Tag: celesteh

Procrastinating

I posted this as a comment in vince’s blog:

Ah, the role of high art in pop culture. in american movies of the 50’s, when people go to see the symphony or opera, it’s used as a kind of a backdrop. the symphony itself is rarely shown. often a conductor (who really is obviously not conducting) in tux waving his arms around provides the only cues that the symphony is there. the symphony atendees are wealthy. they sit up properly and siltently in straight back chairs as if they are at church. Opera and high art is not to be enjoyed, it is a duty of their class to attend.

In soviet symphony, as a contrast, high art was considered culturally valuable to the masses. They symphony would be shown in movies playing along with their real-life conductor. the views were (obviously) not wealthy and were shown enjoying the music. For music deemed “romantic” (not the era, the mood), such as one of chopin’s themes, that i can’t recall the name of, couples in the audience might look at each other and smile, and perhaps snuggle into each other or males might but their arms around females. the soviet movie audience is thus encouraged to enjoy the symphony, rather than see it as an eltist (and boring) symbol of the upper class.

the idea of an eltitist nature of high art in the us is a persistent one. It can show up in carol’s experiences in gifted and talented programs, so that Opera is considered soemthing that an elite group would be suited to enjoy, wheras a regular group would not. Or it can show up in the anti-art rhetoric of republican senators, vowing to destroy the NEA.

the anti-high art movement has commercial roots. It’s been encouraged extensively by hollywood. Radio stations, such as the mormon-owned KDFC, portray calssical music as something to fall asleep by. Miami currently has no classical music radio whatsoever. thus corporate-owned radio has no desire to broadcast lively and current high art, or in some cases, no desire to broadcast high art at all.

the reasons for this are beyond the scope of this procrastination. however, the consistent mediocrity of pop culture may be a factor. Pop culture is insipid. It is not thought-provoking. It is easier to control than a complicated and thoughtful piece of art.

Universal Healthcare

Dean is right. Universal healthcare is a moral imparative.

Well, he didn’t actually say it that way. In fact, when he was asked about UHC, he said he’s “not your guy.” His “position paper,” (which is actually just a flyer and has a larger picture of him than a discussion of any issues) says his plan will offer healthcare to every unisures American for cheaper. that doesn’t mean “healthcare for everybody.” That means, “buy your own.”
I really don’t want to turn this into a Dean-bashing blog. Dean would still be better than Bush. Hell, the stuff growing in my fridge would be better than Bush. the only thing worse than bush would be Joe Lieberman. but if you think Dean’s going to get you UHC, well, he’s not. He doesn’t want to. and if you think he’s going to be pro- freedom to marry, well, he’s not. He says “civil unions” (he won’t even go as far as marriage) are a states rights issue. That’s like saying that integration is a states rights issue.
I’m not saying he never did anything for gay people. Civil unions are a nice little seperate but equal system. It is seperate. It is equal. And the “but” still applies, as it doesn’t have the nice federal rights or mobility of real marriage. and I’m sure his healthcare system is better than Bush’s. But it’s not UHC and it’s not equal rights.

More More More

the catholic encyclopedia, specifically, The Te Deum atricle at newadvent.org notes that:

The general rubrics (titulus XXXI) of the Roman Breviary direct the recitation of the Te Deum at the end of Matins: (a) on all feasts throughout the year, whether of nine or of three lessons, and throughout their octaves. It is said on the octave day of the feast of the Holy Innocents, but not on the feast itself unless this should fall on Sunday; (b) on all Sundays from Easter (inclusively) to Advent (exclusively) and from Christmas (inclusively) to Septuagesima (exclusively); (c) on all ferial days during Eastertide (namely from Low Sunday to Ascension Day) except Rogation Monday.

Guess what day le Mystère du Siège D’Orléans (erroneously) states is the day that the English left Orléans! Guess!

Ascension Day!!!!
since the writer of the play certainly knew that the English left on the 8th and not the 9th, s/he must have had a reason for writing in the wrong date. Is there symbolism involved? Since the play is closely tied to the annual thanksgiving procession and celebration, the establishment of that process, described here as Joan of Arc direction the town to sing Te Deum may have had very very strong import to the writer. It might have been the point of writing the whole play.
It sure would be a lot easier to tell if I could read French…

in other news

(still news about the MdsO) Slobin thought that kids here would be really excited to stage the play. So I asked some kids about it, and they were really excited. hopefully, they can be excited long enough to translate it. Putting it on for all 4+ days that it would take is probably overly ambitious, so i’m thinking: pick one day. and i can write music for the pauses (using the correct instruments were directed). and undergrads can take the 129 speaking parts. and maybe the SCA could help out with the battle stuff. i just need a vision and an army of excitable undergrads.
It would be the first ever staging too, which could add to the excitement.

Still snowing

Went out last night and played with dog for a long time. Then wandered around with some undergrads and went and got some simulation of a soy hot chocolate at the town café. Tried throwing snowballs, but the snow was too dry. Also, apparently too dry for a snowperson. someone suggested snow angels, but it seemed cold. I missed both concerts I was going to go to.

Today, snow continues to fall. I dunno how much this stuff weighs, so I brushed it off the roof of my car. I might have to get Aaron at the train station tomorrow, so I’m hoping I can get somebody who has experience driving in snow to come with me, so s/he can warn me if I’m about to do something stupid.
I want to try to make a snowperson, but I’m supposed to do reasearch. The east coasters all seem to want to pat me on the head and send me on my way when I act amazed/confused. Except for the undergrads, since many undergrads are perpetually amazed/confused. I wish Christi were here.

Thanksgiving in Paris

Air France is a much nicer airline than US airlines. Rmemeber the old days before everyone was terrified that the person next to them had a shoe bomb and you could stand up and stretch without being eyed nervously and people did crazy things like walk around and stand in line for the bathrooms? Air France is like that and the stewards are polite. Downsides were that they kept waking me up for things like food or to warn me that airturbulence might break my neck is I sleep with me head pitched forward on my tray table. I’ve never heard of that before. Is it because US-based airlines don’t care if I break my neck? Is it a special feature of french airplanes?

Arrived v. tired in Paris. Took a nap. then went out to see the world Priemere of a LaMont Young piece. I don’t know the name of the piece. Christi insisited that we arrive one hour early to listen to the talk. The talk was in French, of course, so I didn’t understand a word of it. “Blah blah blah John Cage blah blah serialism blah blah.” Well, I got a few words. I didn’t mind because I know Christi has extensive experience listenign to and understanding lectures in French about music. But then she slipped out and went to a bar without telling anyone, while I and her mom (who also doesn’t understand French) stood respectfully and listened to the lecture.
The piece was three hours long and seemed to involve a few different tuning schemes, but I couldn’t tell you more than that, as I didn’t understand the lecture. There were drony MAX-based electronic sounds, I think samples of cello and a solo cello player with a couple of pedals. The auditorium was about 90 degrees Farenheit (I come to France and I can’t speak the language and I don’t do metric…) and there was inscence burning and just-intoned drone-y sounds. I fell asleep twice in the first twenty minutes. then was awake for a while, then out for about 40 minutes where I had a dream that I was on an airplane and instead of the big TV screen at the front of the cabin, they had a solo cello performer. There was a while where I had my eyes closed but was not alseep. Eventually, the cellist was playing fast rythms in the sort of the same mode as the piece started out in. The same kinds of gestures were being made, but they were all ornamented with fast notes, also in the same sort of gesture. It was sort of fractal that way. It was exciting, but then it was drony again and I’m afraid I dozed off again. Finally, the peice was over and the cellist just sat at the front and looked stressed and beat. He didn’t do the full relaxing thing that’s a clue that the piece is over. There were tentative claps here and there. People waited. Clapped quietly once, sort of testing if anyone else would join in. For four or five minutes.
Spent yesterday working on SuperCollider project. It crashes the server. Christi and her momed cooked and I coded. Now they’re out doing something interesting and I’m working on my Joan of Arc paper (and updating my blog, of course). Two French folks that Christi is friends with came over for Thanksgiving dinner. They were dubious about the holiday and about American food. But all went well. Christi ran out to get extra tomatoes (ah the convience of celebrating a holiday in a country that doesn’t recognize it) and found a computer out at the curb which has a DVD player and a CD burner, so she dragged upstairs.
I must get back to work

and

it’s the 25 anniversary of the slaying of the US’s first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors. Dan White, the killer, also killed Mayor Moscone. The gay community responded by having a candle-light march. White, a former police officer, plead temporary insanity and his plea became erroneously known as the Twinkie Defense. Although it mentioned ho-ho’s and whatnot, it didn’t hinge on junk food. The jury was selected to be pro-death penatly, as White might have been sentenced to death. The conservative, pro-police jury, widely described as homphobic, sentenced White to eight years in prison, of which he served five. The gay community responded with a somehwhat angrier march. Some marchers wanted to commit vandalism. The march leaders had formed a human chain keeping the rowdier deonstrators out of trouble. the overwhelmingly homophic police department promptly arrested all the leaders and provoke the crowd, which responded to the provocation. The police then went into the Castro (the city’s gay neighborhood) and started pulling people out of bars and arresting them. Gay folks in bars were as apolitcal then as they are now. Guys just looking to drink and cruise were beaten by police. The police joked about getting cute guys and boyfriends as they assaulted bystanders. A riot thus errupted. Police cars were overturned. This eventually became known as the White Night Riots. Queers do fight back.

First the Bad News

This in the mail this morning:

Public Safety would like to notify the community that this morning Saturday, November 22,
2003 at approximately 2:50am a male student reported he was assaulted on High Street near
Huber Ave.

The male student was walking by himself when he was approached by a male who made a
homophobic comment and struck him. The student continuing walking a short distance and
then was approached by the same suspect and four others who began punching and kicking
him. The suspects then left the area on foot and headed north on High St. The student was
brought to Middlesex Hospital for treatment.

that’s the opposite side of campus from where I live, about a 5 minute walk from the CFA. I have walked home from the CFA by myself at such an ungodly hour. In the future, I’m going to either bicycle (it’s downhill going home) or take Xena with the hope that she might intimidate somebody. High Street is a major enough street that I would have thought it was “safe.”

and

I will not be going home during winter break. A mis-reading of schedules lead me to beleive that there would be time for christi and i to spend a week at home. but this was in error. i won’t be home for thanksgiving either. my thansgiving day tickets are non-refundable, so i’m not going to be able to change them, even in the unlikely event that i could book a flight home at this late date.
however, I have a two week spring break, at least one week of which will be spent in California. Possibly (hopefully) both weeks.

Good news

the good news is not as good as the bad news was bad, but i felt that if i just said “bad news” and “other news,” that would come off as too pessimistic.
I went to the Music in Sacred Spaces symposium and head many lectures about church architecture and a little bit about music. Nothing came up that was useful for my paper, aside fromthe notion that processions create a sort of temporary sacred space, through the music used and the objects carried. but my paper, while it involves processions, is a bit more secular.
Went to a concert of 17th cenutry sacred chamber works afterwards. the program notes seem to be very interresting. i’ll read them later. the trio used a 17th centure tuning system, which was not meantone. it was closer to equal temperment, so more keys sound better, but was period appropriate.
after the concert, several symposium participants and grad students went to the organizer’s (prof Jane Alden)’s house for drinks. The party didn’t break up till like 2:00 am. she served some sort of apple brandy. it’s two nights in a row that i’ve perhaps gotten a bit loopy in a social setting, but rest assured, a trend is not starting.
One interresting thing is that all the musicologists there can look at a score and hear how the harmonies work. none of the composers there (grad students) have that skill, although aaron can read rhythms very well, as he’s a percussionist.
I think I’m missing a fundamental musical skill.

Concert

Tonight was the Graduate Composition Seminar concert, officially titled Five Minute Wonders. We all wrote five minute pieces. A lot of people came to hear them. Really a lot. I was impressed.

We started setting up at noon. I finally left the building at about 11:30 pm, after striking. (Striking as in, striking the stage, not as in doing a walkout to protest long hours).
My piece seemed to be well-received. I’ll have a recoding of it to post later. I would like to hear it again, perhaps played by a pianist who had more time to practice it.
the second half of the concert was a performance of John Cage’s songbooks. It is an extremely silly collection of “songs.” I can probably be burned at the stake at Wesleyan for calling it silly. For one of my songs, I was to attack a microphone to my throat and drink cognac. I got concerned about drking cognac without eating immediately beforehand. Fortunately, one of the songs in songs books says eat or drink three things. Jascha made an arrangement with a local pizza place, so that they would deliver pizza during the performance. the pizza delivery guy was actually Neely (the professor in charge)’s grandson.
when the pizza guy came on stage and I handed him cash, the audience was luaghing like crazy. I could barely stop giggling. So I ate some slices of pizza and then sipped my cognac. I had been practicing drinking cognac the last few evenings, with the idea that it would be good to know how to pace myself and build up my tolerance a bit before the concert so as to not be drunk by the end of the performance. So at the end of the performance tonight, I was disturbingly sober.
this problem has sicne been fixed.
tomorrow is a symposium about sacred spaces. Most about medieval christian music. so i’m going to most of it. hopefully it will somehow aid my paper.
speaking of my paper, i realized last night that the dissertation-copy of the play (the one I’m writing about) that I have is in medieval french, instead of modern french. I don’t speak modern french either, but i really don’t stand a chance with old french. But I have a book out of the library which has it in side-by-side translation into modern french. joy! but that book was due today with no renewals. I knew I had no time to do anything about this. with a heavy heart, I went to plead with the Inter Library Loan office.
I am dedicating my next piece to the ILL office, especially Kate. She told me just to hang onto the book. I’ve never had a librarian tell me to just let something get overdue. So Sunday, I’ll be photocopying all the pages with musical pauses. Fortunately, this is only about 400 pages or so. arg.
I couldn’t get a paper today, so i dunno if they printed my letter. i wonder how i would find out?

Alaxander Nevsky Paper

Celeste Hutchins
Proseminar
Nevsky Paper

I read Eisenstein’s explanation of how the Nevsky images and sound work together and I remain unconvinced. However, what was clear both in his writing and his film were strong issues of Russian identity.
These were very obvious in the film, where the characters openly discuss what it means to be Russian and the importance of the homeland. This was contrasted with the German other. Today’s Colloquium speaker noted that the music used for the Russian themes in the film were based on Russian folk modes. Thus it is somewhat similar to Stravinsky’s Svadebka, as they both use folk elements to re-imagine folk life.
I recognized other things common to Svadebka including that the female love interest had her hair parted into two braids, thus indicating her status as an unmarried woman. However, at the end of the film when the two couples pair off, neither woman starts singing a platch, but instead look happy with their future husbands. However, the matchmaker (mentioned early in the movie) has not yet been sent, so perhaps the platch would be premature and might interfere with the happy ending.
Russian identity is obvious in Eisenstein’s writings as he quotes Pushkin. Pushkin’s poetry is strongly linked to Russian identity. He is widely quoted and revered.
Despite the obvious and strong Russian identity in the film, certain American film conventions were used. For example, as one of the Germans fell through the ice and slowly slipped in and drowned, there was a Mickey Mousing downward trombone slide matching his action. Eisenstein goes so far as to claim that all of the score in the waiting scene is Mickey Moused, drawing diagrams and making claims of eye motion. Some scenes had music pre-written for them and Mickey Moused in reverse, so that the action was made to mirror the score.
This type of Mickey Mousing however, goes far beyond anything that would be found in an American film. The score, with it’s folk modes and choral works is distinctly Russian. These Russian identities in the film are contrasted with the film’s portrayal of German otherness. The creepy bucket-style helmets make the Germans look like aliens. Issues of religion also figure in very prominently.
The Germans have crosses on their uniforms. They have crosses on their shoulders. Even the eye holes in their helmets are cross shaped. Many scenes show the German holy leaders raising crucifixes. The religious leader goes so far as to say that there is only one world emperor and he must bow to the Pope. The Germans are in Russia on a religious crusade to impose Catholicism.
In contrast, there was only one scene showing Russian Orthodoxy. It was a short shot of some people standing, one of them holding an icon. The Germans are evil Catholics and the Russians are practically atheists by comparison, but they do have this other religion, which they get to keep, at least until the revolution.
Musically, Catholicism is represented by the organ that the priest plays. Also, since the trumpets are first blown at a church service, they also represent catholicism as much as they represent the threat of the knights. It is hard to draw a distinction between Catholicism and the Teutonic threat as Catholicism is the Teutonic threat. It is their motivation for coming to Rus and their justification for committing atrocities. Religious baiting is a tired old form of propaganda, but probably useful in a legally atheist society, as it helps build national religious (or irreligious) unity.
There is also a single character who was probably supposed to be a Jew. This character tells the angry nationalist mob that nationalism is not as important as money. Some nobel character kicks the Jewish man and calls him a cur. Because of the diasporic nature of Jewish peoples, they were viewed as stateless. In the Soviet era, Jews were not considered Russian citizens, but rather resident aliens. Their legal nationality was Jewish.
This possible Jewish character does not get a musical theme. He has about the same amount of screen time as the Russian Orthodox church, maybe a bit more. He is represented by stereotypes and carries no iconography. Thus religions in Russia are barely present in the film, whereas German religion is threatening, gets a lot of screen time and has musical themes and instruments associated with it.
Russian identity is thus defined, both as what it is and what it is not. Russian identity uses folks modes, quotes Pushkin and is forever optimistic. Enemy identity is religious, faceless and threatening, with odd instrumentation of bassoons and strange trumpets. Most horrible of all is the traitor to Russia who gets killed by an angry mob. Real Russians – the ones not kicked to death by the proletariat – love their country and will fight for it.

Errata

I said that Mass was the first and only state to rule that dscriminating against the marriage rights of same sex couples was unconstitutional. Yahoo news says that Hawaii decided that first. Actually, I was in Hawaii in 1998 when all of this was happening. christi, I and her parents went, hoping that we would be able to get married. while the case was pending, Hawaiians voted to amend their constitution to specifically discrminate against same sex couples. So any court decision was automatically moot and iirc, the later court decisision just said as much.

Alaska also amended it’s constitution, I believe also in the face of a pending court decision, but I don’t remember as much about this one. The Hawaii one really went down to the wire. It wasn’t certain how they would vote and there was the possibility of a ruling coming at any time and then being reversed only a few days later after the election. Alaska’s situation must not have been so close, or it would have been on my radar.
Yahoo says that Mass can’t amend it’s constitution until 2006. The Mass legislature, however is unhappy.
It is important that the pro-freedom to marry viewpoint is as visible as possible. I’m going to look into possibilities for direct action in Mass. Other things that can be done include writing letters to the editor of your newspaper supporting the Mass court ruling. That is an extremely useful thing to do. Also, posting approval other places, such as your blog or wherever. you could use the same letter for both. I highly encourage you to do this. this is the first civil rights struggle of the 21st century. writing a few paragraphs and emailing it off to your newspaper (and posting it on your blog) seems to me to be the best way for a non-citizen of Mass who lives far away to affect the process in a positive way. If you have other ideas, I’d like to hear them.