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."

Haydn's Die Schöpfung vis-a-vis Mozart's Requiem in D minor: A Revery

Thinking about NaNoWriMo got me thinking about the opening of my Mega-novel got me thinking about Haydn's Die Schöpfung got me thinking about Haydn's Die Schöpfung v. Mozart's Requiem (be warned, previous link is one of Harnoncourt's "period-instrument" performances. See this if that's not your thing). It makes sense, I swear. If I ever get around to writing the thing maybe it'll be more apparent.

Anyhoo, soapbox: although it's considered one of Haydn's best, Die Schöpfung is criminally under-appreciated. This is an objective fact. The 8-minute "Chaos" sequence followed by the Fiat lux is handsdown the most hair-raising musical experience that exists. Flipside: Mozart's Requiem is criminally over- and mis-used by film directors everywhere, and it's still criminally under-appreciated.


Although they differ in technical genre (oratoria/mass), both Haydn's Creation and Mozart's Requiem speak the same language (and I don't mean they're both works for choir + super-sized orchestra w/ extended vocal solos). They're concerned w/ the same things. They're on the same wave-length. They're both massive gravity-wells of the universal Story. Flipside: they're opposite sides of same coin. Obviously, the subject/genre has a lot to do w/ this. Where Haydn's work has a lighter touch, Mozart's...not light. Heavy's not the right word. Dense perhaps? Nope. "Strong" is getting there. Anyhoo, both concerned w/ what I will spontaneously choose to refer to as the Perennial Monomythohistory, but reflect opposite sides of it: Haydn's piece (being the chummy Haydn) focuses on the jubilant, positive, creative aspect of creation), whereas Mozart's focuses on the tragic.

So, yeah.

This matters cuz my goal in life for the last seven-ish years has been to capture the experience of hearing the first ten minutes of Die Schöpfung in writing. A tad unattainable, granted, but one can dream. So many abandoned poems. I need to start writing writing rather than tossing letters around like a preschooler. Mhm. Must craft, hone, sculpt, try, try again.

Here's a Haydn freebie. An oldie but such a goodie.
 

Let 'er riff! Free Writing Take #1.5

Mozart's Fantasy in D minor. Also: Because.

Attempt to partially clarify reaction to The Tempest. Hwaet! The argument: The Tempest is the closest Shakespeare comes to showing the essential unity between music and literature. The overall tenor is so uncanny, and the work itself demands such a multitude of emotional reactions that it defies verbal articulation - it's music, or magic, whichever you prefer. The peculiar combination of both fairy-tale outlandishness and a far more "personal" feeling both heightens the emotional reaction and a reader's emotional interaction w/ the play, mirroring a person's response to a musical piece - something almost infinitely abstracted and yet soul-stirringly intimate. See also the constant references to sounds and the auditory aspects of the Island itself + the frequency of lyrics w/in the script (Rondo in A minor). The Tempest, in other words, draws attention to the musica de la palabra. Anyhoo, think the basic "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" principle applies here. That's about that. It's Saturday, praise Bacchus. Mhm. Memorizing Ode to a Nightingale. Not a terribly original choice, but who needs originality when you have Keats going all highschool-angsty? "My heart aches, and a dull numbness pains / my sense, as though from hemlock I had drunk / or emptied some dull opiate to the drains / one minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk" if my memory serves. Still probs gonna try'n'memorize Tempest dough. Not terribly original for free-writing either. Guess I think in loops. In loops. In loops. Looper. Lark looper. I want to write a person. Will this make me a nicer human being? I doubt it. But I want to write a person. Lark Looper? Ditzy. Highschooler. Big glasses. Calls to mind a less rugged, pudgier version of Gordon-Levitt in Brick if he'd read less hard-boiled pulp fiction. Likes baseball because he likes stats. Quiet at first, warms up quickly. Genuine guy. Father out of the picture, mother bubbly elementary teacher. Only child, apple of said mother's shining blue eye. Happy enough, wants a life, doesn't know where or how to get it. Half-subconsciously resents mother's attention, better off remarried. Plays drums in highschool marching band, looks like a dork when he does it, loves it anyway. Friends few but loyal, mostly oddballs, "hi/bye" friends many. Watches inordinate amts of TV for no apparent reason, baseball and miscellaneous. Bright in everything but math. Not lazy, but not terribly enterprising either. Doesn't care about appearances. This isn't a person. What makes Lark Looper tick? Lark's got "nice-guy syndrome," unable to say no. Starts booking? Friday evenings he takes a 91 Miata (fathers?) and goes for long cruises w/ the top down to nowhere. Blegh.

La la la la strange mood brain dump and now for something completely different

Well the rents're gone to FL and the cat won't sit still long enough to engage in conversation, so I may as well blog into the windy cybervoid... Massive lightning storm at work today. Emerged from white clinic-closet-from-hell block room, greeted by pitch-black skies and tossing trees and claps of thunder. Slumped right down against the door. It was beautiful and aweful. Just kind of peered around from under the tall tin roof, rain-mist on my face, squatting on wet concrete. Felt like a bird must tucked in a tree, just barely out of the elements damp not wet. Afternoon breaks in general (when they occur) feel almost out-of-body, surreal certainly. They may last five minutes, but something about that little concrete pad under that tall tin roof surrounded by old tin fences and old wood pallets and old old equipment gives it a timeless quality, and the way the trees and the blue or black or white (hazy) skies that're always there take you out of geography and drop your somewhere rich and strange. Reminds me of that trippy moment I had in the dental office years ago looking thru the window at the wind in the trees w/ Lennon crooning Imagine over the office radio. I'm listening to Pärt's Für Alina as I type. How perfect. It's almost over, though. But to the thunderstorm. Das Gewitter. That says it all. Das Gewitter. Words're so rich and strange. Ah! I must memorize that passage next. And 'sfrom The Tempest. It all works out doesn't it? I've started memorizing poetry just for the sake of memorizing poetry, and because it's an easy thing to practice while I'm stuck bagging ice for eight hours a day. I only started a few days a go, so I've only got Donne's The Sunne Rising down and I'm looking for some material I'm really keen on. Love Sunne Rising b/c it's playful, silly, sweet and true. Donne doesn't (always) let his cleverness get in the way of earnestness. I've considered some Keats, but I'm not feeling him somehow. Donne's touching in the same way Haydn is, since he comes across as a genuinely heartfelt guy and not a sickly, possibly disturbing sort-of delinquent (vide Keats & most every other artist the world over). They're both more "craftsman"-like than Beethoven-style Inspiration w/ capital-I. All these people have been dead hundreds of years. Maybe I've been dead hundreds of years, mhm. Don's not been dead hundreds of years, unless he uses a lot of product. He's a nice guy, hard-working. Though that can be an irritation at times. But it's all one. Today was brutal work-wise. Don't have the proper bags for the machine, so I have to maintain this excruciating position where I hunch over at the waist 45 degrees but hold my arms straight out level w/ the floor and move bags w/o any support. Gets to be a bit much after 8 hours of standing that way. Hopefully I won't get back problems from this job. How plebeian. < How snobbish. Why am I writing this? I don't know. Maybe I'll look at this in 10 years. I'll be 32. Wonder what that'll be like. Listening to Sibelius choral pieces. Ah, Finnish you so fine. Half-listening's probs more accurate, though, since I'm typing this at the same time. I considered watching a movie, and I may still, and of course I could read, but I want to produce something for once. Produce isn't the word. I use it in opposition to consume, but that's not precisely the dichotomy here. Ick been so a lion, ick wilby sea-hung u. verb-ending haven mit yea manned. Ab, er, vee u. vo? That was fun. That's also the crux of this whole Matter. Wonder will anyone I know understand it. Well, they'd "understand" "it" but "decipher" "it," I mean. I'd really like to read Finnegan from begin to fin again. I considered memorizing bits of that, as well. We shall see. What a dweeb am I. Beginning to feel less of a compulsion to write absolutely nothing. 'Sa pity "crux" sound so hideous. It's a splendid word. Does a good job, unimpeachable etymological heritage. And here's Donne's The Sunne Rising typed from memory sans punctuation:

Busy old fool unruly sun
why dost thou thus
thru windows and thru curtains call on us?
must to thy motions lovers seasons run
saucy pedantic wretch go chide
late schoolboys and sour prentices
go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride
call country ants to harvest offices
love all alike no season knows nor clime
nor hour day month which are the rags of time

thy beams so reverend and strong
why shouldst thou think
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink
but that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine
look and tomorrow late tell me
whether both the indias of spice and mine
be where thou leftst them or lie her with me
ask for the kings thou sawst yesterday
and thou shalt hear all here in one bed lay.

she's all states and all princes i
nothing else is.
princes do but play us; compared to this
all honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
thou sun art half so happy as we
in that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease and since thy duties be
to warm the world, that's done in warming us
shine here to us, and thou art everywhere
this bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Good stuff. Yup, think The Tempest'll make for a good follow-up. In the mean time, the world continues to whirl on w/o much participation from me. Moody Blues' Night In White Satin on now. Suppose not many people up to much at 9:18 on a Wednesday evening. My future has a paradoxically ubi sunt vibe to it. How strange. Rich and strange? I think the reason the phrase rich and strange is so rich and strange is that both of those words have such a myriad of connotations, even by the highly meaning-thick standard of English vocabulary. Rich and strange. Rich as in food, non-monetary value, monetary value, "that's-rich!"-ness or whatever other shades of meaning that don't come to mind now [Tuesday Afternoon now]. But future. What does it mean to say a future exists? Does it mean anything? This is silly. I'm avoiding the question. What is the question? Insert Hitchhiker's Guide reference. Never written like this. Not sure what I think about it. It sounds like my brain, for good or ill. I know I should write more and hone my quill. I was proud of using "quill-pusher" for a scribe in an essay at Berry. Dunno if externalizing all this does a jot of good. Suppose it gets me used to typing if nothing else (pianoter, lol). Free association typing is a scary thing. I should come up w/ one good pt and then expand it....Now it's Dawn is a Feeling in Days of Future Passed. Man, the music tonight's so spot-on w/ my mood it's not even funny. I'd say I need to learn to play an instrument, and I should, but I don't know. The wind.

The wind's a peculiar thing. One of the most ubiquitous elements in nature, and still one of the most emotive. It lends itself to metaphors as well as anyone. Chaff in the wind. Dust in the wind. Chaff, dust mean so very little unless they're put in the wind. Then it feels real. I suppose it's b/c the wind is the most unknowable thing that's still immediately perceivable, so of course it becomes associated with the inexplicable things (spirit, time, motion, etc.) from the Greeks > us. In Barry Lyndon, the most perfectly beautiful film I've ever seen, the simple shot of the Lyndon mansion surrounded by wind-tossed trees is one of the most beautiful. In The Sopranos, those stupidly simple shots of leaves in the wind that they probs filmed on Chase's porch are the ones that always stuck w/ me. Sinatra singing Summer Wind speaks for itself. This may, of course, just be me. But I'm not the one who actually put these in to begin with. So it can't be. Just me. There's something in the wind. An evanescent ishiness. This is something like what I thought sitting out in the middle of the storm. I wasn't really thinking them as so much as feeling them. Don't suppose this'd do anybody any good, though I wish it could. That's what I want: something I can do that would do anyone any good at all.  I suppose that's really too much to ask out of life, though.

Had an interview recently w/ a little Christian school. Strange interview. But not rich and strange. Sour strange. Unwholesome strange. Normal sort of interview preamble: Handshakes, "Hot weather we're having. Ready for fall. I like some heat, but this, whew." Then wham: "let's pray." This bothered me the rest of the half-hour/so. Wasn't expecting a Christian school to be Christian christian, I suppose. I feel so strongly about All That and yet whenever I try to express my opinions/notions/whathaveyou with someone I feel disingenuous, and I think they perceive me as such. Have to tell myself that doesn't mean I actually am disingenuous. Oder? Religion's too personal for me to bring to a workplace anyhoo. All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. That'd sound good in french. Tout sera bien et tout sera bien et toutes sortes de chose seront bien.