« March 2005 | Main | May 2005 »
April 29, 2005
Rock, Paper,....
Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell the company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York...
Instead, he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.
Christie's picked scissors, Sotheby's picked paper. Apparently there's also quite a bit of psychological analysis and strategy around the game.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:01 AM EDT | TrackBack
The Sports Guy lays it down
D. If Darko Milicic, Pavel Podkolzine, Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Carlos Delfino are all out of the NBA within three years, should they be forced to move into Chad Ford's house?
If you're an NBA fan, that's really self-explanatory. Hilarious.
If you're not: Chad Ford gets paid by ESPN to make stuff up. He's especially fond of overhyping young international players.
Posted by David Richmond at 9:43 AM EDT | TrackBack
April 27, 2005
Absurdity
I can't believe I had this phone conversation tonight:
Person B:"Hey, [person A] told me you could help me with my computer."
DR: "Oh, f--- [person A]." (having just told person A earlier that evening that I try to keep my technical skills under wraps lest i get calls begging for DR's virus cleaning service)
Person B:"what?"
DR: "Oh, nothing."
Person B:"Okay. so i took my computer in to the UA's in the science center..."
DR: mumbles occasionally, sips his delicious and frosty-cold beverage, pays half-attention to the usual story of virus scans and bluescreens
Person B:"....so I brought it back home and left it turned off until just now, and it won't turn on and it smells like it's burning!"
DR: [narrowly avoids spewing liquid everywhere] "WHAT?"
Person B:"it smells like it's burning!"
DR: "Okay, hold on, I'm coming over."
And indeed, my olfactory skills confirmed that my poor friend's laptop CPU is burnt to a crisp. Any guesses as to the make of said CPU? (full disclosure: my dad works for Intel)
Although I can't tell for sure since the laptop won't turn on, it does look, er, rather, smell like the hard drive's okay, so my friend's files should be recoverable. And the paper she had due tomorrow was both extended until Friday and got recovered from her sent-mail folder on the Harvard servers. So while it's still a massive pain in the rear, it's not an epic disaster. Which leaves the simple absurdity: her computer caught on fire.
Next time, buy Intel.
Posted by David Richmond at 12:43 AM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 24, 2005
Happy Passover
Saturday night, the first night of Passover, was spent in the company of Emily and parents, who were in to hear Emily's flute piece (Les plusieurs vies des dames nobles) performed by Caitlin Van Ness with BachSoc, as well as the hrCME opera project Saturday afternoon. Both were a success, and thus our family wound up at a rather untraditional setting for a Passover seder: Legal Sea Foods.
All of which is fine, since our immediate family, insofar as it is Jewish at all, is extremely untraditional. Some might put it: untraditional meaning not at all Jewish. But despite the absence of the traditional symbols of the exodus at the restaurant table, for me the experience resonated, however weakly, with the experience of a seder. Because from the Pinot Gris to the wild salmon, the food became about remembering Oregon, my home.
But of course Passover is as much about remembering the flight from Egypt as remembering the destination of Israel, and so it could be criticized that my own invented seder Saturday night took no account of how Oregon came to be my home. Except that you really only appreciate what you have once it's gone, and the symbols I appropriated by which to remember Oregon -- wine, salmon, and family -- are wholly meaningless outside of the exodus to Cambridge, Massachusetts to which I have subjected myself. Perhaps what I had, then, was a sort of reverse seder, a rememberance of home after an exodus, instead of a rememberance of an exodus after a home.
And then again, post-diaspora, I wonder how many other Jews have found the Passover story thus reversed? "Next year in Jerusalem!": it becomes a dream, ever-fading from reality, and it is more than worth noting that Zionism never, originally speaking, insisted on Israel per se as the Jewish homeland, but rather aimed merely for a home, any home. And so maybe it's fitting that for this Passover, Oregon is my Zion.
More than just "home is where the heart is": no, it is not Oregon my house my family, it is Oregon the land the trees the rain. Oregon is a part of me, just as Jerusalem is a part of every Jew. The grapes that made the wine I drank grew in soil ten miles from my house. This connection to the land itself -- symbolized Saturday night -- is what makes it home.
"then he was twenty-one. He could say it, himself and his cousin juxtaposed not against the wildneress but against the tamed land which was to have been his heritage....not against the wildnerness but against the land, not in purusit and lust but in relinquishment..."
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses
Sure, that's about the South and about how that land is tainted by the history of slavery (hence the talk of tamed and relinquished land, relinquished to set one free) but the point is: I am bound to the land by what it means to me -- to my history. And vice versa (me-to-its-history), I suppose.
Finally, continuing the Passover theme, via Anna Himmelrich comes this Flash remix, which is amazing.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:15 PM EDT | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
On a Healthy Classical Music Scene
Lots of excitement today about this Crimson Arts feature on HRO. I think it's an excellent article, and one that focuses on the huge problem all of us classical musicians face: attracting an audience. I wish I could say that this post were about ways to pull in new audiences, but it isn't: not only because I don't have any good answers, but also because the following quote has attracted a lot of navel-gazing attention on the various orchestra open lists this morning:
Yannatos rebuilt the orchestra through the 1970s and by the mid-'80s, it was back in shape. Today, it is unquestionably the ascendant orchestral group on campus despite the competition from groups like the Bach Society.
"The Bach-Soc started about ten years before I came in, and part of it was because there were a lot of HRO kids who weren't happy," he says. "The kids took it upon themselves to organize this smaller orchestra, and then the Mozart Society happened when some kids came to me who did not make HRO, didn't want to play in the Bach-Soc, and wanted to be in an orchestra."
Bach-Soc expanded beyond its roots in chamber music, and for a time considered itself the most exclusive orchestra at Harvard, while the Mozart Society served as something of a talent feeding ground for HRO, according to Yannatos.
"There's always a little bit of that competitive edge," he says, "At one point Bach-Soc thought of themselves as a very elitist group, and at a certain point, that changed, because they were not elitist by any means. The premiere orchestra was the Harvard-Radcliffe orchestra and that was it. Everybody knew that."
So some HRO members are gloating, and some BachSoc members are getting their panties in a knot. I'll repost here some comments similar to those I just sent to both open lists:
As a member of both BachSoc and HRO, I find that both have offered me distinctive and distinctively valuable experiences for me during my time here at Harvard. I have devoted myself fully to both groups, so no one has more to lose than me from viciousness between them.
Indeed, I have many criticisms and issues with both groups, none of which I feel are appropriate to share in this public forum. It is my opinion that Harvard's classical music scene -- and let's face it, after that Crimson article, is there any doubt that we're all in this unstable boat together? -- is strongest when it celebrates its diversity and talents of all types, and when its orchestras encourage each other to be the best they possibly can.
For this reason, it is inappropriate to take criticism of one group and use it to show how the other is better. Trying to prove one's superiority by beating down another hurts both parties. Better to try to fulfill one's maximum potential, and give criticism only in a constructive manner, and only where it can be usefully applied.
That's why I refuse to share my criticisms and concerns with both groups on this open list; instead, I have brought them to the attention of the leadership of each group as I find it appropriate. I'll continue to act as an advisor to anyone who's willing to listen to me i.e. good luck shutting me up. Jimbo (HRO president), Stephanie (outgoing HRO president), Ethan (HRO president emeritus), and the BachSoc staff can all confirm this. ;)
But one issue in particular deserves comment, and that's Dr. Y. More than once some orchestra members have directed harsh criticism at Dr. Y. I have no comment on these concerns, but I will say this, something I've said before and will continue to say in the future: Dr. Y is not going anywhere. He is the conductor of HRO, and will be for as long as any of us are here at Harvard. Improvement in the orchestra cannot come, then, from changing conductors, regardless of whether or not you think such a change is needed. But it can come from within the orchestra, from a revitalized espirit de corps and from a renewed attention, committment, and passion for the music.
That is where all our efforts -- as HRO, as BachSoc, and as musicians -- should be fully and entirely directed.
Posted by David Richmond at 1:50 PM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 21, 2005
Tales from Lecture II
"Britain, the repository of the world's eccentrics..."
-- my Moral Reasoning professor, discussing what he terms the Michael Jordan of wall-building. But hey, at least he found what he loves doing.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:39 AM EDT | TrackBack
April 17, 2005
Get Over It
So when I ask my friends why they don't comment on this thing, they all say they're too afraid to put their opinions out there. But my grandmother has now posted a comment. Are you more pussyfooted than my grandmother?
True, of late I haven't posted much that's comment-worthy. But when I do....
Posted by David Richmond at 10:23 AM EDT | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 14, 2005
Housing
Last night's entry was the first self-consciously sentimental post of mine in a while. Some would, perhaps, prefer the term "neurotic". With me, as my friends are no doubt aware, it's impossible to separate one source of stress from another. Which is why the primary contributor to my stress over the last week -- Eliot House's rooming lottery -- is answered by an apparently unrelated sense of nostalgia.
But certain developments today make it possible for me to finally relax about it. I'll be living in a very large suite next year (15 rooms including a giant 375 sq. ft. common room) with 10 other guys and 3 girls, including my two current roommates. I'm way psyched; it's going to be a blast.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:12 AM EDT | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 13, 2005
Old Friends
Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same. What is it that holds its shape between two people even as their lives change? What is it that can be called upon as shared experience even as the gulfs between two people widen? And is there perhaps always a bridge across the largest chasm, if only one knew where it was -- and what questions to ask to get there?
Deja-vu is, I think, the most fundamental human emotion, a function of the historicity of particularly human understanding. Or so I have come to believe.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:19 PM EDT | TrackBack
April 12, 2005
Snow?!?
I look out the window and see....snow? It's April 12!! This is the winter that wouldn't die.
Posted by David Richmond at 6:15 PM EDT | TrackBack
The Virginal Mozart Fetish
On Sunday, BachSoc had an extra concert. 13-year old pianist Chloe Pang played Mozart's piano concerto K595, and the Kat Andersen / Brendan Gillis power couple headline act took on Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K364 for violin and viola. I know this concert was especially important to Kat since she dedicated her peformance to the memory of her late father David, and her and Brendan's inspired playing was a fitting tribute. And most of the audience was probably there for her, since, you know, we all love her.
I hadn't expected to play the concert, but I wound up accompanying the piano concerto. Since the concert was ultimately supposed to be about Kat, and, for most of the people there, probably was, in fact, about Kat, it's with a little bit of trepidation that I write here about my very strong reaction to the Chloe Pang half of the program. But I think it's a culturally important topic.
The fetishization of young kids (and particularly girls) playing Mozart has always upset me. Mozart is an earthy, sexual, lecherous, beautiful, touching, perceptive composer -- which is to say, he's exceptionally human, a fact made especially clear as one gains familiarity, as I have, with his operas. So in my opinion 13 year olds, however perceptive and mature, aren't going to be able to do that kind of subject matter justice (ask yourself: would you want your 13 year old to understand everything that's going on in a Mozart opera?). But nevertheless lots of people get excited about little girls playing Mozart, and I find it disgusting.
People like to think that Mozart is pure and virginal -- for interesting historical and aesthetic reasons -- and therefore people like to see pure and virginal girls playing him, because it reinforces that aesthetic presupposition. Unfortunately, that presupposition is demonstrably false, and that's what makes virginal girls playing Mozart ultimately a sexual fetish. It stems from one's own reluctance to embrace or come to terms with one's own sexual desires (not meaning, I should clarify, sexual desires for 13 year old girls). If Mozart is sexual, we're all sexual; to the extent I'm uncomfortable with that, I fetishize away my sexual desire onto some poor 13 year old "prodigy".
Moreover, the relation between student and teacher is, as Mr. Kamins of Rice put it to me, a very "invasive procedure." He found this formulation inarticulate, but that's because the correct term is taboo -- it's actually an intimate relation. Which is why it has to be delicately balanced. If you ask a teacher to teach your child music, if that child is going to be at all passionate, dedicated, or devoted to it, you're passing off part of your parenting duties. Music should be matched to the kid's process of growing up; which is mostly to say that the kid should be allowed to find his or her own way through the great variety and depth of musical expression out there just as he or she has to find his or her own way through the great variety and depth of life's experiences and troubles. But the prodigy culture causes a piano teacher to be hired for some other ultimate end besides this process of growing up, and thus the whole prodigy cycle turns the prodigy his or herself into a means instead of an end. Potentially disastrous, and ethically problematic.
Now Chloe Pang seems mature, charming, and reasonably well-adjusted (and her Mom seems nice enough), so hopefully all will turn out well for her. But I can tell from the way she plays Mozart K.595 that she's still got a lot of growing up to do -- thank god. Which is why she shouldn't be playing it. Rather, more precisely, I can't understand why anyone would want to hear her play it, except to the extent that they're enjoying it in the fetish terms I've just described. And I have to say I felt exceptionally disturbed and upset at the realization that I, as a participant on stage, was contributing to this process.
Posted by David Richmond at 6:10 PM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 9, 2005
The Man Date
This is amazing (and true):
Anyone who finds a date with a potential romantic partner to be a minefield of unspoken rules should consider the man date, a rendezvous between two straight men that is even more socially perilous.
Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not. Attending the movie "Friday Night Lights" is a man date, but going to see the Jets play is definitely not.
Seems somewhat apropos given that it seems likely I'll be living with a larger number of guys next year than I have in the past.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:28 AM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 8, 2005
The Sardonic Roommate
"Okay, man. I hope it works out for you. And if it doesn't, I'll laugh at you."
-- the indomitable Mike Catlin
Posted by David Richmond at 4:30 PM EDT | TrackBack
April 3, 2005
Some Tangential Thoughts
On somebody-or-other's blog and on the Daily Show, among other places, I've been hearing about this book On Bullshit by Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt. Although I haven't read it, the excerpted thesis seems self-evident enough, although, like many things, it's probably only blindingly obvious in retrospect. Bullshit, according to Frankfurt, is blatant disregard for the truth. Unlike a liar, who must be aware of the false truth-value of his or her lie, the bullshitter doesn't bother to evaluate the truth-value of his or her statements at all. They might be true. Then again, they might not be; he or she who bullshits cares not.
All of which raises an interesting ethical question: what insight does this give into the character of honesty? One thing I've been contemplating is that true honesty is an end in itself. Unlike bullshit, which, as Frankfurter observes, has as its end something besides the truth (since the bullshitter doesn't bother to evaluate truth), honesty seems to be some combination of that which is evaluated as true by the honest person and the pursuit of truth. The distinction between those two sides of honesty, I think, is that a person may have something he or she thinks to be true turn out to be mistaken. Our ethical category of "honest mistake" notwithstanding, it seems to me that honesty has to incorporate that additional Socratic component of the pursuit of truth, which helps shield one's perception of oneself as honest from being accidentally or unconsciously superseded by self-righteousness.
Completely setting aside the issue of a standard by which truth is to be judged, a person acts honestly, thus conceived, when he or she acts or says things he or she believes to be true, while also constantly seeking greater truth. The recursive nature (self-reflexivity) of honesty makes it an end in itself. I suspect that this conclusion can avoid dependence on the assumption of an absolute standard of truth so long as honesty is assumed to be an attitude that one takes towards other people. For example, when Frankfurt's book was being discussed with him on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked him about the relationship of his concept of bullshit to political spin. In politics, the statements one makes are always means to another end (i.e., political support) instead of ends in themselves, and so they aren't honest.
All of this, of course, smacks of Kant's Categorical Imperative in its second form. But drawing it out like I have here highlights an interesting relationship to a bit from Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method (which I'm reading for junior tutorial) that struck me the other day:
Someone who can perceive the comedy and tragedy of life can resist the temptation to think in terms of purposes, which conceals the game that is played with us. (112 in my translation)
Since, as we've said, honesty has no ends or purposes, attitudes towards or statements about life that "think in terms of purposes" are not honest, which is to say, in Gadamer's terms, that they obscure "the game that is played with us." By "game" he means something very specific, and it's not something that should be negatively value-judged (if anything, it should be positively judged). More on this relationship between the above conception of honesty and Gadamer's conception of "game" and "play" tomorrow, or perhaps the day after: since Gadamer's project is to establish a separate claim to truth for the humanities as a discipline (as opposed to the "subject studies object" methodology of the natural sciences), I suspect he may be moving in this direction, and I should probably find out before I comment further.
Posted by David Richmond at 8:31 PM EDT | TrackBack
Back at Harvard
I'm back in Cambridge. My lesson with Mr. Kamins was good (he's fantastic), and I was extremely impressed with the Shepherd School overall. This place didn't even exist a few decades ago, and then all of a sudden somebody must have decided they really, really, really wanted to have a top-tier conservatory at Rice. The Shepard School of Music is what it would look like if Harvard all of a sudden decided to start a music conservatory with the weight of the Harvard brand behind it. A very large amount of money has been poured into that place, from the well-equipped facility (I'd stop short of saying architecturally beautiful, but that's a matter of taste, and it's functionally beautiful...) to the faculty. As one example among many, Leslie's flute teacher, Leone Buyse, came to the Shepard School from the University of Michigan. I'm sure the Shepard School "steals" its faculty away from other institutions the same way Harvard does: by making them an offer, as it were, they can't refuse. The University of Michigan's School of Music is itself exceptionally well-funded and quite large, so I leave estimating the strength of the Shepard School's financial backing as an exercise for the reader. Not only that, but I'd be hard-pressed to think of conservatories whose performance faculty have so few demands on their time besides teaching, or where the student/faculty ratios are so low (and lest I be misconstrued as painting performance faculty as purely mercenary, I should add that these factors are worth a goldmine to any faculty; they like working exceptionally closely with top students as much as the students like working with them. Not that I see anything wrong with mercenary, either). Oberlin comes to mind, but even Oberlin has bigger studios (higher s/f ratio). Anyway, for my purposes, I missed the boat on Oberlin when I decided to come to Harvard instead, since they have essentially no program for graduate students. You pays your money and you takes your choice....
As if it needs to be added, I'll definitely be auditioning at Rice next year.
Posted by David Richmond at 8:25 PM EDT | TrackBack
April 1, 2005
Houston, Delta Romeo here...
I'm visiting Rice where my little sister Leslie is giving her freshman flute recital on Saturday. I'm also meeting and playing for Mr. Kamins. Rice's Shepard School is definitely high on my wishlist of places to go bassooning post-graduation.
Didn't I do this college/conservatory search and audition thing once before? I guess this time, I'm playing for keeps....
Posted by David Richmond at 1:09 AM EST | Comments (1) | TrackBack