare's Act 5, Scene 1, when, 60 lines in, Romeo procures poison**...
That said, before he does so, the Act opens with 11 lines' worth of a dream, in which Romeo begins by questioning the 'flattering truth of sleep', but also showing that, maybe, he is tempted to credit it, and, in any case, feels better for it (until the question in line 15, quoted above, to Balthasar):
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne
And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts
The purchase of the dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear / As will disperse itself through all the veins, put me in mind of a similar transaction in The Canterbury Tales, in the tale told by the Pardoner of the three young men who boast that they will seek out the villain Death to punish him - and find him.
7. The kiss
Brooke's narrative has Juliet kiss*** Romeus, but very differently from Shakespeare's portrayal of the touch of lips:
A thousand times she kist his mouth as cold as stone
Shakespeare's kiss is not only more tantalizing (as Romeo is clearly not long dead, and so might more nearly have been alive****), but there is a telescoping of several elements in barely more than half-a-dozen lines:
What's here? A cup clos'd in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!
Two-and-a-half lines later, Juliet has stabbed herself, not having time for the long speeches and decisions of Brooke's narrative, as she does not want to be prevented from following Romeo in death when she hears voices.
No time for any more kisses than one, no time for farewells, but, more affectingly, the affectionate rebuke of her dead lover, and the conceit of wanting to share the means of death (with all its overtones) in that kiss.
End-notes
* Revd E. Cobham Brewer's delightful A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, in an old edition that I have, reassuringly tells us, in the entry before, about Aqua Tofana:
A poisonous liquid containing arsenic, much used in Italy in the 17th century by young wives who wanted to get rid of their husbands.
Fair enough, one might think, but the entry puzzlingly continues (and concludes):
It was invented about 1690 by a Greek woman named Tofana, who called it the Manna of St Nicholas of Bari, from the widespread notion that an oil of miraculous efficacy flowed from the tomb of that saint. In Italian called also Aquella di Napoli.
** Which sounded like a woman, on Radio 3, not a man, make of which change what one will...
*** Sure a Freudian slip, I typed 'kill' just now!
**** I am reminded of Leontes, at the end of The Winter's Tale, kissing what he thinks a statue of his dead wife Hermione, and finding it warm to his lips' touch.
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How to bluff your way as a concert-goer: Lesson 1
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 April
By way, first of all, of credentials - we will be naughty, and skip the learning outcomes* - let me say this:
I consider it sufficient basis on which to offer this bluffer's guide that, when shamelessly seeking an autograph from a both attractive and highly skilled singer last night, I should be told not only that I had been noticed in the audience (why wouldn't I be!), but also that my engagement with following the performance gave rise to the assumption) that I knew the repertoire (when I had never heard it before)
You justly retort (quoting God knows whom) Self-praise is no recommendation
To be continued
End-notes
* Not necessarily an indication that there is nothing to be learnt - or, at any rate, no hope of learning it...
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
29 April
By way, first of all, of credentials - we will be naughty, and skip the learning outcomes* - let me say this:
I consider it sufficient basis on which to offer this bluffer's guide that, when shamelessly seeking an autograph from a both attractive and highly skilled singer last night, I should be told not only that I had been noticed in the audience (why wouldn't I be!), but also that my engagement with following the performance gave rise to the assumption) that I knew the repertoire (when I had never heard it before)
You justly retort (quoting God knows whom) Self-praise is no recommendation
To be continued
End-notes
* Not necessarily an indication that there is nothing to be learnt - or, at any rate, no hope of learning it...
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