Translation: I understand a little Japanese!
Today’s theme is “Kawaii! & Kowai!!!” aka “Cute! & Scary!!!”

Have you ever heard of Kancho? No?

from a seated position,
-Steph

Following the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s superb performance at the BBC Proms last night, the second set of MaestroCam videos are being made available from the BBC website. They, along with all other MaestroCam videos will remain available for the duration of the Proms season – a terrific free resource for all conductors!

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra National Youth Orchestra is 50 years old this year, and to celebrate they brought over Paul Daniel to conduct their annual tour.  Daniel has conducted youth orchestras in the UK (I remember him doing Varese’s Ameriques with the GBNYO at the Proms) and is known as a good trainer of youth orchestras.

As usual, the concert included a piece by the NYO composer-in-residence:  Natalie Hunt’s Only to the Highest Mountain, which started in the orchestra’s tuning and meant that Daniel had to creep onstage amongst the rest of the orchestra, and emerge, applauseless, to conduct once the tuning was under way.  Hunt has a good ear which needs to stop listening to La Mer.

Next was Ravel’s left-hand piano concerto, played very nicely by the excellent John Chen.  I find the two-hand concerto more compelling – in fact, it’s almost as if Ravel put all the structure into that one, leaving this to be far more rhapsodic, even if arranged around some striking motifs.  It never quite gels for me, however well played.

The choice of repertoire for a youth orchestra concert is an interesting field for speculation.  Since a huge chunk of the audience will be parents, siblings and other relatives, many of whom never otherwise attend concerts (witness the row of bored boys in front of us), then the pieces should be a bit splashy, as well as capable of surviving the huge orchestras these groups tend to be.  The two-hand concerto fitted the bill better.

As would almost any Mahler symphony than No. 7.  I’m not one of those who think it a misunderstood masterpiece.  I think it is rather woolly towards the end, despite many incidental beauties.  The last movement rondo is a panoply of recurring themes that never quite amounts to what it wants to be.  No. 6 (with the added visual of the puniest percussionist waffing around the rear of the stage with a mallet) is better if it’s that period of Mahler you’re after.  With this one the best we got was Daniel’s baton arching over the orchestra at the end of the first movement.  Someone in the percussion section retrieved it and it was ferried back to him for the start of the second movement, to a round of applause.

None of this detracts from the playing, which was splendid, but it wasn’t the right programme.

While I was reading something about the Hatsune Miku Nendoroid, I came across and reference to Churuya-san, and not knowing what Churuya-san was, I followed the link it gave, which brough me here. Hoorah for Tsuruya-san I say!! I must say my favourite girl from SNnY has to be Tsuruya-san. The combo of green hair and the way she speaks is to die for!!

This little 4koma features Churuya-san, an obvious derivative of Tsuruya-san, and the rest of the SOS dan. I was unaware of it till now, I’m sure most of you lot out there weren’t lol. I’m just slow to catch on… heh. But the Hachune Miku character was mentioned to be Churuya-san-esque. I do see what the people at Heisei Democracy meant. It got me wondering… who was the first Churuya-san-esque character or parody? Before Churuya-san I mean. Just a question to ponder on. (Below is one of my favourites)

I wrote my first post about Steve and Barry’s last week.  It was a 2343 word long grievance summary.  It discussed all the things I thought were wrong with the company (its lack employee recognition, its long hours, and its terrible location), but that’s not how I wanted to write about the company.  I set it live for a grand total of 24 hours (on and off) and the readership spiked.  Some of the readers were from the S&B (if it’s corporate or store, I do not know).  So, I guess this is take two.

This was the name of the company when I joined in the fall of 2006.  It was a long name with a huge blue and yellow logo.  The first day was nightmarish.  The first month was more of the same.  I got wrecked at the Holiday Party and made a fool of myself.  I managed to get myself sent to Columbus, OH where I learned the hard work of manually loading trucks.  I began work with our India office and was sent to train them.  I wrote manuals and did communications work.  I had more responsibility than any 22 year old should have.  By my 23^rd birthday, I came to the realization that I might not advance anymore and that the field I was in was not for me.  By the time I left, the logo was sleek and stylish – they no longer specialized in t-shirts and had expanded into the world of true fashion.

For the experiences, I am actually grateful.  My resume looks much nicer now than it did before I started.  I wrote this note to my co-workers before I left (I edited it slightly – there were some embarrassing typos).

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am leaving Steve and Barry’s on Friday, August 17, 2007.  I’m starting work with a nonprofit organization. Sadly, this new place is business casual so no shorts or flip flops.  Meaning, I’m going to have to go on a shopping spree before I’m no longer a S&B employee.   But all joking aside, this has been the most unique work environments I have ever joined.  The energy and talent here are tremendous, and with the right guidance, this company can change the world of retail…

…it has been a great pleasure working with all of you.  I should make it to a couple of more happy hours – can’t let them forget my favorite beer – so it won‘t be good bye. It will be “See you at Lennon’s.”

JJRC

I like the foreshadowing present.  I wrote that line about proper management to be subtle in my display of discontent with our corporate hierarchy.  It seems like it has validated itself.  The decline of Steve and Barry’s has been something I believed would happen from the when I saw the rapid store expansions, the continuous miscommunications, and the adversarial nature of the New York Office’s (NYO) relationship with stores and the India Office.  There was no cohesion across the entire company. 

As a new hire and recent graduate, I didn’t know what to expect from working.  The first lesson was to be tough.  I was told be harsher with our department’s partners, with the stores and with our India counterparts.  We were corporate and we knew better.  This was the message pounded into my brain, and by the end, I began to agree with that thought.  On my last day, I yelled at a Regional Manager for disrespecting one of our new co-workers.  Though I believe that it was justly deserved, that man could have easily been twice my age.  He was the Regional Manager in California, and he got punked by a 23 year old “professional.”

I read the blogs, and I hear things about the idiots at the NYO.  Those “Ivy League babies” at the NYO.  I read about the “rich who have mommy and daddy pay for their schooling.”  It is an unfair portrait painted of the corporate staff.  Yes, the recruiting department (under the guidance of Steve Shore) recruited aggressively from Ivy League schools.  Shore himself attended Tulane which made me think his obsession with the Ivy League was odd.   Many people at the company were not elitist – we were trying to do our jobs right.  We had superiors who had superiors who had superiors who answered to Steve, Barry, Gary and a slew of older men and women.  I believe most of us followed orders and achieved successes in our posts as it was designed.  We didn’t break out of our molds.  We fit into them nicely – because we had to succeed in this “corporate” world.

It has gotten the company nowhere.  A few men and women set out to guide a company to success, and they have failed.  The corporate staff made of alums from the best universities has failed.  Store managers and directors and other members of the field staff have failed – at no fault of their own.  They were misdirected – they were mislead – they were deceived. 

The fault does not fall on the NYO or the stores.  It does not fall on the lack of money and the economy. It falls on the lack of experience and the relentless demand to conform to the “new” model.  It was a system of patching up a sinking boat. Why reinvent the wheel?  Why devise a completely new system when retail stores that have been successful in the past and have been profitable.  Even smaller chains like Pamida in the mid-west have been successful.  There are the Conway stores in Herald Square that have been success for as long as I can remember.  The clothing is even comparable to S&B in price – and at times cheaper.  They established a loyal base and have maintained their standing as a retailer that will deliver to their customers at their 3 or 4 locations around Manhattan.  I don’t know if Steve and Barry’s ever had that to a great extent.

The lack of experience is the downfall of this company, and the lack of communication is the creation of the backlashes I see on the blogs.  The discontent at the store level is not surprising.  With the NYO and India forcing them to conform – I would also be bitter and angry – especially if I heard nothing from corporate staff regarding the bankruptcy proceeding for more than two weeks.  It’s not the staff’s fault – because they know as little as the stores.  It’s the lack of communication between the directors and everyone else.

Steve and Barry’s was not profitable in 2007 when the economy was better – now in 2008 they are forced to downsize more than they did in December of 2007 – two weeks before Christmas.  There was no holiday party this past year – nor did staff receive a 5 lb. bar of chocolate from Hershey’s.

I wish all my former co-workers still at S&B the best.  I met some of the best people I know at the NYO, in India, and on the field level – I had good relationships with some of the stores – poorer relationships with others. I wish all the store managers the best – and I am sorry if you read this, and it was me that caused you grief on any occasion.  I didn’t know what I was doing – I lacked experienced, and I apparently I lacked the idea of “the human other.”

JJRC

Mayor Bloomberg warns that property taxes might have to be raised [Crain's]

A look at architect Enrique Norten’s One York, where telecom mogul Michael Hirtenstein bought six apartments for $25 million [Curbed]

The rezoning proposal for Victorian Flatbush takes shape [Flatbush Gardener]

Ridgewood, Queens, offers bargains [NYDN]

Is the condo market really saturated? [NYMag]

Developer Aby Rosen talks about the Chrysler Building and Tom Wolfe [NYO]

(Im the guy on the left wearing the white CA tee, if you see me in da street holla at me)

So it was my BDay party @ the 21SoundBar which is the only finest HipHop & RNB bar in Paris with a lot of hot Djs.

This was organized by me & the owner Rodolphe, if you wanna go there dont forget to say that Ennio tells you about this great place.

21SOUNDBAR

20 rue de la forge royale

75011

Paris

Metro: faidherbe chaligny ( line 8 )

Now that I’m finally writing again, I’d be remiss not to talk a bit about a recent trip I took for work last month. The regional competitions of the Native Youth Olympics were being held in Koyuk, Alaska – one of the villages on the Yukon River – and I was lucky enough to cover the event for our station.

Like almost all of the villages and towns in Western Alaska, Koyuk is inaccessible by any road system, so getting to this village of some 300 people means taking a small plane from Nome. I’ve been on small planes before, but never one this small. The maximum passenger capacity was about a half-dozen, allowing for an intimate space from which to view the vast, still-snowy and icy landscape below our wings.

A regular part of daily life in this region, the “milk run” routes of these small planes — running passengers, mail and cargo from village to village — play a unique role that aviation does not take almost anywhere else in the world. The bush pilots are a vital lifeline, and this becomes immediately apparent when you see a village, like Koyuk, emerge in the distance from an otherwise uninterrupted landscape of open tundra, sea ice, snow, and scattered trees. Without the planes, each village would be largely on its own.

But I digress – the plane ride was just the first of many amazing experiences on this assignment. The games themselves are fascinating. The Native Youth Olympics involve junior and senior high school students competing against each other in a series of athletic events that relate in a particular way to the traditional subsistence lifestyle of Alaska Natives. The games are incredibly strenuous and demanding; the “Two-Foot High Kick,” for example, tasks participants to jump up in the air and use both feet, together, to kick a suspended beanbag whose height off the ground is gradually increased. The winner is the one who can kick the highest. This event, and other variations on the kick, relate to hunting activities, in which different kinds of kicks were used as non-verbal means of communicating between the members of a hunting party.

The games began Friday evening and concluded Saturday night. I tried to keep as close to each successive sport as I could, writing down impressions and results and conferring with the officials overseeing the event. Saturday came the time for live reports, and just before 9am, 12noon, and 5pm, I called into the radio station and gave a brief run-down of the recent event winners. Sunday, I filed one last report in the morning, to be recorded and replayed later that day.

While I waited for my afternoon flight back to Nome, I walked around Koyuk a bit and tried to get a sense of the village. One of the immediate differences is that, lo and behold, there are trees here! Nome is just outside of the tree line (because of the permafrost in our soil), and thus has almost no trees of any kind; but Koyuk’s soil is apparently just hospitable enough for some evergreens (although I noticed they never get too tall).

Despite long days (late nights for the conclusions of sporting events, and early mornings to file live reports), it was a great weekend, and a definite highlight of my time thus far in Western AK.