I decided I didn't want to keep the original title, which was made up quickly while setting up the blog.
The new title is Recherche Critique, which you can take as meaning "obscure thoughts".
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Different Histories
This morning, while on the bus into the city, I was listening to a "Hit of the 70s" compilation album. Nothing incredibly unusual there - although retro-music is not something I listen to often.
Nor was it unusual that the passengers who gradually filled the bus were from a wide variety of international and ethnic backgrounds.
But what did occur to me as a young asian woman found herself a seat was this: what are the chances that any of us have a shared memory of a "hit single" from the past? At that moment I was hearing "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne - would anyone on my bus remember it, would anyone on my bus have heard it (in 1971) at all?
I've become quite used to the idea that there are now plenty of things that I remember being current but of which a younger generation simply has no awareness. It's a slightly different and perhaps perplexing issue to wonder how many of my comtemporaries are similarly unaware, not because of time but because of place.
Quite apart from needing to map the geographical spread of people that have come into my vicinity, it is even harder to try mapping which cultural trends were globally spread. I'm sure both extremes will exist: a) that there were trends that I didn't realise were actually local, and b) that some trends really were global but with significant time shifts in different places and hence known to a different generation.
Certainly the world of music exhibits this effect. If we look at pop music there have been major worldwide successes of their time - e.g. The Beatles. And there have been curious sets of acts that have been "really big" in just one or two isolated countries. A country like Australia is probably well disposed to sit in the middle of all this, and this is a rich field for making lists of such mini-successes.
A wider question might be whether this shared history or lack thereof has any consequences. I suspect there isn't much consequence at all. Maybe in the future there won't be anything like the current splurge as the baby boomers spend their property wealth on aging rock/pop star tours. If culture has become terminally diverse then indeed it may come to pass that nostalgia won't be like it used to be.
Nor was it unusual that the passengers who gradually filled the bus were from a wide variety of international and ethnic backgrounds.
But what did occur to me as a young asian woman found herself a seat was this: what are the chances that any of us have a shared memory of a "hit single" from the past? At that moment I was hearing "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne - would anyone on my bus remember it, would anyone on my bus have heard it (in 1971) at all?
I've become quite used to the idea that there are now plenty of things that I remember being current but of which a younger generation simply has no awareness. It's a slightly different and perhaps perplexing issue to wonder how many of my comtemporaries are similarly unaware, not because of time but because of place.
Quite apart from needing to map the geographical spread of people that have come into my vicinity, it is even harder to try mapping which cultural trends were globally spread. I'm sure both extremes will exist: a) that there were trends that I didn't realise were actually local, and b) that some trends really were global but with significant time shifts in different places and hence known to a different generation.
Certainly the world of music exhibits this effect. If we look at pop music there have been major worldwide successes of their time - e.g. The Beatles. And there have been curious sets of acts that have been "really big" in just one or two isolated countries. A country like Australia is probably well disposed to sit in the middle of all this, and this is a rich field for making lists of such mini-successes.
A wider question might be whether this shared history or lack thereof has any consequences. I suspect there isn't much consequence at all. Maybe in the future there won't be anything like the current splurge as the baby boomers spend their property wealth on aging rock/pop star tours. If culture has become terminally diverse then indeed it may come to pass that nostalgia won't be like it used to be.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tristan and Isolde at The Met
Well Sunday's 5 hour epic opera - Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" was impressive.
Opera on this scale is something of a trial, even when it's being shown on a cinema screen. It was clearly too much of a trial for two elderly ladies, who decided partway through Act 1 to talk quite loudly about whether they should leave and if they did, who should go first. Extraordinary!
I keep being amazed at the number of older people who seem to have no idea of how to behave in public. Surely they weren't raised with that behaviour? I can only figure that they've spent so many years at home in front of the tellie chatting away that they've quite forgotten any old rules.
Musically the performance was top class. Deborah Voigt showed superb vocal acting and gave Isolde a real sense of Celtic power. It is a great feature of these broadcasts that one gets good coverage of the conductor and orchestra - usually they're just invisible in the pit - and with Wagner each act had a substantial dramatic interlude where we watched and heard a performance worthy in its own right.
However, two aspects of the event were disappointing.
One was the acting performance. While each singer acted out their emotions very well, there was almost no interaction between the title pair. For a long opera that is solely focussed on the intense love of two people it is barely credible that they almost never looked at each other. While this is partly due to the misfortune that beset this Met season - it was the 4th performance in a row with a different male lead - there still had to be a lack of stage direction at issue.
The other drawback was the attempt by the director to alleviate the visual sparseness of the opera by using multiple frames within the screen. While I understand her motive, as given in a live interview in the first interval, there were too many occasions where the audience was left watching a tiny portion of the High Definition screen with bunches of pixels for faces or when things were happening in full screen for that view to vanish while the frames were rearranged.
Now obviously doing this kind of thing live is a hard act to pull off, and you have to give The Met marks for trying, but in the end the effect detracted rather than added to a more ordinary approach.
Not that is stopped the Wagnerites in the audience from applauding at the end of each act. I don't really get the applause-in-the-cinema thing but I guess people like to express their feelings.
All in all, I enjoyed it and was glad I went and spent the time but it wasn't an experience I could recommend to non-devotees.
The next broadcast/delayed screening is La Boheme which should be more accessable.
Opera on this scale is something of a trial, even when it's being shown on a cinema screen. It was clearly too much of a trial for two elderly ladies, who decided partway through Act 1 to talk quite loudly about whether they should leave and if they did, who should go first. Extraordinary!
I keep being amazed at the number of older people who seem to have no idea of how to behave in public. Surely they weren't raised with that behaviour? I can only figure that they've spent so many years at home in front of the tellie chatting away that they've quite forgotten any old rules.
Musically the performance was top class. Deborah Voigt showed superb vocal acting and gave Isolde a real sense of Celtic power. It is a great feature of these broadcasts that one gets good coverage of the conductor and orchestra - usually they're just invisible in the pit - and with Wagner each act had a substantial dramatic interlude where we watched and heard a performance worthy in its own right.
However, two aspects of the event were disappointing.
One was the acting performance. While each singer acted out their emotions very well, there was almost no interaction between the title pair. For a long opera that is solely focussed on the intense love of two people it is barely credible that they almost never looked at each other. While this is partly due to the misfortune that beset this Met season - it was the 4th performance in a row with a different male lead - there still had to be a lack of stage direction at issue.
The other drawback was the attempt by the director to alleviate the visual sparseness of the opera by using multiple frames within the screen. While I understand her motive, as given in a live interview in the first interval, there were too many occasions where the audience was left watching a tiny portion of the High Definition screen with bunches of pixels for faces or when things were happening in full screen for that view to vanish while the frames were rearranged.
Now obviously doing this kind of thing live is a hard act to pull off, and you have to give The Met marks for trying, but in the end the effect detracted rather than added to a more ordinary approach.
Not that is stopped the Wagnerites in the audience from applauding at the end of each act. I don't really get the applause-in-the-cinema thing but I guess people like to express their feelings.
All in all, I enjoyed it and was glad I went and spent the time but it wasn't an experience I could recommend to non-devotees.
The next broadcast/delayed screening is La Boheme which should be more accessable.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Opera vs Eurovision
As I look forward to Tristan and Isolde this weekend - yes, that's the 5 hour long Wagner operama, rebroadcast from The Metropolitan Opera in New york - and listen to Eurovision 2003, the more similar they seem to be.
Both are a multi-lingual experience - i.e. for monolingual people like me this means hearing mysterious words that one presumes to be meaningful and poignant. When you hear a hauntingly beautiful aria from a bel canto opera it is natural to presume there is a poetic view of the human soul being expressed in caressing tones.
Honestly, opera can disappoint if one expects this to be fully realised when you finally take time to follow the libretto along with the music. The chances are that the great poetry you imagined is just something like "hey, come and smell these flowers, don't they smell nice".
By comparison it is easy to presume that Eurovision is the opposite - just a bunch of glammed up Eurotrash singing "ding a ling a ling a ling" over and over. Yes, sometimes it is just that - but sometimes it is deep and profound, and poppy to boot.
Take the opener for 2003 from Iceland, "Open your Heart". On the surface this is just a bombastic pop song about love. But lo, it says: "Open your heart, show me the pain, it’s all part of who you are. Tell me your dreams, your hopes and your fears, just open your beating heart to me"
To my mind this goes to the core of what a real relationship is all about, and why honesty to ourselves and each other is so vital. Otherwise we're just sharing taxis and restaurant meals.
Both are a multi-lingual experience - i.e. for monolingual people like me this means hearing mysterious words that one presumes to be meaningful and poignant. When you hear a hauntingly beautiful aria from a bel canto opera it is natural to presume there is a poetic view of the human soul being expressed in caressing tones.
Honestly, opera can disappoint if one expects this to be fully realised when you finally take time to follow the libretto along with the music. The chances are that the great poetry you imagined is just something like "hey, come and smell these flowers, don't they smell nice".
By comparison it is easy to presume that Eurovision is the opposite - just a bunch of glammed up Eurotrash singing "ding a ling a ling a ling" over and over. Yes, sometimes it is just that - but sometimes it is deep and profound, and poppy to boot.
Take the opener for 2003 from Iceland, "Open your Heart". On the surface this is just a bombastic pop song about love. But lo, it says: "Open your heart, show me the pain, it’s all part of who you are. Tell me your dreams, your hopes and your fears, just open your beating heart to me"
To my mind this goes to the core of what a real relationship is all about, and why honesty to ourselves and each other is so vital. Otherwise we're just sharing taxis and restaurant meals.
Music on my MP3 player this week
Cantamus - Aurora
An all female choir performing works of a contemporary composer.
Enigma - A Posteriori
Possibly the best Enigma album of all. At the least, it's the best since the very first one. Recommended.
Eurovision Song Contest - Riga 2003
Ah Eurovision. It's like a form of opera really. Riga 2003 was a cracker year. If you watched it on SBS, this was the yeat that Des Mangan compered it.
T.A.T.U - Dangerous And Moving
Yes, I know, the pair of Russian lasses, who coincidentally performed at Eurovision in 2003. This is a surprisingly rock styled album with a mix of English and Russian lyrics.
Bartoli, Cecilia - Opera Proibita
Cecilia at her Rossini-esque melodramatic best.
Sumi Jo - Les Bijoux
Simply beautiful singing.
Catrin Finch - Crossing the Stone
A crossover album by a classical harpist.
An all female choir performing works of a contemporary composer.
Enigma - A Posteriori
Possibly the best Enigma album of all. At the least, it's the best since the very first one. Recommended.
Eurovision Song Contest - Riga 2003
Ah Eurovision. It's like a form of opera really. Riga 2003 was a cracker year. If you watched it on SBS, this was the yeat that Des Mangan compered it.
T.A.T.U - Dangerous And Moving
Yes, I know, the pair of Russian lasses, who coincidentally performed at Eurovision in 2003. This is a surprisingly rock styled album with a mix of English and Russian lyrics.
Bartoli, Cecilia - Opera Proibita
Cecilia at her Rossini-esque melodramatic best.
Sumi Jo - Les Bijoux
Simply beautiful singing.
Catrin Finch - Crossing the Stone
A crossover album by a classical harpist.
Of pitfalls and bit falls
Inaugural posting. As I'm trying to make use of the Google Calendar to keep my life a bit more organised it seemed sensible to set up a blog to host my occasional need to post.
As the Google account will be used to provide a bridge between work and home, this blog will be likewise. Hence it will at least in part be about .. data! Yes, the exciting world of data .. sounds Pythonesque.
You can expect to see two kinds of topic covered here:
As the Google account will be used to provide a bridge between work and home, this blog will be likewise. Hence it will at least in part be about .. data! Yes, the exciting world of data .. sounds Pythonesque.
You can expect to see two kinds of topic covered here:
- databases and general computing topics - because that's what I do, day by day
- music, theatre, opera topics - because that's what I like.
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