Sonnet One (Dec. 19-20 & 22)

Writing sonnets is hard and if you can avoid it, you should.

2020: What I Read

"Lines for a Wild Mouse (Deceased)", a Poem (Nov. 7 & 9)

 

Nov. 7 & 9th. While walking at a nearby park I discovered a dead mouse on the concrete. I picked it up by the tail and laid it on the ground beneath the trees, covered it in leaves, and said a few words for it. A couple days later I wrote this poem.

Life in the Time of Coronavirus #7: Sick of This "Foward Progression of Time" Nonsense

As the title suggests.

Politics, Optimism, and Cynicism (Brief Thoughts)

I've got a small theory on politics to present to you. It's to do with the relationship between various ideologies and their degrees of optimism and cynicism.

Traveling from right to left: fascism is pure cynicism, undiluted and untempered by optimism. Conservatism is cynicism disguised as optimism. Liberalism is optimism without cynicism, or without enough cynicism. Leftism is both cynicism and optimism: that society is deeply, deeply messed up at the most fundamental level, and, despite that, despite centuries of history, a better, fairer, just world is still possible.

The Birdwatcher's Guide to Atrocity | Seeming (2020)

 

The Birdwatcher's Guide to Atrocity and its companion LP, Monster, from Seeming. August 2020, physical; August 2020, digital, Birdwatcher's; September 2020, digital, Monster. Artoffact Records.

Coexisting | Or, I Was In A Podcast

 Way back in June, at the tail end of it, I was interviewed and recorded an episode of the podcast Coexisting. It's a podcast in which guests from around the world are all asked eight questions about life during the pandemic, and the answers are edited together into, effectively, an unbroken monologue. We talked about keeping one's mental health intact, about Albert Camus' novel The Plague, and about libraries, also -- naturally, because I work at one.

At the time, shortly after recording, I felt that I wasn't very articulate, and I regretted not being able to talk about my music or my writing, because I am passionate about both. But, listening to it back when it came out -- it came out second-to-last day of August -- I'm very pleased with it. If you're wondering about quarantine life, then this is a good podcast to listen to. The editor, Lara Lightbody, has guests from all around the world, America, Ghana, Australia, Vietnam, and more. Please listen to it.

Finding a Canon

There's an ongoing conversation in the genre world on the subject of canons. Sarah Gailey is running an excellent series called 'Personal Canons' on their substack, and this was meant to be a submission to it, but I forgot about the deadline and missed it. So here you are.

Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light

The Return of Susanna Clarke

An interesting thing seems to be happening: Susanna Clarke is coming back. Two books influenced by her unique blend of real-world history and strange magick and Faerie are coming out this year: H.G. Perry's A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians (which will be the first book of a duology) and Alix Harrow's The Once and Future Witches. (There may well be others with Strange & Norrell influences that I don't know about.)

The BBC Natural History Unit Odyssey #1: Parker, Fenton, and Hooper

(Crossposted and lightly edited from the Filmtracks Scoreboard.)

A few weeks ago [on the Scoreboard -ed] I discussed an Odyssey of my own. Unwilling to go for one composer, I've gone for multiple and elected for the works of the BBC Natural History Unit. Soundtracks dating from 1979 to present day; twenty-six of them in total. I will note that I am a slower listener and a slower reviewer then many on this forum, so please don't expect any particular rapidity of posting.

Life in the Time of Coronavirus #6: Self-Isolation Winds Down

My self-isolation is, alas, coming to a close, and my place of work, the local Library, will be re-opening to staff only next week. So, it's time to reflect on it. What, after all, is one's personal blog for other then navel-gazing?

Life in the Time of Coronavirus #5: Day 50

It has been observed by many that we seem to be living out the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times." What seems to have been missed is that, unless you are an essential worker who is out there working face-to-face with the coronavirus, be it by risk of exposure (as in the case of grocery store and other employees) or by direct contact those whom are ill themselves (such as medical workers), this is actually quite tedious.

Life in the Time of Coronavirus Nr 4: Thoughts

And so we enter a season of religious fervor, and I am pleased to bring you puns:

• No Palm Sunday. We're in a pandemic, people.
• Passover? Not passing over me, it ain't!
• Good Friday? Please. 

Life in a Time of Coronavirus Nr. 3: Quarantine Week Three

I am now on day twenty-five of my quarantine.

Making a Dent in My Unread Books

I own at home over a hundred books that I have not yet read. Some of these books have been unread for years now. Despair at their still being unread enters the realm of humor and then loops back around and becomes despair once again.

My Top Twenty Soundtracks of the 2010s

(Reposting from Filmtracks' Scoreboard.)

Life in the Time of Coronavirus Nr. 2

It's difficult to describe the atmosphere right now. Even on sunny days, there is grey day energy; that is one way I could put it. There's a sensation both of urgency and of stillness: I am sitting at home, at my computer, typing this. Yet, out there in the world, people are dying, or they are on their balconies, trying to figure out a way to keep their spirits up when they can not leave their apartments.

Life in the Time of Coronavirus Nr. 1

The coronavirus was confirmed in Michigan on the 10th and response has been quick: my workplace closed, schools have closed and are moving online, our Governor announced that restaurants and bars are closed excepting take-out and delivery... thus far, my workplace has set a provisional return-to-work date for March 23rd, and resumption of normal service for April 6th. I am, at least, being paid for my scheduled hours, which is nice.

When will this end? Would that I know. I've revised my expectations from May to July, a friend of a friend tells me that it may last through to September or October, and apparently some health officials in Britain are expecting a second wave of cases come Spring 2021.

Thoughts Sparked by Amadeus (Thoughts on Genius)

A few days ago I watched the film Amadeus with some friends of mine. It is a fantastic movie: beautifully filmed and shot, and with some of the finest acting I've ever seen. It's a deeply moving story of artistic struggle - and not only that, but a very funny character assassination.

Yes, it is completely historically inaccurate: neither Mozart nor Salieri much resembled their real-life counterparts; Salieri most certainly did not kill Mozart; and beyond some rivalry in trying to acquire jobs there is no evidence of acrimony between them. (Mozart said some rude things about Salieri, but let's be fair, Mozart said rude things about lots of composers.) And indeed, Mozart and Salieri even jointly composed a cantata!

Salieri was forgotten for a very long time until the twentieth century. Indeed, he can owe his revival to the 1979 play Amadeus that gave way to the 1984 film Amadeus. It's one of life's little ironies.

Was this just?

On the basis of Salieri's '26 Variations on La Folia', probably not. The 'Variations' were the best known set of orchestral theme-and-variations until Brahms' 'Variations on a Theme of Haydn'. Salieri's 'Variations' use a melody called La Folia, a very simple 16-bar melody that has survived through the centuries to this very day. 

The '26 Variations' date to 1815, as Beethoven is entering his late period of creativity. Salieri doesn't stray far from La Folia, so much of the variation in his work is in the orchestra: you could, not entirely unfairly, compare it to Ravel's 'Bolero' in that respect. It's an exercise in orchestration. There's a harp solo, a violin solo, and skillful use is made throughout of woodwind colors and of rhythmic variation. If Ravel's 'Bolero' could survive, why not Salieri's 'Variations'?

Many composers have been forgotten. Today's classical recording industry is a blessing: many composers that were forgotten, be it shortly after their death or over the course of the 20th century, are now being revived. This is a good thing. 

Music historians are doing excellent work also: Christopher Fifield's book The German Symphony Between Beethoven and Brahms restores numerous composers between the two Bs to their place in history, and Douglas Shadle's The Nineteenth Century American Symphonic Enterprise is an excellent corrective to the silly idea that no truly American classical music existed until Dvorak. If you can check them out through your local Library, I highly recommend both.

A few years ago, I can not remember when, I read an article about two groups that were each shown a Classical-era symphony. One was told it was by Mozart; the other, given the name of its true composer. As you may expect, the group told that it was a Mozart symphony thought far more highly of it then the other group.

The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that the symphony was neither as great as the first group thought it, nor as poor as the second group regarded it.

The second and less obvious conclusion to draw, and this relates to Salieri's unjustly forgotten Variations and to the recording industry spurred revival of forgotten composers, is that genius is both more and less common then we think it is.

Firstly, it is more common then we think it is in that more composers have been touched with it then we generally like to admit. Perhaps with less frequency then the great names that we tend to remember, but still touched with it.

Secondly, it is less common then we think in that our tendency to elevate certain Men of Genius above other men (and women) results in some of their works being elevated above their merit by virtue of the name attached. If Beethoven hits genius more often then any of his contemporaries, does that really justify forgetting the many fine works of Louis Spohr? If Schumann is remembered for his unique brand of brilliance, even if he is sometimes criticized, and for the emotion of his work, does that really justify forgetting the symphonies of Johann Kalliwoda, whose work was a major influence on Schumann, to the point that Schumann outright borrowed some of Kalliwoda's techniques?

Reader, I don't think it does.

Brief Thoughts: The Emperor Knows He Wears No Clothes

No emperor is so stupid he's actually convinced he is wearing invisible clothes that, not only can't be seen, but can't be felt. The emperor knew he wasn't wearing anything. He did it for fun. For pleasure. For the joy of making everyone else pretend he is wearing something. (Note that "the emperor is stupid" and "the emperor is cruel" are not irreconcilable.)