Tuesday, June 23. 2009
The Jewish-born Roman Catholic convert Czech composer Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser Von Atlantis was his last composition in the Terezin concentration camp outside Prague before he was shipped to Auschwitz in 1944 and gassed on arrival.
One of the remarkable stories of the era is about all of the music in the camps, and Terezin had more than its share of talent. The Nazis and even the SS loved music and thus encouraged camp musicianship. Mrs. BD recently heard a Terezin survivor speak about being in the choir there at age 11. (140,000 passed through Terezin: 20,000 were liberated at the end.)
In this short (50+ min.) modernist opera, the Emperor of Atlantis (a thinly-disguised Hitler-type) declares total war on the world. (As one would expect from a prison camp opera, the "Loudspeaker" has a major role and, instruments being limited, it's like a cabaret band.) Death goes on strike out of resentment at the competition from the Emperor, but love reappears on the battlefield and, in the end, Death is persuaded to resume his merciful task of erasing pain from the world when the emperor himself agrees to die.
Here's a snippet of the opera on YouTube, the Emperor's farewell aria:
I don't know how we missed this story. Never a bad idea to be armed in Cougar Country.
Their dog wasn't too helpful, was he?
Monday, June 22. 2009
A lunchtime tune from from Levon Helm's new record. It has some of the old Band sound. Pure, cheerful, Christian, sentimental Americana. The guy can play anything, but he loves his drums - and he thought he was a lousy singer even before his throat cancer.
Gotta love it, Sipp:
It would not be amusing if a guy did this. "It was great," one (the only honest?) fellow admitted.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
Anon.
The Madame Hardy Rose, a Damask Rose, was bred by Alexandre Hardy in 1832.
My brother in CT emailed the photo with this note: "You gave this plant to me 15 years ago, and it's still doing well. I have never had a rose survive this long."
Sunday, June 21. 2009
From Jim Bishop's reminiscences of his father, A Father's Love Goes on Forever and Forever, one quote:
Being a father is an awesome calling and responsibility. Granted, just about anyone can father a child, but what an awesome calling and responsibility it is to be a father. At 64, I’m still learning, even though both our daughters have long flown the nest, are married and have put Anna and me squarely in the grandparenting stage of life, something we thought old people did.
A lot of who I am today and how I act, as a parent and as an individual, can be attributed to my dad’s influence.
Among those things I learned at my father’s knee: to be honest and reliable in daily dealings and to give the other person the benefit of the doubt - until he or she proves unworthy of trust; to be on time and don’t make others wait; to devote oneself fully to an honest day’s work; to make church a priority; to know how to have fun; to be there for your kids; to be an encourager; to say “please,” “thank you” and “I love you” often; to know when to say “no” and don’t jump too quickly on the bandwagon; to not wait for a funeral to give someone flowers; to set goals and persevere to meet them.
For Father's Day, I am recommending Matthew Crawford's 2006 essay about work, of the above title, in The New Atlantis. One quote:
 ...the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence, most of us anyway, and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed: the hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are, and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work.
I see he has expanded his thoughts into a new book. An excerpt from the book appeared in The NYT Magazine last month: The Case for Working with your Hands. A quote from that:
High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.
When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.
Some days, definitely. Other days, more abstract work is just fine. 50/50 might be ideal for me, but a work-out in a gym is no substitute for doing something physical and real. We men need to engage mind and muscle together to feel whole.
You can see it in any little boy, and it never goes away. Chain saws, brush wackers and tractors are my skill level. It's called unskilled (at best, semi-skilled) work.
Saturday, June 20. 2009
A sucky day. Two tooth extractions last evening as prep for some implants, and then today the basement flooded (17/20 of the past days with heavy rain). It's raining as I type, too.
Six guys here all day with a dumpster and suction hoses removing everything from the basement (old tax records and other records too, totally soaked), the carpet, the tiles and linoleum underneath, the wood shelving, etc etc. How heavy is soaked carpet? Plus the wallboard took a terrible hit: it's done. Fans and dehumidifiers humming away right now. What an f-ing mess.
Glad I have homeowner's insurance. Sorry I do not have dental insurance - but I'd be uninsurable in that regard.
I tell myself that if these are my worst problems, I am probably in pretty good shape. But my jaw hurts. Don't you hate it when people complain? It makes others feel like they should say or do something to make it better, or to fix it.
Well, at least I am not in an iron lung ward. That must have really sucked. The last iron lung inhabitant died last year. My brain makes me wonder how they avoided bedsores, how they pooped, and why they didn't unplug the damn thing late at night while the nurses were dozing:
If you don't have unlimited funds and if you are not the sort of experienced traveller who likes to do everything yourself, your own way, check out our friends at Club ABC before the summer is over.
As you can imagine, times are tough in the travel biz but that means that there are still ways to go someplace interesting without breaking the bank. The prices are better than they should be.
The folks at ABC have been generous to Ducks Unlimited. Enuf said.
Ali Akbar Khan, master of the sarod, died today. He has been considered by some to have been the greatest living musician, but I have no idea how anybody could, or would want to, determine that.
Here he is pickin' a raga.
As we grow up, we realize that no Dads are "great men" in the usual sense. Just as flawed as we are. But, in my view, any Dad who sticks by his kids and keeps 'em in sneakers is a darn good one.
Neptunus discusses his Dad for Father's Day.
 A CT friend emailed these (you can readily tell in what sorts of directions his interests lie):
Danbury Railway Museum
Connecticut Antique Machinery Association
The Shore Line Trolley Museum
and, if your travels happen to take you near Coalbrookdale, England,
Ironbridge, Birthplace of Industry.
Photo: An old trolley at the Trolley Museum. I remember how the old trolley tracks could twist your bike tires when you rode over them as the tracks were gradually consumed by layers of asphalt. The bus lobby beat out whatever trolley lobbies there were and roads, unlike tracks, were built and maintained by government. A shame.
Photo below: Cylinder of a Corliss Steam Engine at the Machinery Museum
 Our engagement kid ran off with one of our cars to get to his Dartmouth reunion. That's OK, we have spare cars.
But what is it about Dartmouth that loyalty would lead to such felonious behavior?
My uncle went there, and he was a D nut too. Wa-hoo-wah!
A friend sent a photo he took of the Darien, CT train station. At 5:45 am the southbound platform would be jammed with riders to NYC:
Friday, June 19. 2009
All about grit, at In Character.
 Ruling cleric warns protesters. I know it doesn't take 51% of a population to make a revolution: it only takes a 5% highly-motivated core or, as in our American Rev, about 30% support.
But what if their election was relatively legit, with only Chicago-style fraud?
We would all be pleased to see Iran return to modern civilization, but what if the majority do not think that way? What if the majority want a combative Islamic theocracy with a dopey selected figurehead in his Members Only jacket?
What if a majority value their religion over modernity and the Western community, and the protesters are mainly the urbanites and students? Then what?
Photo: Esfehan protest this week, via Gateway who is constantly on top of this story
Related: No hope and change for Iran. Krauthammer
I thought it was just an Alaska-style lawn sculpture, but the thing moves, too. Battlefield potential no doubt. Can you picture 30 of these, heavily armed, at the Battle of the Somme? h/t Jonah at NRO
 Got rain? Man, have we had rain. Great for our new transplants. We are working on an ark as I type. No doubt global warming is causing the cooling and rain.
Why Waterloo is important to us all. Jules
A Kangaroo story, with special photo.
Pure reasonableness re Iran. Tiger. Proof that these intertubes need not always be an emotional vomitorium.
Also reasonable: Get off the O's garden. Fake or not, gardens are good. Rich folks like the Os can afford instant gardens - but we pay the bills for them. Thus it's your garden too, in a government sort of way. Ask for a tomato.
And also reasonable: AVI speaks on on Health Care
Let's discuss medical insurance. No, says ABC and the WH. I guess it's settled science.
Why higher ed is stuck in the middle ages
Here's a dumb lawsuit for ya. Althouse
Rural Dems have beefs with the O. Of course they do. He doesn't know any of those us people.
Where did life come from? The NYT wants to know. Let's just call it a Cosmic Life Force. God forbid we term Cosmic Forces "God." h/t, LGF
Insty:
P.C. POLICING: British cops stop and hassle thousands to “balance racial statistics.”
So true: Stressful life events are themselves quite heritable.
"I'll never trust a man again." Good idea. We are all Evil. Barely human.
Related, from Dr. C:
The problem for the feminists is that the brand is ruined beyond recognition. When people think feminists they think man-hating, abortion-loving, children-resenting, big-mouthed butch lesbians.
We sure do. Once their goals were accomplished, they were coopted by the loonies. Like this one.
Via No Pasaran:
A primary reason America is "waiting" and "watching" and "monitoring" while Iranians are beaten in the streets of Tehran is that the country is led by the left.
…the world is "closely following the situation," just as it followed the situations of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Ukrainians, the Chinese under Mao, the Rwandans, the Cambodians, Tibetans, and so many others.
Thursday, June 18. 2009
Oh, help me in my weakness
I heard the drifter say
As they carried him from the courtroom
And were taking him away
"My trip hasn't been a pleasant one
And my time it isn't long
And I still do not know
What it was that I've done wrong.
Well, the judge he cast his robe aside
A tear came to his eye
"You failed to understand", he said
"Why must you even try ?"
Outside the crowd was stirring
You could hear it from the door
Inside the judge was stepping down
While the jury cried for more.
"Oh, stop that cursed jury"
Cried the attendant and the nurse
"The trial was bad enough
But this is ten times worse"
Just then a bolt of lightning
Struck the courthouse out of shape
And while ev'rybody knelt to pray
The drifter did escape.
Best version I've heard of the song, except for maybe the one Bob and Jerry did together. This from the mid-90s, no video.
 Scientists pan Obama climate scare report. But the uninquisitive NYT swallows it whole. Related, from Tim Blair:
This administration forcefully confronts Americans but kisses up to those who would destroy America. God moves in mysterious ways.
The report, produced by more than 30 scientists at 13 government agencies dealing with climate change, provides the most detailed picture to date of the worst case scenarios of rising sea levels and extreme weather events: floods in lower Manhattan …
Like the 1953 flood that was caused by a high tide? Or the 1961 flood, also caused by high tides? Or maybe like the NYC floods in 1901, 1903, 1927 and 1977 that were simply caused by rain? Hey, what if New York is hit by a Paris-style flood? That would be a climate change nightmare. Further from Obama’s worst-case confrontation case file:
… a quadrupling of heat waves deaths in Chicago …
More information, please. Would that be a quadrupling of the 64 deaths during one day in 1911? The 2996 deaths across the northwest in 1936? The ten deaths in one Chicago morning 131 years ago? The 20 deaths in two days during 1900? Would the rise match the 65 per cent increase in heat-related deaths from 1935 to 1936? Might one person die every thirty minutes, as happened during a 1916 heatwave?
… withering on the vineyards of California …
Now you’re getting serious.
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