Click here to see my article on the 2010-2013 season of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, announced today.
photo: Clive Barda, courtesy of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County
Another intro
We’ve changed the title of this week’s celebrity slide show in the hopes that you’ll like it more. But it’s still much the same as last week’s: a rip-roaring, side-splitting, super-high-quality celebrity slide show, so never fear.
It’s important to be liked. Everyone wants to be liked. Some of us are. Some, not so much.
We don’t claim to be the life of the party. If we did, everyone would laugh. We’re usually the one sitting in the corner, eating a plate of celery and dip. The one in the bow tie.
Click here to see the 10 most outrageous celebrity stories of the week
It’s not that we don’t have anything interesting to say or don’t cut a suave figure. It’s that the music’s too loud. Turn down the music and you’ll see how interesting we are. Sparkling repartee is our forte. For instance, did you know that that word — “forte” — is actually pronounced “fort?” Now you do. See how nice it is when you turn the music down?
Some of the writers around here go viral with these slide show things. You like them, and they feel good about themselves. The bosses like them and dole out kudos by the boatload. The viral writers strut around like proud roosters with their pumped up chests, a few feet off the ground. We hate them.
On the other hand, we haven’t gone viral. Yet. As we drift off to sleep in the wee hours at night, though, a tear on our cheek, we often think about it … what it would feel like. We’d feel validated, as a maker of slide shows, as a journalist, as a person. We imagine opening up a bottle of fine champagne and lighting up a giant cigar to celebrate the occasion, kicking back with the stogie hanging from our mouth, smoke in our eyes, laughing like a hyena as we count a big fat wad of Benjamin Franklins.
Yes, indeed, it must be a sweet thing going viral. But we’re not going to beg. We’re not going to pander. You’re better than that. We’re better than that.
So, as said, we’ve changed the title of this slide show in the hopes that you’ll like it more. Oh, please say you do!
Click here to see the 10 most outrageous celebrity stories of the week
See also:
Quote
“…the critic … does his duty best by his readers when he describes and explains to the public what the artist is doing. If he adds a paragraph of personal opinion, that is his privilege as a musician. It is also his duty as a reporter, since the confessing of his personal prejudices and predilections helps the reader to discount them. But the description of music is his business, as the performance of music is the performer’s business and the designing of it for possible execution the composer’s. Consuming it is the public’s business and, to this end, judging it. We all judge it. That is a human right granted even to the reviewer. But if the reviewer is not to be mistaken by artists and managements for just a cog in their publicity machine, neither should he set himself up as a Bureau of Standards. We still live in a Republic of Art, thank God. And I, as a member of the republic, as a plain consumer, want access to all the music there is. I also want all the description and information about it I can get, as a consumer’s guide. I even enjoy knowing, as a consumer’s guide, who likes it and who doesn’t.” — Virgil Thomson
Classical Life: 2011 annual report
One of the nice things about blogging on WordPress is that they (WordPress) prepare an annual report on Classical Life.
Some of the data this annual report provides I already know from my dashboard, a nifty device behind the scenes in which I can track things such as number of visitors per post and per day. But the annual report also provided a few tidbits I didn’t know. For instance:
1. The number of visitors to this blog in 2011 would fill 21 sold-out performances in the Sydney Opera House, though I doubt anyone would buy a ticket to watch me type.
2. The top searches that brought visitors to this blog were “classical life,” “yuja wang dress,” “yuja wang,” “yuja wang red dress,” and “jameson commercial music.” Now, if I could just get a video of Yuja Wang wearing that little red dress and drinking a glass of Jameson’s, I could retire.
3. Most visitors came from the United States, but the report says that Canada and the United Kingdon “were not far behind.” I guess I should be writing more about London and Toronto. I did have visitors from all continents except Antarctica. Five percent of my African visitors were from Cameroon. I’m huge in Cameroon.
4. My most commented on post for 2011 was Musicians Don’t Comment.
5. The top commenters (numerically speaking) were MarK, CK Dexter Haven, Deborah and MM. The annual report suggests that I send them a thank you note. Thank you, MarK, CK, Deborah and MM.
6. You already know the 2011 posts that had the most views. If not, you can click here.
7. Finally, the annual report tells me: “Some of your most popular posts were written before 2011. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.”
My earlier, funny posts were always more popular.
10 ways not to have your cell phone ring during the softest part of a Mahler symphony
In honor of the man whose cell phone went off during the softest part of a performance of Mahler’s 9th Symphony by the New York Philharmonic recently, and thereby causing a national brouhaha, we revive “10 ways not to have your cell phone ring during the softest part of a Joshua Bell concert.” Substitute “Mahler 9” for “Joshua Bell” and you should be good to go.
1. Take the battery out and hand it to Esa-Pekka Salonen.
2. Bring along your portable drill. Drill a hole all the way through the cell phone, approximately an inch from the top (watch out for sparks; we suggest safety goggles). Thread a nylon strap through the hole and tie it around your neck.
3. Talk on your cell phone while driving to the concert and get in a crash.
4. Refuse on principle to attend Joshua Bell concerts.
5. Pretend for the two hours of the concert that you aren’t as important as you think you are and leave the cell phone at home.
6. Ask your wife (or partner) to wear her (or his) sexy stiletto heels to the Joshua Bell concert. Just before the Joshua Bell concert begins, as a piece of performance art, put your cell phone on the floor and have her (or him) smash it with her (or his) heels. Sweep up the pieces and put them in your pocket.
7. Call someone you know before the Joshua Bell concert begins. Let them listen to the Joshua Bell concert over the cell phone. You don’t hear them very often.
8. Roll the cell phone up inside your program (you were going to drop it anyway) and set the whole thing on fire.
9. It’s time to clean out your closet. Plan to do it the day of the Joshua Bell concert. It’s a big job. There are boxes in there with stuff from college, old love letters, oh, and that thing you thought you had lost. Gather the clothes (70’s bell bottoms, polyester leisure suits, Members Only jackets, the t-shirt from the Combat Rock Tour — it’s been a really long time) together in a garbage bag. Hmmm, you might as well take them right down to the Salvation Army — no better time than the present. When you get back you realize you forgot about the Joshua Bell concert and it’s too late to go.
10. All you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules. Then, hold the cell phone between your knees.
Intro
An editor told me that she thought the celebrity slide-show intro I wrote the other day (below) was probably above readers’ heads. She “got” it, though, and laughed out loud, as the saying goes. I disagreed with her. I don’t generally overestimate people’s intelligence, but what’s not to get? Besides, no one reads these intros, so who cares? Certainly, no reader commented on it, yay or nay.
Celebrities are the most fascinating people on Earth. You can’t argue with that because it’s what philosophers call a tautology. Look at it as a math equation. Fascinating = Celebrity. Celebrity = Fascinating. If we remember our algebra, and eliminate both sides of the equation, we’re left with nothing but an equals sign, ergo: Tautology.
Socrates once said that celebrities are the most fascinating people on Earth because they do the whackiest things. You can look it up. He was absolutely right, of course, but they made him drink hemlock anyway.
Click here to see the 10 best celebrity stories of the week
Bertand Russell, on the other hand, wrote a philosophical tract called “Why I Am Not a Celebrityhound.” It got him into a lot of trouble, but no one made him drink hemlock. He lived into his 90s if you can believe Wikipedia. He was also against nuclear war.
General Ullyses S. Grant had a philosophical bent, especially when he was drinking, and veritably pined for celebrity news. Stuff about Lillie Langtry and Jenny Lind, things like that. Once Lind sent a tweet that got all up in the grill of Robert E. Lee and she put Lee’s hash tag on it, so Lee must have seen it. Grant thought that was so funny he bust a gut.
Second plug: Click here to see the 10 best celebrity stories of the week
Rene Descartes was sitting around a bar one day and just blurted out “I think, therefore I am,” except in Latin. The other philosophers sitting around the bar just looked at him and said, “Yeah, whatever, man,” but Descartes had a point that changed the world. The other philosophers were just too drunk to know it.
Which brings us to our point. Celebrities are fascinating in Latin. Especially if you’re a drinking philosopher, but always and for everyone really. That’s why we do what we do. We’re philosophical about it. “We write, therefore celebrities.”
Last chance: Click here to see the 10 best celebrity stories of the week
More recommended recordings
I’ve added 10 more recordings to my Recommended Recordings page, above. The new ones are Nos. 11-20. You should be able to click on the thumbnails to view larger photos of the covers. All are available on Amazon and other online retailers, and most if not all can be had as MP3s.
My selections are quite random. I’m just remembering recordings that I especially like. If there is a particular piece that you would like me to recommend a recording of, drop a line in the comments below this post (not on the Recommended Recordings page). If I can’t recommend one, I’m sure other readers can.
Pacific Symphony performs Tchaikovsky ‘blowfest’ and Golijov premiere
In today’s Orange County Register online, I review Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony in a performance of a Golijov/Chopin/Tchaikovsky program, heard Thursday night in Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Click here to read my review, or pick up a copy of tomorrow’s newspaper.
Marino Formenti plays Benjamin, Gardner and Beethoven
Back in my high school days, I took a trip with some friends in a giant 1966 Imperial to Magic Mountain, some 75 miles north of Orange County. Partway there, the car broke down on the freeway. We parked it on the side of the road and began walking to get help. We were in Pacoima, a rather forlorn place, just walking through some random neighborhood when we came upon a house with an open garage. A big band was set up there, and they were rehearsing. Kids were playing in the driveway, as if nothing was unusual here. My friends and I were, of course, astonished. I asked one of the kids on a bicycle, “What’s this?”
“It’s jazz, man,” he said. “It’s been around for years.”
It was rather amusing to be sitting in Segerstrom Concert Hall on Saturday night, observing the unsuspecting audience as pianist Marino Formenti unleashed Evan Gardner’s “Variations on a Theme by John Cage” for piano and live electronics. I wanted to say, “It’s avant-garde, man, it’s been around for years,” but an audience like this one (there for a nice pleasant piano recital, in our beautiful new hall, safe to say) really has no basis for understanding a work like Gardner’s. It was a case of a piece intended for a different type of listener (an elite one) meeting an audience of ordinary folk (no offense).
Not that I could make much sense of it either. Gardner’s work (heard here in its U.S. premiere) takes as its theme Cage’s 4’33’’—that is, his famous (or infamous) silent piece for solo piano. A little more explanation than was provided by the program note, and by the composer speaking just before the performance, would have possibly helped. One found it difficult to ascertain under what rules the piece was formed and under what processes the sounds were being produced.
In short, Formenti wore some electronic gloves and didn’t touch the keyboard.
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