CHUH CHOW

Going through a buncha Italian videos on YouTube. They're a bit basic, but the speaker (20 year old college student) usually signs off by saying "Cu-ciao" (can't seem to find it spelled anywhere, phonetically for an English speakers it's "chuhchow." Guess it's analogous to "bye-bye" in English.) Dunno why, I just like it. Probs something I should know, but it's never turned up in anything I've seen, heard or read.

UPDATE:
Actually, it's just "ciao ciao" said together (there was a little floaty text thingy on the end of a video). But the way she says it sounds like when American speakers schwa bye-bye to buh-bye.

A MOST A-BORED MAN

Started reading Barry Cooper's Beethoven. Haven't actually read a real-deal biography of Beethoven before -- to my eternal shame -- but that just makes this more exciting. Haven't really delved far enough into it yet to write a real response on the book per se. The copy swam to me in a torrent, so I started it w/o doing my habitual pre-reading research and comparison of possible alternatives. Really, I'd like to read a biography of him in German (cuz Sturm und Drang) but I'll hafta save that for another day. I chose Beethoven since I've been going through 

Real life has been a rather uneventful see-saw between fairly interesting work (which itself is a seesaw between feverish deadline anxiety and languid ease) and exasperatingly dull "life" life. Not bad, all things considered, although I wish there was more to do around here.

Intellectual life has been trending towards old highschool proclivities: comics, cartoons and bucket-loads of music. I'm not precisely sure why, although it all feels a bit like a coming home. It's possible that copy-editing work is sapping my invaluable brain-juice more than I know, and my wordsmithery is suffering. Still, I've been enjoying trying to systematically improve my drawing (The Illusion of Life is artistic inspiration par excellence) and listening to music. The music, of course, has been a long time coming, and my recent purchase of DT 880's definitely constitute an enabler for an addiction.

I've been going thru Beethoven's String Quartets (hence the biography of same). I'll listen to the Ninth this evening. For some reason I don't have the same recall with string quartets as I do with piano sonatas, say, or symphonies. Not sure if that's a matter of my own familiarity or lack thereof, or some quality of string quartets themselves (probs the former). Of course, the differences between the Razumovsky quartets and the "early" quartets is huge, and I can easily distinguish between the groups. Mhm. Anyhoo, still thoroughly enjoying it.

Boy, my writing's lousy. I wonder who uses "boy" like that? I've heard a lot of people say "man" but all of a sudden boy seems rather odd.

My language study has slipped ever-so-slightly of late. Again, copy-editing has kind of diminished my reading stamina, so I've switched to watching videos/listening when possible.

Speaking of videos, this guy is awesome. I've been going thru all his videos (there's around 315 at the moment). My two favorites so far are

a). A motivic representation of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. Being a total dunce where music is concerned I can't keep up with the huge fuguries in the piece for long. It's weird how much more easily you can eye that sort of thing.

b). This animation of a Chopin nocturne with the "interval types" between different notes depicted in colored lines. I just think it's purty. "My God, it's full stars!"

I doubt either one is terribly helpful for musicians or anyone who actually knows what they're talking about, but it's a real neat application of computer technology/visualization and musical ability. It beats farmville anyway. The guy that does it is apparently a composer/programmer hybrid, which both makes some sort of sense and sounds like a supervillain's CV. 

What else? That's about it. For the rain it raineth every day.

Probs gonna watch A Most Wanted Man tonight (at Big Pocket's suggestion). I'm in the mood for some spy fun, anyway. We'll see.

You know the best synonym for grey matter? "Brain juice."

PROPERTIED AS ALL THE TUNED SPHERES

A Wikipedia reference on the article for Musica universalis:  

 Houlding (2000) p.28: "The doctrine of the Pythagoreans was a combination of science and mysticism… Like Anaximenes they viewed the Universe as one integrated, living organism, surrounded by Divine Air (or more literally 'Breath'), which permeates and animates the whole cosmos and filters through to individual creatures… By partaking of the core essence of the Universe, the individual is said to act as a microcosm in which all the laws in the macrocosm of the Universe are at work".

Then look at Cleopatra's lines:

His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

Mhm-hmm...

Shakespeare strikes again! Also the "his voice was propertied/as all the tuned spheres" is totally going in Music of the Spheres.

THREE IN ONE

Just a little tidbit from the earsense chamber music database. N.B. that last sentence. Sounds like Music of the Spheres material.

All three of the Razumovsky quartets are conceived on larger scale that even the most noteworthy of their predecessors from any composer. Beethoven’s genius enabled him to do this while, at the same time, strengthening a sense of unity across the greater expanse. Op. 59, No. 1 is famous as the first quartet to omit the repeat of exposition: a false start immediately diverts into an enormous development section with the paradoxical effect of tightening the entire movement into a single gesture. Two of the quartets fuse their last movements together without a break in the music, a further technique of joining separate parts into a larger, unified whole. There are symmetries separated by vast distances such as the beginning and end of the third quartet. It can be argued that there are even specific harmonic relationships between the end of one quartet and the beginning of the next. Many have suggested that Beethoven conceived of the three separate Razumovsky quartets as a unified whole. The vast first movement of Op. 59, No. 1 is not fully balanced until one reaches its magnificent counterpart in the finale of Op. 59, No. 3. Perhaps the three quartets function like a gigantic three movement work with a broad and complex first movement in F major, a tense contrasting movement in e minor, and a bright, exultant finale in C major. A performance of the complete set in a single concert gives this very impression. With the proper preparation for its context within this larger setting, the third quartet acquires a further triumphal radiance. The distinguished scholar Leonard Ratner suggests that all of Beethoven’s quartets may even form a kind of mega-work, a single great narrative that stands apart from all other music in history.

— This may be courtesy Kai Christensen, but there's no signature to be found.

DEZEMBER KOMMT, NOVEMBER GEHT -- UND WAS DANN? LIFE IS A ROUGH DRAFT

Forgive me, cybervoid, for my deplorable inattention. A recently-procared copy-editang jab has slowed my reading somewhat, so not much to report there -- However, been reading the Illusion of Life at free moments. The writing, to put a none-too-fine point on it, is lousy: lots (I mean lots lots, multiple-times-a-page-lots) of hilariously hackneyed references to "Walt" (it's invariably "Walt") and his supernatural ability to harness people's creative energies, lots of redundancies, lots of fascinating anecdotes told in the least-fascinating way possible, lots of stylistic booboos. All that, and lots more.

All of which just makes this book even more amazing for what it manages to do: it imparts just a bit of the kind of creative electricity that spawned all the classic Disney originals - Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi. Something about this book (perhaps its rugged, rough-draft has something to do with it?) makes it experiential in a very special way. It's rather inspiring, actually. I just pictured inspiring as a bolt of energy swirling up a spire. Spire is an odd word. Spear, spar, spire, spore, spare, spur.

Anyway, add the fact that this book is one of the most nicely produced I've ever seen (glossy pictures oo la la) and how cheap it is, and its a winwhinnygoround.

NEW FONES

Gomme some new headphones (Beyerdynamic DT 880's to be precise (the 250 ohm ones)). First time I've had any really decent headphones. Started with Der Leiermann from the Winterreise cycle by Schubert. Thought the piano sounded unusually clear, then, WHAM, the baritone came in and it sounded like the singer was live right in front of me live. Wowsers. This I like. So this is basically what I'm going to do every night after work. What shall I go to now? I'd like to hear what multiple voices stuff sounds like but I almost want to just save it...

OK. Wow. This is insane. Orchestral stuff sounds so awesome. Listen hear, and just know that I'm hearing it so much better than you. The oboe cadenza is aaaaamaaaazzzinnng. Goes through the whole range w/o skipping a beat.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURES THROUGH KEYWORDS

Started reading Anna Wierzbicka's Understanding Cultures Through Their Keywords.

I'm considering this one 95% brain candy until further notice. Actually, I pretty much agree with the overall sweep of the argument (the particular structures and characters of languages influence the development of cultures), but I don't think it's really provable on an evidential, scholarly level (she herself (over)-frequently falls back on appeals to personal cross-linguistic experience in her intro. I'm reading this more to pick up the odd linguistic anecdote and the fun culutral factoid than for her argument.

She takes a few fun potshots at Pinker's The Language Instinct in her introduction, basically accusing him of wanton monolinguism (the word "ethnocentrism" is fired).

Also argues that Russian as a language tends to make stronger absolute value statements vs. more circumspect English. Compares use frequency of pravda/istina vs. "truth." Not being much of a Russian scholar, I don't know how broad a semantic field pravda/istina cover, but I could certainly see it overlapping with contemporary English usage of "really" (which she doesn't mention). After lambasting one-to-one translation correspondences, she's oddly happy to use them in frequency lists.

See also:

The reason to study frequency lists.

ROSETTA MISSION IN PICTURES

Once you get past the lame press-release computer graphics, Der Spiegel has a good collection of photos from the ESA Rosetta Mission. Can anyone say rotating 3-dimensional model of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko? But top prize definitely goes to the ESA Rosetta flickr page.

[insert Space Odyssey reference here]

FROM THE DISSOLVE

Great article  at The Dissolve on the animation genius behind Pinocchio. Prompted me to make an impulsive 2:00 a.m. purchase of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, a book* I've wanted for years.

*"Book" should probs be capitalized. It's essentially any animation nut's bible. Shame on me for taking this long.

A HISTORY OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE THROUGH TEXTS

Finished up A History of the German Language Through Texts today. Somehow the book itself is so awesome it almost overshadows what it actually says: it's got diplomatic reprints of texts ranging from the oldest OHG fragments ("fater unseer/fater unser/fadar is usa/fadar ist usa"...) all the way to the Jugendsprache in internet chatrooms (book was published in 2003). Each excerpt is accompanied by a fairly thorough philological analysis -- in English? -- that contextualizes it and compares it with the preceding examples. Darn tootin'. Can't say that it's terribly well-written, but that's not really the point anyhoo.

Both the authors are interesting. Gloning is apparently a specialist in "German language cookery texts 1350-1896" or, if you prefer, Monumenta Culinaria et Diaetetica Historic. Going by his faculty page this book seems to be his sole foray into English, which perhaps explains the involvement of Christopher Young, who I'm guessing is currently buried in work on the new edition of the Kaiserchronik.

A.B. FROST'S STUFF & NONSENSE

You are what you draw

Read through Frost's 1884 Stuff & Nonsense yesterday. The majority of it consists of little limericks accompanied by an illustration above and below the text, sort of "before and after" pictures in a two-panel comics format. They are hilarious. Frost's fantastic at capturing an entire action in a single frame. He's also one of the rare illustrators that can illicit a laugh with a simple facial expression. His animals are  delightful (he illustrated some editions of Uncle Remus ich glaube). There're some illustrations of a caveman community in a similar style to him that I need to find (I'm almost certain that the Croods borrowed liberally from it) but I can't recall the name of it.

It's hard to choose an exemplary illustration.  The one below may show Frost's ability the best, though. I'll add another in a bit.

WATTERSON

Here's a link to the poster Watterson did (see left) for the 42nd annual Angoulême International Comics Festival. The timing is perfect. Watterson really gets the whole jumpcut voodoo. 

A lot of Watterson's stuff is a throw back to early 20th century comic strips/illustrations; stuff drawn by A.B. Frost, John Tenniel & co. This is especially true here. The way he drew the character in the second panel especially reminds one of Herriman's Krazy Kat (see also and cf. noses). The way terrain plays such a big role in Calvin & Hobbes is also a throw back to Krazy Kat. I could talk about this a while. Fun factoid: Joyce loved Krazy Kat. There's even a reference to it in Finnegan's Wake. Good stuff.

Uh oh. Think it's time for a comic strip binge. Here we go. I'll probs start with Frost's Stuff and Nonsense, which I should've read ages ago. I'll report back shortly.

A.B. Frost = the best

LATE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS

Naughty Nosferatu

 Switching jobs so not much time for Chopping Logic. Figured a bit of Nosferatu would be fitting for the season, though. Watched it a week or so ago. I love German expressionist stuff, for whatever reason. Think the first film in the category that I saw was Mabuse der Spieler. Kind of proto-noir aesthetic. Nosferatu's the quintessence of trippy creepiness (the whole Teutonic acting diva-ness, the exaggerated silentfilm pantomiming, plus the Stoker-derived material). But I love how the shots look like graphic-design work: lots of contrast, shadows, all very bold and striking (= proto-noir). One of the many simple things that makes Nosferatu fantastic is the color palette: shots alternate between a sort of feverish yellow and sickly/sad blue-green (see screencaps).

Transylvania Waterworld

Unfortunately Blogspot has the world's worst photo-display set up for posts, so sorry.

Any mention of noir immediately brings to mind Night of the Hunter though, which features one of the most uncanny villain-performances ever by Robert Mitchum. Also has the shot at bottom.

Pollen season

Night of the Hunter