Reallyquickpost - 24 January 2008
Jan. 25th, 2008 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptWent to see the Seattle Symphony play Play! tonight. Of the three performances I have been to, this one was easily the worst, in my opinion. It might have been where I was sitting (Main floor, aisle seat, right side), but there seemed to be tempo problems for a lot of the pieces (conducted too slow), and for many of the songs, the notes were always precise and seemed very nonmusical, nonflowing to me. There were some songs that were excellent, usually in slower tempo. My musical sense and expectations may have interfered with enjoying this concert fully, but it took, in my opinion, until the middle of the first act for the symphony to start playing things at the right tempo. It was enjoyable when things were on, but when they were off, I was well aware of them. I’d still recommend seeing a Play! concert, if you haven’t already, but your mileage may vary, I guess. Try 8-bit Instrumental as a possibility until then.
Mr. Gore has endorsed equal marriage rights for homosexuals. Perhaps it’s an attempt to utilize his newfound Nobel clout in the service of other worthy social issues? In a only-tangentially related way, the Social Issues Research Centre offers a guide on how, where, and when to flirt. Dry, academic, but possibly useful.
Internationally, Condoleezza Rice dangled the prospect of more normal relations with Iran if it gave up the nukes. Knowing that they couldn’t spend five years in Iran rebuilding like they did in Iraq, perhaps this is a carrot offering? Although, there should be lots of international Frowning Upon Iran's disqualification of more than 2,000 candidates for election because they were deemed to be disloyal to the principles of 1979 that started the current regime.
Preliminary "economic stimulus" agreement would involve tax rebate checks for everyone. Professor![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tscheese said this might work in the short term, but when there are more substantial problems at work, something like this won’t work for long, if at all. While the solution may not be as extreme as Webster Tarpley's "draft" recovery program, which involves a lot of additional taxes levied at those who make money through stock trades, a “living wage” of $15/hr, as well as a lot of tax relief for individuals, I don’t think that a $300 tax rebate’s going to get people in over their heads out. If Gary Coleman has to auction off his kiddie pants to pay for his kidney dialysis, I think that we’ve got good reasons to consider universal health care. Oh, wait, the veto override for expanding S-CHIP failed.
Perhaps while we’re all mulling that over, a pair of possible FISA bills might have the good one discarded for not making it to 60 votes and the bad one let through without having to make the same standard. And the Senate will be talking about whether to exempt telecommunications companies from the legal ramifications of their role in assisting warrantless wiretapping.
Regarding the database of false statements made by the Bush Administration in the leadup to the Iraq War, Gabriel Schoenfeld wants us to believe that the statements weren't false based on the intelligence of the time, and that only after stomping Iraq into the ground and discovering nothing there, do those statements become false, and to continue using them a lie.
In the general election, the Washington Post has hit on a curious thing - sitting Senators like to run for the Presidential office, but they rarely actually win it. Maybe getting all that experience in Washington gives enough dirt for the populace to be convinced they’re not going to work in the high office. Talking Points Memo has a list of sixteen currently sitting Senators that have run for President.
Our Department of Things Obvious reminds us that botulinum toxin is in fact, toxic and can be deadly if permitted to spread. Thus, groups seeking warnings for Botox as a potentially deadly treatment are just telling us what we should already know. Additionally, people don't take sensory deprivation well.
The Science of Renewable Fuels department is keeping an eye on a claim to be able to convert all sorts of non-foodstuff materials into ethanol at the approximate cost of $1/gallon . If the prototype works as documented, and then can be large-scaled, then maybe we’ll be able to clean up the landfills and produce plenty of ethanol in the process.
In other science, Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo, a design based on the Ansari X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne design. This is being designed more as a commercial venture, to take eight people up to the point of weightlessness and give them five minutes of microgravity. The venture supposedly already has 200 persons booked, with 80 going through assessment and training for the voyage.
The expected response to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is similar to experiences that Pagans have from zealot Christians, including directed negative work and, in the case of the MRFF, daily death threats and actions, including little children chanting rhymes about the afterlife locale of the MRFF founder and his family.
Last for tonight, Fight Club, the Musical.
Mr. Gore has endorsed equal marriage rights for homosexuals. Perhaps it’s an attempt to utilize his newfound Nobel clout in the service of other worthy social issues? In a only-tangentially related way, the Social Issues Research Centre offers a guide on how, where, and when to flirt. Dry, academic, but possibly useful.
Internationally, Condoleezza Rice dangled the prospect of more normal relations with Iran if it gave up the nukes. Knowing that they couldn’t spend five years in Iran rebuilding like they did in Iraq, perhaps this is a carrot offering? Although, there should be lots of international Frowning Upon Iran's disqualification of more than 2,000 candidates for election because they were deemed to be disloyal to the principles of 1979 that started the current regime.
Preliminary "economic stimulus" agreement would involve tax rebate checks for everyone. Professor
tscheese said this might work in the short term, but when there are more substantial problems at work, something like this won’t work for long, if at all. While the solution may not be as extreme as Webster Tarpley's "draft" recovery program, which involves a lot of additional taxes levied at those who make money through stock trades, a “living wage” of $15/hr, as well as a lot of tax relief for individuals, I don’t think that a $300 tax rebate’s going to get people in over their heads out. If Gary Coleman has to auction off his kiddie pants to pay for his kidney dialysis, I think that we’ve got good reasons to consider universal health care. Oh, wait, the veto override for expanding S-CHIP failed. Perhaps while we’re all mulling that over, a pair of possible FISA bills might have the good one discarded for not making it to 60 votes and the bad one let through without having to make the same standard. And the Senate will be talking about whether to exempt telecommunications companies from the legal ramifications of their role in assisting warrantless wiretapping.
Regarding the database of false statements made by the Bush Administration in the leadup to the Iraq War, Gabriel Schoenfeld wants us to believe that the statements weren't false based on the intelligence of the time, and that only after stomping Iraq into the ground and discovering nothing there, do those statements become false, and to continue using them a lie.
In the general election, the Washington Post has hit on a curious thing - sitting Senators like to run for the Presidential office, but they rarely actually win it. Maybe getting all that experience in Washington gives enough dirt for the populace to be convinced they’re not going to work in the high office. Talking Points Memo has a list of sixteen currently sitting Senators that have run for President.
Our Department of Things Obvious reminds us that botulinum toxin is in fact, toxic and can be deadly if permitted to spread. Thus, groups seeking warnings for Botox as a potentially deadly treatment are just telling us what we should already know. Additionally, people don't take sensory deprivation well.
The Science of Renewable Fuels department is keeping an eye on a claim to be able to convert all sorts of non-foodstuff materials into ethanol at the approximate cost of $1/gallon . If the prototype works as documented, and then can be large-scaled, then maybe we’ll be able to clean up the landfills and produce plenty of ethanol in the process.
In other science, Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo, a design based on the Ansari X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne design. This is being designed more as a commercial venture, to take eight people up to the point of weightlessness and give them five minutes of microgravity. The venture supposedly already has 200 persons booked, with 80 going through assessment and training for the voyage.
The expected response to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is similar to experiences that Pagans have from zealot Christians, including directed negative work and, in the case of the MRFF, daily death threats and actions, including little children chanting rhymes about the afterlife locale of the MRFF founder and his family.
Last for tonight, Fight Club, the Musical.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-25 05:49 pm (UTC)And I totally know what it's like when one's musical geekery impedes one's enjoyment of the musical performances of others!
Sometimes I'm like "OMG, why didn't she hit that note? I could have hit that note! She's getting paid a frilliiiiion dollars hit that note! Can't she bother to hit that note!?" Then I have go to breathe into a paper bag for a little while and have a nice sit-down.
But since I've had some exposure to the supreme effort that goes into musical performances, I'm always absolutely staggered by really good live performances (of any variety.) When something is good, and it requires a number of people to all be good, all at the same time? It's sublimely beautiful. It's so good, it makes blinking feel good. It makes breathing feel good.
So, I'm not...totally a curmudgeon. Right?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-25 06:14 pm (UTC)While there were a few things that sounded like missed notes, the sound was good from the orchestra. It was a technically proficient playing. But in the things that make music music, there were a lot of shortcomings. With the performance I heard last night, either the arrangers and composers scored things very strange and slow, or the conductor wasn't going fast enough and the orchestra was behaving like a synthesizer rather than a bunch of people with instruments. At least, when things were going badly. When they were going well, which was about two thirds of the performance, it was a great orchestra.
Although I strongly question the use of the particular synthesizer patch used for the rock guitar riffs in the Silent Hill piece. It sounded way too much like a synthesizer trying to sound like an electric guitar. That same synthesizer, though, worked beautifully as an acoustic guitar for the Scar of Time part of the Chrono Suite. (Yeah, video game music geek. Will be shutting up now.)