Yiannis Ritsos was proposed for the Nobel Prize for Literature nine times–he never won.  His great poem Epitaphios was burned at the foot of the Acropolis by the Metaxas regime.  Tuberculosis and repressive regimes were his bêtes noires.  Exile and confinement in prison camps or the hospital marked a large portion of his life.  The tuberculosis that took away his mother and eldest brother when he was a child haunted his health for years.  He spent many years in institutions getting it under control.  His poetry and his lifelong relationship with the Communist party (he joined in 1931) resulted in confinement of another sort in 1948-52 and parts of 1967 through 1970.  Some of that time was broken by more time spent in the hospital.

He’s been considered by many to be one of the great Greek poets of the 20th Century (along with Kostis Palamas, Giorgos Seferis, Odysseus Elytis and Cavafy); while others, like the French poet, Louis Aragon, thought him “one of the greatest, one of the most remarkable poets of our time”.

Despite the persecution, the illness, the hardship Ritsos published 117 books, including numerous plays and essays by the time he died on November 11, 1990.

Born, May 1, 1909, if still alive Yiannis Ritsos would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year.  Since he’s not here to share this moment with us, I’ve invited Professor Peter Bien to speak about the poet and his work.

Professor Bien is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.   He’s translated three of Kazantzakis’s novels plus Myrivilis’s LIFE IN THE TOMB.

He’s also translated Ritsos’s MOONLIGHT SONATA, PHILOCTETES, and the short poem “Peace.”  He wrote the introduction to the Penguin collection of Ritsos’s poetry, plus critical studies of “Philoctetes” and “Moonlight Sonata.”

Besides translating Ritsos’s work he was a colleague–having visited Ritsos several times in Athens.

Professor Bien is also one of the author/editors for the book: A Century of Greek Poetry.  This is an essential volume for anyone interested in modern Greek literature.  The anthology is unique in its breadth– encompassing 109 poets and 456 poems.  The original poem in Greek is on one side and the English translation on opposite pages.

Don’t forget to check out my photo blog: “Just So” and my other blog: “Things We Need (to make it thru the day)“

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Moonlight Sonata is made of a deep sapphire blue baby swarovski heart, swarovski star crystal in golden shadow, swarovski pearls and a 14K gold-filled chain with crystal touches.

~SGD$40.00~

Moonlight Sonata

If you have never heard Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, go somewhere quiet and peaceful, and just sit and listen to this beautiful piece of wonder. You can hear in the song the passion Beethoven had for his work. You can feel the wonder he has for the majesty in this world. You can feel the love he pours into this melody. His heart is simply this song.

Yes, we all know he was deaf–

WAIT…deaf. DEAF. There is no way you can just absorb this marvel. One of the greatest composers and pianists in history overcame being DEAF!!! That blows me away!!! I can’t imagine how he felt while playing such wonderful songs like Moonlight Sonata. To hear it is awe-striking as it is. But to compose it and never experience it like we do, that’s a different story.

I realized while listening to this and thinking of the life Beethoven had, I now know that any feeling we get when we listen to any of his works will never compare to what he felt when he played them. To be deaf and write one of the most beautiful melodies ever, Beethoven had to have seen and heard something in his heart that we could never understand with our ears.

This just sets my mind into amazement.

Now go ahead, listen to it. I dare you…

One of my favorite things to do is to watch my youngest sister do this:

I am visiting my family for a few hours, since they live nearer to the airport than I do and I have a very early flight… As always it is an interesting experience. I am constantly amazed by the cleverness of my younger sisters. They are writers, artists, puzzle solvers, music teachers, and hair dressers. The pianists also composes. They have active social lives, hold down jobs, and get their school work done. They’ve been known to compete with me in the reading area…and win. It’s inspiring.

I got a concert out of my little sister tonight – she played a couple of Nocturnes by Rachmaninov, and some Chopin, as well as one of her own creations. She has tiny little hands, but they move so fast and make such lovely music. She won third place in the Pine Tree Piano Competition this spring, and participated in the Portland International Piano Festival in June. Can you tell that I am proud?

This little interlude with my family is the perfect start to my trip. Now I’m off to bed, although sleep may only come via The Savage Detectives – after a morning spent researching Atlanta even more, I’m plenty excited and eager to start exploring it!

Seriously, though: fix your hair.

“RIVER” is to AKB48 what the 3rd Symphony, “Eroica,” was to Beethoven.

And the way I figure is this: “Eroica” was pretty much the first step in Beethoven revolutionizing the form of the symphony FOREVAR. Before that, his other symphonies had been cute little copies of Haydn, albeit already with the fancy-ass introductions and whackjob key changes that would become his trademark. But whereas, in the olden days, a symphony was supposed to be this 20-minute piece of fluff that you could knit to, Beethoven said to himself, fuck that shit, how about 20 minutes for the entire FIRST MOVEMENT. And how about the entire symphony be, like, 45 minutes long. I bet I can make those Viennese n00bs sit down and listen for 45 minutes if I felt like it!

So he did.

Fortunately, one does not need to sit down for 45 minutes to enjoy “RIVER” (although it would be awesome if you could), but you do have to sit down for 5 minutes and withstand a barrage of unexpected musical styles, including an entire first minute that is essentially notated as “N.C.” (no chord). The whole thing is as transformative as the idea of a 45-minute symphony; it’s a song that overturns the idea of AKB48—if not all of idoldom—being these randomly hyper dance-pop songs that you can knit to. (Besides knitting, they are also great for multiplayer shooter games. You try popping a cap upside the head of some bad dude in Uncharted 2 with “Aitakatta” blaring in the background. THUG LIFE.)

A great war commander.

Even thematically, they are similar: “Eroica,” after all, is moonspeak for “heroic” (and not some OTHER word you were thinking of, you perv), and “RIVER” is nothing if not an incredibly heroic song, both from an aural and visual perspective. Funny story about the “Eroica”: when Beethoven was working on it, he was planning on dedicating it to Napoleon, who at the time was a great war commander, much like Minami Takahashi. But then Napoleon let it get to his head and declared himself Supreme Ruler of the Moon, or something, at which point Beethoven decided he didn’t like Naps anymore and re-dedicated the symphony “to a great man.” I mean, I would be pretty freaked out (although not surprised) if, say, Atsuko Maeda went bonkers and decided to declare herself Empress of the Universe, at which point “RIVER” would be re-dedicated to … Jurina Matsui or something stupid.

The Empress of the Universe.

But “RIVER” does for the girl group pop song what “Eroica” did for the symphony.

Yoshimasa Inoue’s greatest masterpiece

You are probably familiar with Yoshimasa Inoue without realizing it. If you have enjoyed “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru,” “Oogoe Diamond,” “10nenzakura,” “Namida Surprise!,” to name a few, you’ve been enjoying Inoue, who basically carries a large portion of songwriting duties for AKB48. Also, his given name is written in katakana (井上 ヨシマサ), kind of like Yasutaka Nakata of capsule and Perfume fame, which probably means it’s some kind of pen name. I mean, doesn’t “Yoshimasa” totally sound like some anime or video game character? He’s probably one of those anime protagonists where the naming convention is really cheesy and obvious, like they’re all named after seasons, or colors, or birds of prey, or like the guy is the main hero in the series so he’s called Hiro Nakamura (hurhurhurhur). So. Yoshimasa Inoue spelled with katakana.

Therefore, let us not give Yasushi Akimoto too much credit. He is, first and foremost, a lyricist and an impresario. He is the Bernie Taupin to Elton John, the Howard Ashman to Alan Menken,the Lorenzo da Ponte to Wolfgangus Theophilus Johannes Chrysostomus Mozart. (Ponte wrote the words to The Marriage of Figaro.) And also, as an impresario, he is doing a pretty bang-up job, because you always need a guy with a natural entrepreneurial flair to succeed in the music business. And it definitely looks like AKB48 is succeeding in the music business right now.

But about lyrics. The reason you don’t want to give Aki-P too much credit, is because there are really only 3 kinds of idol songs anyway:

1. Love is wonderful
2. Love sucks
3. Do your best

Guess what kind of song RIVARRRR is? Yes, it is No. 3. And its greatest contribution to the idol milieu, from a lyrical perspective, is that it sets the words of “Do your best” to a badass chant and stepping routine. I suppose Akimoto wrote the entire thing with a certain rhythmic concept in his head, told Inoue “I think it should sound like this,” and then Inoue wandered off to his studio, did all the REAL work, and vomited out this staggering pile of AWESOME.

I mean, nothing against his extensive body of work, but this may be Inoue’s greatest masterpiece. He made his reputation writing idol songs, and then finally comes up with the idol song that breaks all other idol songs. After years of everyone having convinced themselves that adhering to formula is the best way to proceed, Inoue is the one who shook the beaker of formula and made it explode.

The entire first minute alone seems to be a confrontational dare issued out to all of fandom. The military drill callout? That’s to stop stupid ass wotas from doing that ridiculous “Tiger! Cyber! Viber! Favre!” shit that they always do during the intro. (Mendelssohn did a similar trick with his E minor Violin Concerto, making the last note of each movement tie over to the next so that people would stop applauding in between movements.) The near-impossible stepping routine? That’s a challenge to everyone on YouTube; “Hey, why don’t you try copying THIS dance!” And the complete absence of traditional melody or harmony is going to trip up a lot of instrumentalists who thought they’d be able to play along to this one. (Just you wait. I have an idea for this on the piano.)

And it is not just the heroic introduction that smashes the structure of the traditional J-pop song (although it is certainly the most impressive part). The verse jumps right to the chorus without any sissy in-between prechorus. The bridge is two melodies at once; the call-and-response “AHH-AH-AH-AH” figure overlapping with a more standard lyric. And the final chorus stopping right on the dot instead of going to an outro—well, they probably needed that to keep it under 5 minutes, but it is also “RIVER”’s final act of self-assertion, proof that it will not, CANNOT, be bound to the traditional laws of song structure, any more than Mayu Watanabe’s blog posts can be bound to the traditional laws of Japanese spelling and grammar. “Yabyaa~” indeed.

Kawayusu~

“Actually, I like the B-side better”

One thing I have found strangely hilarious is the anti-”River” backlash that swelled up even before the single’s release date. And it went something like this. “I don’t like the chanting.” “I wanted ‘dark’ but the song isn’t dark enough.” (Well, what the hell kind of dark where you looking for? This is idol pop for goodness sakes! Are they supposed to sing about the maggots crawling under their skin while two metal guitarists shred off in the background?) “The chanting is different but the chorus sounds like all other AKB shit.” “There’s no coherence to the song, it’s like each section has nothing to do with each other.” (If you want to talk about melodic incoherence, listen to “10nenzakura” sometime. At least everything in “River” centers around a very specific ethnomusical aesthetic.) And the most damning of all, once the B-side PVs came out: “Actually, I like ‘Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara’ better.”

Which is kind of like saying, “Well, I prefer Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto to his Eroica symphony.” They were both composed around the same time but carry quite different levels of artistic importance! The Eroica is a freakin’ landmark of ALL OF MUSIC, while that piano concerto pretty much falls in the niche of piano fans and Beethoven fans, and even then it’s not the best of his piano concertos. (5th, 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 1st, in that order.)

But hey, if you honestly like KimiKoto better, MOAR power to you! It’s an opinion, and everyone is entitled to one. Heck, for the record, I prefer the 4th Piano Concerto over the “Eroica” myself, because even though the “Eroica” is UTTERLY EPIC, it also ceases to hold my interest by about the the middle of the 2nd movement. (Although it wins me back during the 4th.) Ludwig-chan, you totally broke the mold for the structure of the symphony, but you also made it freaking LONG. Like Longcat. By which I mean, Yuki Kashiwagi.

Long Yukirin is LONG.

So. The 4th piano concerto (“Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara”). And the Eroica Symphony (“RIVER”). Two sides of the same disc (to say nothing of “Hikoukigumo”—which probably equates to one of the non-nicknamed piano sonatas), but of very different moods and ambitions. In fact, I put it this way:

“‘Kimi no Koto..’ starts on the same chords as ‘Iiwake,’ on the same instruments, keyed one note higher. Just saying.” [Pata quote]

Which may, in the end, not mean anything! Certainly not when one is too busy fawning over Lovetan’s dimples. But anyway. What is particularly clever about the song is how certain melody lines overlap each other at the points of greatest tension: the transitory phrase into the chorus (which coincidentially also sounds very much like the lead-in to the chorus of “Namida Surprise!”), and the “DA! I! SU! KI!” that connects the chorus’s first and second segments. If you’re gonna pick a place to “crowd” the voices and have someone sing over someone else, that’s pretty much the best place to put it. It’s not quite stretto, but it’s loli counterpoint, and it works specifically because you have however many girls running around cleaning up the pool and therefore have sufficient vocal resources to pull it off.

OMIGOD I WANT TO PINCH HER CHEEKS.

A glimmer of hope

To the asshats on 2ch who “leaked” the supposed “plot” of the PV which involved a rescue mission, a sniper, and Mariko forgetting her sunglasses: may God’s fire rain down upon your butt-shaped faces and send you to the same Hell as the place where the guy who wrote the “Hollywood version of Death Note” script is resting right now.

But more to the point of the PV: CLEARLY, JURINA IS THE SPY. C’mon, she doesn’t even LOOK twelve!

The cryptic ending of the real PV, meanwhile, has been a point of contention for a couple of weeks now. Flowers? That’s it? Did someone die? But when taken in context with the chord progressions used throughout the song, it totally makes freaking sense. Of course, not many people are interested in sense being made because they’re too busy living in the froo-froo world wailing and waving about sales figures.

But here’s what it is. You listen to the first verse of “RIVER.” It starts in the key of C# minor (SAD), a.k.a. the “Moonlight Sonata,” a.k.a. “Kanashimi Twilight,” which is pretty dark except without being forcibly emo about it. But in the space of just eight measures, it has moved to the chord of B major, which can mean a lot of things but in this particular situation implies most strongly the dominant of E major, meaning that it’s about to modulate to relative major (HAPPY) of C# minor. A glimmer of hope, right? SAD goes to HAPPY.

EXCEPT IT DOESN’T.

Instead, it drops the floor out from under you. You don’t get E major. The chorus of “RIVER” is in bloody E minor!!

The PARALLEL MINOR of the RELATIVE MAJOR of the original key!

Yabyaaaa~~~!!!

But so here comes the chorus. And it sounds a lot like Inoue’s other AKB48 choruses, I mean the bastard pretty much used the same progression in “Oogoe Diamond” and “10nenzakura” and did little to hide the fact, and again you’re getting the same thing here where you move via stepwise chord motion to get to the relative major of the key you’re in. Except “RIVER” is less obvious about it, although perceptive ears will still catch the hints in the tune: the lowest notes in each phrase of the first strain move downward from E to D to C to B. This song can’t help but move somewhere—moving where?—crossing the river, perhaps. And then, at the last line, you get … a glimmer of hope.

It moves to the most stable position in that key signature: the tonic major, G.

AND THEN IT DROPS THE FLOOR OUT FROM UNDER YOU AGAIN!

Because right after the last note of the chorus it jumps RIGHT BACK TO C# MINOR!! A frigging tritone interval! It is the most dramatic harmonic leap in all of Western music theory and “RIVER” fucking shoves it IN YOUR FACE!!!

And you start to realize what “RIVER” is totally about. It uses all these dark, minor tonalities to reflect the struggles of life but moves irrevocably toward the major key, always reaching toward the shining light of hope—only to have it ripped away at the last moment, at the end of the first verse, at the end of the first chorus, the end of the second verse, the end of the second chorus, even after the bridge (which is written in E major), because the struggles of life are never-ending. Only on that abrupt last chord does the song finally rest and say: “YOU CAN DO IT!!”

And even then, a four-word phrase that describes potential yet to be fulfilled, a promise of things to come, because we cannot for a moment rest on our accomplishments. Modulated to the major key? Now do it again from the relative minor! Got the entry-level job you were shooting for? Now prove that you have what it takes to lead a project team! Thrilled about meeting AKB48 in New York? Now fly to Japan and see them THERE!

Except, most stupid ass wotas are too thick to understand Yoshimasa Inoue’s mastery of the major-minor duality, so you gotta put it in obvious terms they can understand. Like the rest of the song’s lyrics. And also: the flowers.

If the entire harmonic structure of “RIVER” is a glimmer of hope amidst endless struggle, then the flowers in the PV codify it in tangible form, a convenient visual cue that stands out from everything else. The PV, after all, is everything that’s wrong with “realistic” and “gritty” video games these days: greens and browns and grays, from the props and backgrounds to the very school uniforms they’re wearing during the dance routine. But amidst all the drabness and grit: a shock of purple at the end, a sign that there are still Marios and Katamaris in a world full of Halo and Call of Duty. And that Mariko, if she actually did forget her sunglasses, can always come back for them.

Why Mr. and Mrs. Shinoda I had no idea you had such a lovely daughter.

So if this is Beethoven’s 3rd, what are the other singles?

The nice gentleman that I met at Webster Hall turned out to be, among other things, an aficionado of classical music. That made, like, two of us in the entire freaking venue. As it turns out, he was a big fan of symphonies in general, moreso than myself and my piano-centric fandom. Actually, I’m still not sure if I can forgive him for calling Chopin “one-dimensional.” Asshat!! Chopin is one of the pillars of piano literature! You wouldn’t understand.

So I ask myself why I declared “RIVER” to be the “Eroica.” Why not the epic and instantly memorable 5th Symphony? (Because “Aitakatta!” already took that spot. BUH BUH BUH BUMMMM!~~ = AITAKATTA! Don’t you hear it? 3 repeated notes and a major third down; 3 repeated notes and a perfect fourth up! They’re practically sisters of each other.) Why not the virtuosic “Waldstein” Sonata, which has enough ridiculous 16th-note runs to give the entire stepping routine a run for its money? And where the hell is “Für Elise”? Quite frankly, I like to stay as far away from “Für Elise” as possible, it being one of my most hated over-requested piano pieces that reminds me too much of Chinese six-year-old piano-playing robots who walk into piano stores with their moms and that’s the only thing they can play because they (and their parents) think it sounds cool. In fact, I am utterly convinced that there is this secret cadre of overcompetitive East Asian parents whose entire method of keeping score is based on how quickly their kid learns to play “Für Elise.”

I mean, it doesn’t even deserve to be on the Top 10 of Beethoven’s greatest works. It would be … like … one of those AKB songs that everyone adores but I just don’t give a shit about. “Für Elise” is “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru.”

“BINGO!” is the “Spring” Violin Sonata because it’s just so full of hope and sunny optimism, plus the melody suits itself amazingly well to the violin. I can tell you this because I’ve tried it. Plus it a strings version of “BINGO!” would sound so sweet on the Nodame Cantabile soundtrack.

“Namida Surprise!” is probably the “Moonlight Sonata” because, like the “Moonlight,” it does a parallel minor-major shift (the “Moonlight” between movements, “Surprise!” between verse and chorus), and it has this goofy bit in the middle that seems to have been shoved in there just because they could (the Minuet vs. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR MY FRIIIIEEENNNDDDD), and it’s only popular because there’s that one bit that everyone remembers (DUH-nuh-nuh Duh-nuh-nuh Duh-nuh-nuh) but they couldn’t give a crap about the rest of the piece, just like how everyone recognizes the chorus of “Namida Surprise!” but half of them can’t hum the verse to save their lives.

“Baby! Baby! Baby” is the 7th Symphony in A major because it is relentlessly joyful with lots of brass, and admit it, you’d pay a helluva lot closer attention to the 7th Symphony as well if it were performed by hawt girls in bikinis.

Also, a Bikini Symphony Orchestra would have no problems with ticket sales and funding.

But “RIVER” is where it is because of what it does. I would like to believe that it is not AKB48’s greatest achievement, but merely a herald of greatness to come. Greatness that comes in the form of 50 seconds of clap and slap, of a minor-keyed struggle reaching inexorably toward a glimmer of hope, of the very bones and flesh of the contemporary pop single being mutated into a new form. There will never be another “RIVER” again. Which is good, because Beethoven never made another “Eroica” either. Instead, he pressed ever onward, smashing barriers left and right until he left nothing but the corpses of the Classical period in his wake and a newly broken passageway into the blindling light of the Romantic era. A Watarirouka that you could Hashiri through, if you will. Let’s discuss this again in a few years when AKB is on life support and the Next Great Idol Unit is rising through the ranks. I’ll point out to you which of their songs is the “Ode to Joy.”

I can’t wait to hear how it’ll sound like.

Word play.

If you read the article on relativity , you may share my sense of humour, and laugh about the word play. How often our relatives shape our value systems. And our decisions about who we want to partner, even when Love is present.

Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” is such a story.

Moonlight Sonata. (Mvt 1). Beethoven. On YouTube. Click on image to view.

According to the limited research I have done:

Background of the Moonlight Sonata

“The original title of the sonata is “Quasi una fantasia” (It. almost a fantasy). The popular title of Moonlight Sonata actually didn’t come about until several years after Beethoven’s death. In 1836, German music critic, Ludwig Rellstab wrote that the sonata reminded him of the reflected moonlight off Lake Lucerne. Since then, Moonlight Sonata has remained the “official” unofficial title of the sonata.

Beethoven composed the famous Moonlight Sonata in 1801 and dedicated it to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, a pupil of Beethoven. Shortly after their first few lessons, the two fell in love. After dedicating the Moonlight Sonata, it is believed that Beethoven proposed to her. Although she was willing to accept Beethoven’s proposal, forbiddance by one of her parents prevented her from marrying him.”

Goodness, if this happened to me I would probably get drunk for six months.

To write a piece like this…..what a great response to rejection.

♥Ali

Alcoholic Door-slammer

Slam! The building vibrates. A young man, twenty-something or early thirties, skinny as a whippet. He fancies himself an intellectual, chain-smokes. Stands on his porch, smoking, proclaiming various computer jargon into a cell phone. Someone forgot to tell him that computer geeks are not intellectuals, they are anti-intellectuals.

He has frizzy hair and glasses. Twenty-five years ago he would be getting down to Bob Dylan records. On weekends he slouches through the courtyard with a brown paper bag under his arm, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He slams his door on the way in from smoking, rattling the building and jarring me awake. Four a.m. he plays video games.

Bi-polar Cat Lady

Her hair is ratty, her features sunworn and mask-like. She wears a flowing dress. She calls the cats by name. When she’s in the darkness with them, she believes that she’s one of them.

Unlike the cats however, bipolar cat lady is neither quiet nor gentle. BPCL carries on conversations at four times normal volume, whether at twelve noon or midnight. BPCL holds shrieking conversations with her friend, Homeless Lady with the Half-Dead Chow Dog (HLHDCD).

Half-dead Chow Chow lives on the back porch outside of my bedroom window. It barely walks, and lies panting in the shade, with a look on its face that says, “Why am I still here?” Bipolar Cat Lady brings home herbal remedies for Half-Dead Chow, perhaps trying to keep him going. I avoid Bi-polar Cat Lady like the plague.

Entitled Law Student

Entitled Law Student (ELS) thinks that he deserves perfect silence so that he can study. ELS tried to manipulate yours truly when I moved in, with a plate of home-baked chocoloate chip cookies. As she handed them to me, his wife said, “He has a 3.8 grade-point average in law school.” As in, be quiet so my husband can study and get good grades. And he can rake it in as a lawyer, because I’m too proud to work, and we can live our American Dream. It all hinges on you, our new neighbor, so don’t blow it!

In the beginning I tried to do that, before I learned of Entitled’s so-called musicianship. I used to love Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata.’ Same with ‘Ave Maria.’ Sadly, I can no longer listen to these classic masterworks because of Entitled. The carnage goes on for hours, over and over, and with zero feeling. It’s maddening, and that is why I play the jazz station whenever they break out ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and beat it to death.

As for studying, I don’t see how Entitled has time, with all the noise he makes. I didn’t make that kind of noise when I went to graduate school — I was studying. It appears to be an ADD where he can’t sit still. He also has some type of asthma that leads to a barking cough like a seal: arf arf!

My place is a zoo–bipolar cats, dying chow dogs, asthmatic seals.

The content herein is Copyright to the author, All Rights Reserved.

I usually assumed that the ISS (International Space Station) was a place where the only thing one could hear are the endlessly whirling hard drives and ventilation fans of space station life support systems.

Today I watched this video of astronaut Ed Lu performing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on a portable keyboard and I found it to be quite surreal. I don’t usually expect this sort of thing from an orbiting space station. Nasa talk, yes… Beethoven composition, nope.

It’s not a perfect performance but Ed gives it a pretty good effort nonetheless. The music seems appropriate up there above the clouds and among the orbiting space debris.

Take a moment and experience this peculiar pairing of space and classical music…

Beethoven above the Earth

***In case you’re wondering why vagina is in the title, see my previous blog RE: the Via Vagina Visitation competition. I have decided to fulfill my commitment RE: VVV and place Vagina in each post to publicize my site***

—

Ah, the piano boy. I have made a little story of you, in my mind, from that first moment we met. I can only imagine the story is a perversion of reality – as stories of the such never come to pass. Only as exceptions to the rule (and no, I don’t truly believe this story: what do you take me for? A romanticist? A perverter of reality? Why! I’ve given you nothing to think such things of me….)

It was a warm moment. One that kept me smiling all day (no – not a romanticist, see). He was playing the piano (in case you haven’t guessed by the title [in which case go back to school, please]), and he was playing wonderfully. Like a professional. Like his fingers were silk. The kind of playing that makes you want to hump the player like crazy or lie there in pure ecstacy, touching yourself all over on a sheet of velvet. A sheet of red velvet that magically appears next to beautiful piano players. Yes, that’s exactly what happened. If by red velvet sheet we mean “table,” and touching yourself we mean “putting down the book you’re reading.” He made darting glances to me, whenever I sat upright, when I looked to see who was playing so wonderfully – and he looked too. As if to say “yes, it is me who is playing, aren’t I wonderful? I hope you’re impressed. I know you’re impressed, (I can tell because you’re lying on the table and you’re touching yourself.)” If he was irritated (which, dare I say it, he was not!), he should not play so beautifully if he doesn’t expect people to look at him all gooey-like!

He finished, and started to walk off. I thought stuff it, I should say something, you only get places if you say things. You only get into guys’s pants if you say things. You only get into their cars if they offer you lollies. If you say things like, “you look beautiful,” or, “I think your fly is undone – haha! Gotchya!”.

Or: how long have you been playing? Can you teach me? “Yes, you take your fingers like this, put them here, and put your hip into it – yes! That’s it! Now, let’s go lie on that red velvet sheet together that magically appears whenever I play.”

But no, merely this happened:

So I said, I’d pay him 5 bucks if he kept playing. He said he had to go, he looked flattered. I asked if he plays there much, but said only when he can (this is in a student cafe, where there is a piano for anybody to play – usually you don’t get someone playing well, and it disturbs your pizza eating experience. Mostly they are shithouse. This was a real treat however. You pay lots of monies to hear someone pay so well, and oh! For free this was!). So I asked if he takes requests, and I asked if he could play “Moonlight Sonata” and he said he’d go home to learn it. So he may be there next week. Playing Moonlight just for me…. Disgusting fantasy, isn’t it? What shame! Oh, sweet divine anvil, yes, I call upon you to crush me now.

Wouldn’t this be the perfect movie romance. If only such things were real. People’d ask how we met and we’d snicker because we know our story is so much better than their “oh, at a party, I caught him with a watermelon and well, it all happened from there.” No, that’s semi-interesting. Something like “at a party. On the net. In a club. Through a friend.” Well! We’d have something on you boring sods!

At least that’s how it plays in my mind. This is what I’ll do: I’ll go back, in a tuxedo. With a wilted rose (I’m a student and couldn’t pay for an alive one, or the resources to keep it alive, and he’d appreciate this and find it romantic). I’ll be there around the same time. 5.30 ish. On a Tuesday. Or before. Just reading. Conveniently eating a pizza. And then it’d start. Cookies!

Ugh, it’s disgusting, really. This fantasy. I won’t be there. No, I won’t. I feel like that girl in that movie with all the pathetic girls – He’s Just Not That Into You (I swear if IE brings up the favourites bar each time I ctrl+i thinking it’ll italicize my font, I’ll shit on it). Yes, that movie. The pathetic one that reads into everything – yet was the exception to the rule in the end. Ugh! No – of course she was – happy endings are always exceptions to the rule! (aha! I didn’t ctrl+i that time!).

End soggy pathetic transmission.

No, I won’t be there. I won’t….

SM (Vagina - I felt sorry for you searchers.)

This morning I heard Fred Childs on NPR’s “Performance Today” speak about tempo.  He used as an example Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”; he contrasted two renditions: one was a very slow adagio, and the other quite a bit faster, more of an andante performance.

Tempos can vary from performer to performer; andante to one means a walking pace; to another, it could mean a leisurely stroll with some rubato!  Just take a look for it on YouTube. Try Moonlight Sonata – Beethoven.  This is an example of a quicker rendition of Moonlight Sonata, but it will get you “in the neighborhood” so you can compare renditions.

Interpretation needs to be taught as part of music education.  Of course it’s of no use to fly before you walk; reading the music and playing what’s there is crucial!  But afterwards, students need to be encouraged by their music teachers to express themselves and not just spit out a “cookie cutter” version of a piece.

How is it that when it comes to my family nothing works?

Last week we ordered a treadmill off ebay and after I spent numerous days gettin up at 8am and sitting around waiting for a delivery that obviously wasn’t coming that day it did finally come. I then dragged it into a big space in the garage (by myself) then turned it around and lay it flat (by myself) then really struggled to lift it out of the box, and move the box out of the way, and put the treadmill back in the same place – minus the box around it (by myself) in a space that was only big enough for the box OR the treadmill. I then searched the house for an allen key for each of the screws (they were different sizes) and then built up the treadmill (by myself). As you can imagine after all this time I was looking forward to switching it on and actually USING the treadmill – yeah right! I was forgetting who I was. Nothing ever just works for my family. The thing turned on, then after you press start it moved for a second then stopped and said ERR03. Brilliant. My mam and my brother both took it apart and checked I’d wired it up properly (I knew I had!) but it still didn’t work. So my mam emailed the dudes who we bought it off and they sent us a replacement top half - the bit with the screens and buttons – claiming it would fix it. I spent another 2 days getting up early to wait for it and then when it came me and my bro went and attatched it to the rest. Nervously we turned it on, pressed start and…..of course – ERR03. Fabulous. So who knows what will happen next? Maybe it’ll work. Maybe I’ll accidentally run it over in my mams car. Maybe I’ll paint it white just for the crack. We’ll wait and see.

It gets better - What would you say is the main feature of a microwave? To heat things up right? Now, imagine my astonishment when ours decided it didn’t feel like doing that anymore? What’s up with that? It still turns on, spins around and beeps when it’s ‘finished’ but hey, things would get warmer if I kept em in my hand! On the plus side – we got a new one that actually does work.

I finished my next book today. If you’ve read my earlier posts you’ll know I was due to read Kissed By An Angel by Elizabeth Chandler. I’m not really sure what I think about it – it lured me in with the whole angels and love and fantasy and whatnot – but it dragged on a bit and I guess it never could have ended the way I wanted it to. WARNING: UBER SPOILERS (it’s not like you were going to read the book though) It’s the story of a girl who’s boyfriend dies when their car crashes. He then comes back as an angel and finds out his brakes were cut and it was supposed to be Ivy (the girlfriend) who died so he has to find out who’s after her and stop them from killing her. He gets the help of a dude who’s still alive and in the end they find out it’s her step-brother who’s after her because he killed his mother after finding out the rich guy he thought was his dad actually isn’t (and he REALLY wants the inheritance) and he thought Ivy had seen him in his mothers window when she was delivering something to the house next door. He also kills his best friend who was going to tell her, and after attacking Ivy and failing he covers it up by killing a random lass a few streets away and making it look like random attacks. Turns out Ivy falls in love with the guy her bf is using to help find out the truth and after her step-bro is killed durin his attempt to push her infront of a train she’s safe and angel boyf can ‘move on’ – she falls in love with the living guy and they all live happily ever after. Oh and Hayley is not impressed! I’m a massive fan of Romeo and Juliet and believe they belonged together and died loving each other – I would not have been impressed if after finding Romeo dead Juliet had mourned for a bit then fell in love with Paris even if it was what Romeo had wanted – telling her she had to love again. ROMEO AND JULIET BELONG TOGETHER!

Rant over.

On a plus side, the craze in my house at the minute is Ant and Dec’s chocolate challenges, particularly challenge #4 which we all find hilarious. Chubby Bunny. It’s pointlessly funny, if you’re bored – check it out:

Also, the X Factor started tonight – just in time for the end of Big Brother in 2 weeks. Today’s ‘person who’s going to be in the final round and is therefore at the end of todays episode’ was the fella below: Danyl (pronounced liked Daniel), a teacher from London. Very entertaining first audition, he’s got loads of confidence and knows how to entertain a crowd. He does seem very likable and highly likely to win – I just don’t think his voice was THAT amazing. If it wasn’t for the theatrics he wouldn’t have stood out all that well – here’s hoping he can keep up the good show and make it quite far!

I’ve been listening to a lot of classical music lately – no idea why – so how about I share some with you for today’s song? Random I know and most of you never click to listen anyway so are even less likely to now. But oh well, what can I do eh? Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata ♫ http://blip.fm/~c5exl Enjoy!

I love spinning. Let me drive that point home. I love spinning. I have been a spinner since 2003, and my desire to begin spinning again was a big part of taking up knitting. I am finally in a place where I can spin and knit my own work and that makes me very happy.

I spent much of my weekend spinning up and plying an aran weight two ply from the “Red Hot” merino I picked up at Pennsic, in my quest to spin, ply, and knit a scarf for Grace’s god-mother and my dear friend Ann, and it all needs to be finished by Friday evening.

I drop spindle most of my spinning, but I needed a heavier weight yarn which I am not as good at achieving on a drop spindle anymore, and Miss Louet does a fine job with heavier weight spinning, so I pulled her out. I ran a quick practice single and ply on the $1 wool I got, which came out lovely, so I went to work on my spinning.

Speeding through a good 2.5 to 3 ounces of wool in as short a time as I accomplished really drove home the importance of the spinning wheel in history. I am still only spinning in smallish batches- 150-200 yard singles to be Andean plied since I still lack more than one bobbin and a kate. The speed difference is quite amazing. When I consider how many hours women in the 12th century poured into making garments for their family, from the shearing, to the cleaning, combing (carding came later, like the spinning wheel), to the untold miles of spinning, then the weaving, and finally the cutting and sewing, it gives one a great and awe-inspiring sense of the magnitude of each project.

So I have been spinning for a scarf, and I chose the “My So-Called Scarf” pattern. I have wanted a fabric look for this scarf, and I didn’t love how the linen stitch worked out, so I went with this amazing looking pattern with a herringbone look to it.

I would like to report that I love the pattern, I love my yarn, and I love my needles, but I am not 100% in love with the result of the combination. This is a very dense pattern, and I could have gone up a size in needles (using 6.5mm, could easily have gone to 8mm) and it would likely have improved the situation. I am not in love with the very raw looking edges of the scarf either. If picking up a crochet hook does not leave me with a bad case of hives, I might attempt a single-crochet edge around it to neaten it up. Finally, I think this pattern looks best with either a bulky single yarn or a yarn whose plies aren’t dramatically noticeable. I loved the ply I did on my yarn, but I think it detracts from the interesting slants and twists of the stitches giving the whole thing a sort of jumbled look. Still, it has to be ready by Friday evening, and I have 18 inches of it knit; I may not love it, but I do like it, and there is no going back now. Just because I am not in love with it doesn’t mean Ann won’t love it. I would definitely like to make this scarf again with a few modifications and changes.

If I hadn’t forgotten my stupid camera, you would have gotten pictures.

In other news, that big SPLASH you heard last week was Moonlight Sonata hitting the frog pond. It is no more. I screwed up the beginning of the second repeat and considering I hadn’t knit a row I hadn’t had to tink in 4 rows, and considering thinking of all those “moons” I had to knit ahead of me made my eyes bleed, I decided it was time to send it to lace heaven.

That being said, the desire to knit lace is still very strong with me. It is really my favorite kind of knitting, and I had 880 yards of lace weight Shadow left, minus the amount of yardage I lost in some of the Moonlight Sonata neck band that broke as I was tinking. The trouble is that I want a shawl and I want to use up what I have of my lace weight Shadow. I settled on knitting the small version of the Faroese Shawl from A Gathering of Lace.

Knit from the bottom up instead of top down, I thought it would be fun to work from the opposite end and narrow down as you knit. The end of a lace shawl knit from the top down can be agonizing as you get to those last rows with unending numbers of stitches. So I started casting on that unending number of stitches last Wednesday night. Cable cast on to boot, which I find to be painfully slow.

421 stitches. I placed a marker every 25 stitches, and had 16 paper clips dangling by the time I was finished casting on on Thursday afternoon. Holy crap that took some work.

So when I am tired of knitting the scarf or I get blinded by its pinkness, I switch from 6.5mm needles and aran weight wool to 3 mm needles and lace weight. It is quite strange to make the switch when you fingers are adjusted to a larger or smaller size, but I am enjoying both knits.

Still, I am finding the Faroese to not be “lacy” enough, and I am setting my sights on the Percy Shawl next.

My poor husband will never get his Beer Socks at this rate.

Home from Brigadoon. Or Pennsic. Whatever.

Four days home but my nights are still filled with visions of the past week; a week of heroic deeds, songs shared around a camp fire, great mugs of ale passed around, warm days walking through the market, and delicious food shared under a tent. It is rare that I miss Pennsic so soon after getting home; some years I swear I won’t even go back until about six months later when the pains are forgotten. This year was different and it was different in a very good way.

Once it dried up, the weather was phenomenal. There was no drama in our camp of about 17. The food was better than it has ever been in my 8 total Pennsics. My dear husband and I never fought.

This Pennsic was especially a good fiber Pennsic. Spanish Peacock was carrying lots of yummy roving for Feeling Sheepish and I picked up 8 ounces total. I got five $1 baggies of some handdyed unknown wool to practice on my spinning wheel with. I got a pound of Ashland bay colonial top in two colors (Agate and Goldenrod), and one 2 ounce bag of Ashland Bay black top for something small and lacy (maybe a mobius scarf?).

I wanted a new niddy noddy, but chickened out. I wanted a couple of new spindles (I only have a half dozen or so), but my wallet had been lightened by my load of fiber. That is okay; I suspect I will see Miguel of Spanish Peacock in about two and a half weeks and maybe I can score something then.

With all that fiber, I spent a lot of time in camp spinning up small samples, plying, and knitting up little swatches. As a result, I never started the socks I had brought to work on (which is good since I kept using one of my DPNs as a hair stick), and Moonlight Sonata remained in my bag for the most part. Unfortunately, ten minutes before we pulled out of town on Friday, July 31, as I was knitting happily along on Moonlight Sonata, I realized I had misinterpreted a symbol on the chart and what I thought had been three Purl Two Togethers in a row was actually Purl Two Together, Purl Three Together, Purl Two Together. Argh. Of course, 10 minutes later, I was on I-95 headed north and, sadly, I am not able to knit while riding in the car. I get horrible motion-sickness. With 4 days between when I made my error and when I picked it up to try and recover it, I made a solid mess of things. Once I got all my “moons” corrected, and was knitting away happily, suddenly, as I lay in the hammock, I realized I was knitting stitches off the wrong row on the chart next. I set Moonlight Sonata aside, not to be touched again until I got back to the real world.

I did manage to correct all my mistakes yesterday at least.

So want to see some of what I have started since Pennsic?

That is “pre-yarn” or roving, in colorway “September” that I picked up from Feeling Sheepish by way of Spanish Peacock. I have been spinning it on a drop spindle and then chain plying or Navajo plying it onto another spindle. I have a confession. I absolutely suck at Navajo plying. Really, I do. That being said, I do not suck so bad that I cannot work up a three plied yarn out of it, and once it is all knit together, you really cannot tell that I suck. See?

That is The Yarn Harlot’s One Row Scarf pattern. I am very proud to say I achieved the self striping yarn I was looking for, but I have a LOT more spinning to do.

Also, I have roving in colorway “Red Hot” that is varying shades of red, pink, and hot pink, that I am spinning for a scarf (I want to try and make it in a linen stitch) for my dear friend Ann, who has an appreciation for all things pink. I had to get something that varied away from my ordinary blue theme. “September” really didn’t. I think the Red Hot roving will be spun on the spinning wheel since I would really like to have it spun, plied and knit, by…haha, get this…next Saturday. So, my September Scarf and Moonlight Sonata be damned. Since next Saturday will be the first time I have seen Ann in nigh on a year, I want to gift her with something really special, and her birthday is only a few weeks away as well.

How exactly do you think this is all going to work out?

I really enjoy listening to classical music. On my 50 minute drive to work every morning, I have the classical radio station on. It helps calm my restless mind; I guess it’s almost like meditation. Music is a powerful form of aesthetic pleasure. I often play a favorite piece, close my eyes, and just get lost in the music (not while I’m driving of course!) On the same note, I like listening to the sound of waves, especially at night when the beach is not crowded and it’s difficult to see very far…that would be such a perfect setting to meditate. I also like sitting by the creek near my house when there is a light breeze so I can watch the trees dancing around and hear the leaves rustling. It’s all so soothing.
     I’ve been listening to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (Original title: Almost a fantasy) repeatedly for the past few days. It’s quite incredible. I don’t think it’s possible to be able to really express what emotions it stirs up in me.  It is something more than feeling happy, sad, melancholy, tragic, creepy…or whatever other words you can use. For me, the effect this piece has cannot really be defined. Apparently Beethoven wrote it for a girl he was in love with, a fact that makes the piece even more beautiful. In my attempt to define it, I can say it captures the complexity of the human condition, which may be why everyone feels differently when they hear it. I want to create something so perfect, so beautiful.