England plays Uruguay today in the match that could see either side knocked out of the final. For England to lose today, it would mean the first time it got kicked out this early in more than fifty years. So to all of my followers in Blighty, and all England fans everywhere, here’s a bit of “there shall always be an England” courage for Hodgson’s men. Come on, you lads!
Talk about gilding the lily. The original aria is delicate and tender and completely heartbreaking in the context of the story.
The OperaBabes (seriously, that’s their name) version is mindless elevator music. It was part of a mix CD I got during a summer semester in college. I didn’t know much about the original opera, let alone the story, and, being totally addicted to rhythm then as I am now, I thought it was really catchy and great exercise music. And then years passed and I heard the story behind Madame Butterfly and had an excellent “facepalm” moment.
Wood varnish, modern dance, and New York City. Those are the three things that come to mind when I hear this.
Wood varnish: I am seven. My mom refinished…man. I lost count of the number of things she refinished in the house I grew up in. Our beautiful old upright piano, tables, chairs. Not to mention all of the other home improvement projects she had going on. A Michael Jones cassette was part of the music rotation she would put on the paint-splattered radio-tape player that kept her company when the fumes were too strong for a kid to deal with. Michael Jones was soon supplanted by Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” and I took “Pianoscapes” for myself. It heavily influenced my own early compositions. Don’t get me wrong – this music isn’t that great. But what it did do for a little kid writing her own stuff was make it okay to experiment with melodic changes, time signature changes, and rhythmic changes. It also made it okay to write “songs” that were more than ten minutes long. You’re welcome, neighbors.
Modern dance: I am ten. I took a bunch of different styles of dance when I was a kid but modern dance was the only one that I really got into because – surprise! – there aren’t a whole lot of rules. Perfect. One homework assignment was to create our own dance and set it to music. The person who came up with the most popular dance (decided by a very public vote) would choreograph a whole group routine. I used “Tapestry.” I did not win.
New York City: I am thirteen. For my thirteenth birthday, I got to go to New York City and visit my godmother. She lived by the courthouse in Manhattan and worked in the fashion industry. She was (and still is), very tall and very glamorous. She took me shopping to buy my very first make-up (Clinique – what’s up). She bought me my first pair of black cigarette pants. We ate escargot and went to the theater. It was incredible. We also went to a bookstore that had a CD section and I bought the CD version of the now six-year-old cassette tape. I put it on her CD player when we got back to her enormous apartment and I remember walking around her very modernist two-bedroom, looking at the city lights glowing in the dark, with this piece pouring out of the speakers. That’s a very happy memory.
I recently got a few boxes delivered from a storage unit I had more or less forgotten I had. One of them had photos in it. It was marked, “Photos.” Another had scratch-and-sniff stickers in a jewelry box, an orange stopwatch in a plastic bag with some loose Euro coins, and approximately seven different guidebooks of Washington, D.C. It was marked, “Random.” The third box was marked “DO NOT PUT ANYTHING ON TOP OF THIS BOX” and was filled with all of my old CD binders dating back to senior year of high school. Oh man. This was going to take some time.
Leafing through page after page of CDs was way more intense that looking at old snapshots of myself and my degenerate college friends. It was a tour of my innermost thoughts and – worst – tastes and preferences. “Oh Christ” was a common thought that sprang to mind every three or four page-turns. Talking about this with some friends over beers last week, it became clear that they – and therefore the entire universe of still-alive humans – have music that they still love but are too ashamed to tell people about.
I am not ashamed. I am going to air my dirty musical laundry for all to see. Welcome, dear readers, to Shame Week. We begin our tour with the odd little British group The Dream Academy, whose song “Life In A Northern Town” is a nice pre-chewed bite of moodiness, punctuated by a howlingly out of place “African”-style chant in the chorus. Oh, and there’s an oboe. Okay.
Meh. Blah. Grr. Argh. “Some days you give thanks, some days you give the finger – it’s a complicated creation.”
Hooray, climate change! Thanks for making the temperatures hurl themselves from the 90s to the 50s in the space of a day! Miri it is that we might get to look forward to bizarro-world weather swings like this as our new normal, and the phrase “wardrobe-planning” take on a new scope. I don’t own a car and already judicious with my energy usage at home, so I’m not sure what more I can do reduce my carbon footprint that wouldn’t equally reduce my living standards to those of our friendly English composer “Anonymous” in 1225. But at least I’d have pretty songs to sing.
—
Miri it is while sumer ilast with fugheles song, oc nu
neheth windes blast and weder strong. ei ei what this
niht is long. and ich with wel michel wrong, soregh and
murn and fast.
Merry it is while summer lasts with the song of birds;
but now draws near the wind’s blast and harsh weather.
Alas, Alas! How long this night is! And I, most unjustly,
sorrow and mourn and fast.
It’s been a long time coming, but I finally feel settled in some sort of groove these days. This is in no way synonymous with phrases like, “of course I know what I’m doing,” “please ask me for directions and/or advice,” or “I’d love to tell you where I’m going to be in five years.” Rather, what I mean is, I know what to do when catastrophe strikes, when I don’t know how to cook a squash, when my faucet is leaking, when I need to go to the E.R., when I’ve had a terrible day, and when things upset me. I call one of my people. That’s what I do.
You spend most of your 20s constructing yourself. Somewhere around age 29 or 30 you have a sense of deep satisfaction that comes from having a fuller grasp of who you are and what you’re about. And then you spend a good part of your 30s realizing that, to paraphrase President Obama, you didn’t build yourself alone. You had a lot of help. I know how to deal with the E.R. on a rainy Tuesday because a friend came with me when I hurt my knee. I know how to process my terrible thoughts because I have friends who listen to them. I know how to deal with the vagaries of my job because I have peers who can relate and tell me stories that remind me of my own issues. Creating your own family is the very best part of growing up.
—
Far from the electric floor
Removed from the red meat market
I look for a fire door
An escape from the drums and barking
Bereft of all social charms
Struck dumb by the hand of fear
I fall into the corner’s arms
The same way that I’ve done for years
I’m trapped in a collapsing building
Come find me now, we’ll hide and
We’ll speak in our secret tongues
Will you come back to my corner?
Spent too long alone tonight
Would you come brighten my corner?
A lit torch to the woodpile (aye)
Dead wood needs to ignite
There’s no spark on a dampened floor
A snapped limb in an unlit pyre
Won’t you come and break down this door?
I’m trapped in an abandoned building
Come find me now, we’ll hide and
We’ll speak in our secret tongues
Will you come back to my corner?
Spent too long alone tonight
Would you come brighten my corner?
A lit torch to the woodpile (aye)
Come find me now, we’ll hide and
We’ll speak in our secret tongues
Beethoven wrote some of the most famous “first few notes” in the history of music. The beginning of the first and second movements are definitely among those. But that’s not why I’m posting this. You already know all of this.
I’m posting this because of Maestro Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Järvi is famously devoted to Beethoven’s original tempo markings, which are quite faster than how modern conductors usually take his works. Such speed with a two-bit orchestra would make this music sound sloppy and muddy. But the DKB produces razor-sharp, gloriously precise phrasing.
If you want to enjoy this properly, make this video full screen and watch the orchestra. The entire collective is at the top of their game. They are throwing everything they have into the notes. The cellist at 0:28. The violinist at 0:39. Järvi himself from 1:28-:136. They are an army of music, and it is glorious. Because here’s the thing: the 9th is standard orchestra fare. These people have played this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times before. But in this recording, in this video, it’s like they’ve just been rehearsing their whole lives. This is their first real performance. It’s one of the most exhilarating things I’ve seen in ages.
I like using my brain. It is my favorite thing to do. I love to spend hours thinking, turning things over in my mind, then talking about these things with people. I remember great conversations like they were trips I went on. I get the same high from intellectual stimulation as I do from my favorite physical activity, running. The rhythm of this song reminds me of both, and therefore makes me happy.
I have a vision of the northern Sahara at dusk. There are bare scrubby trees, and sentient-looking rocks carved by wind and sand. It looks like a place called Tassili N’Ajjer Plateau, in Algeria. This is where the Tuareg group Tinariwen recorded their 2011 album “Tassili,” from which this song comes. The album was recorded outside in the desert. I have a lot of wanderlust by nature, but this song – and the vision this song gave a tune to – makes me all but grab my passport and run out my front door.
Tassili N’Ajjer Plateau, Algeria
—
Imidiwan ma tennam dagh awa dagh enha semmen?
Tenere den tas-tennam enta dagh wam toyyam teglam
Aqqalanagh aljihalat tamattem dagh illa assahat
Tenere den tossamat lat medden eha sahat
Aksan kallan s tandallat taqqal enta tisharat
Aqqalanagh aljihalat tamattem dagh assahat
What have you got to say, my friends, about this painful time we’re living through?
You’ve left this desert where you say you were born, you’ve gone and abandoned it
We live in ignorance and it holds all the power
The desert is jealous and its men are strong
While it’s drying up, green lands exist elsewhere
We live in ignorance and it holds all the power
The Daily Tune-Up 