Back to index of "this and that in my life" pages by Donald Sauter.
Dedicated to the proposition that every thought that's ever been thunk may be of interest to someone . . .
ME: Jokari, ah, yes - jokari. I figured when I was typing it you
didn't know what it was. Thanks for asking. Jokari is a great
little game/sport. It sounds stupid when described verbally, but
nothing could be wronger. It's very much like racquetball -
without the walls. In fact, one type of Jokari is called
"Racquetball Without The Walls". It's a racquet sport that you
play on any large paved surface. The ball is connected to a
weighted block by an elastic band. (Sound like kid's paddle
ball? That's what everybody thinks when you describe it.) One
person hits it out; it comes back; the other person hits it out,
etc.; until somebody goofs up. You score it like racquetball
(which is like volleyball - you only score points when you're
serving.)
Hself first discovered Jokari in the mid-'70s. The original
version had small wood paddles and a firm, spongy ball. That was
kind of hard for the average person, and they came out with the
racquetball version which had a hollow rubber ball, and you
supplied your own racquetball racquet. I've never met a person
yet who wasn't instantly hooked after playing for a minute. The
bad news is I can't find hide nor hair of the company anymore.
There is not a single hit for "jokari" on the web. I am in dire
need of replacement parts, and when my set wears out, that's the
end of an era. As it is, I'm gerry-rigging all kinds of
makeshift repairs. The ball I use is practically bounceless.
More info than you need, I'm sure, but not a complete waste - I
might reuse it in a web page someday. [And here it is.]
I don't often see Benneton ads, but have read that they have
always been sort of radical, trying to be shocking in some way or
another.
Your advice about what to do about Lenell reminds me of an
episode in the Spiderman comic back in the 70s. (That's when I
stopped reading the comics. I had pared it down to just Nancy
and Spiderman - and out! Then I think both of those were dropped
from the Evening Sun.) There was a boy who had seen Spiderman's
heroic deeds and began to absolutely idolize him - too much for
his own good. So Spiderman put on an act of being a complete
jerk, and pretending that the apparent *good* side of him was all
phony, to quash the poor kids feelings. That always made me feel
sad, even though it was just a comic.
ME: I was rereading your article on Ballard's "Elements of Guitar
Playing" (SB Nov 1981) after finding a copy at LC. You might be
interested that the LC copy looks like the first edition. It
stops at page 66 (you say the 3rd edition has 88 pages), and I
don't see any mention of "2nd edition" anywhere. This edition
was published by Geib & Walker, and the copyright was entered in
1838. (The 3rd edition used the same year.)
Piecing everything together, it seems that the "22" additional
pages in the 3rd edition all came from the music section of
Ballard's "Preceptor"? The numbers work out about right - you
say 8 of the 31 pages in the Preceptor are explanatory - and I
don't see any of the pieces you mentioned from the Preceptor:
Love's Ritornella, The Bride's Farewell and the Spanish Fandango.
About the "Admired Cotillions partly composed and arranged... by
Fr. Blantchor" which appeared in Soundboard, I've noticed that
the first 8 measures of No. 1 Alonzo is a familiar extract from
Auber's Fra Diavalo, arranged by Holland and others. The first 8
measures of No. 3 Apollo are *very* similar to an extract from
the Dame Blanche by Biouldeau, as arranged by Lorgion in my
collection. The first section of No. 2 Eliza sounds very
familiar, but I haven't put my finger on it yet. Anyhow, I guess
that's what he meant by "partially composed". (In the "Fra
Diavalo Waltz" from the same edition, on page 3, staff 7, measure
3 should be repeated. This is another Fra Diavalo extract
popular with guitar arrangers.)
About the Divertimento by Nu"ske in Soundboard Fall 1987, you
were asking about the source of the Mozart theme. That's from
the Zauberflo"te, Act 1 Scene 13. It's "Bei Ma"nnern, welche
Lieben fu"hlen", a duet between Pamina and Papageno. What's neat
about Nu"ske's arrangement is that after the variation finishes
with the theme, it actually goes on to new material in the aria
that Nu"ske hadn't used in the theme.
About the Isabel Waltz arr. by Meignen and included in your
"Guitar In America" anthology, you say the source is unknown. I
wonder if perhaps it's from Rossini's L'Italien in Algera, which
had a main character named Isabella. One day, I'll check it out.
A funny thing is, Meignen arranged the "Cinderella Waltz" (do you
have it?), and although I can't swear it doesn't appear in
Cenerentola, it *is* a well-known piece from William Tell. See,
for example, Noad's Carcassi book, page 138.
I put another little surprise package of guitar music in the mail
for you. I can't help it - I like sharing it. You'll find a few
pieces by Henlein, most of which I hope you don't already have,
and which I hope will raise your opinion of him a little bit.
I'm not screaming "Genius!" or anything, but I think there are
some things that set Henlein apart from a bona fide hack. In
various pieces, he was specific about unusual fingerings,
counting, articulation and even tempo. In one piece he used
Baroque- type ornaments, and spelled out how to play them.
There's non-trivial use of harmonics. "A Midnight Reverie"
reminded me a little of things Richard Pick would write many
decades later. I like his arrangements of pieces by Tosti and
Hauser, and also his Home Sweet Home variations, which are
"refreshing in their simplicity" (so says me.)
Yes, I had come to the same conclusion about the Gs in the intro
to Bane's Grand March - I see a note to myself saying "just play
open G". Good catch regarding the missing natural sign. Guess I
was having too much fun coming out of the "quintuplet" to notice
that one. I agree, the piece is "odd", but I think that makes it
kind of neat. It also involves lots of fun problem-solving.
For me, the trouble with the Saint-Saens/Fiset is that it's full
of hard-to-read and/or hard-to-play chords, and if you *do*
successfully land on one, you don't have a moment to catch your
breath before speeding off somewhere else, often to a harmonic
which itself requires precision placement.
I've always figured T.P. and G.J. Trinkaus were brothers, for no
solid reason whatsoever. It seems that G.J. was a composer for
piano and other instruments, while T.P. was strictly a guitar
man.
THEE: I admire your creativity with this approach, but i think it
obvious that you haven't completely thought this idea through. It
has many holes that would quickly lead to total failure. By
pondering this one question, you will surely see my point (and
quickly delete all references to unarchy on your web page). I
challenge you to send me back an intelligent answer to this
question:
Since the public is divided fairly evenly on this issue, any
sampling of people will have a 50-50 chance of convicting the
perpetrator. Furthermore, since the sentence is also administered
by the jury, some juries will impose the death penalty for
murder, while others will get off scott free. What happens
then?????
Laws rule!!
ME: Thanks for giving some thought to my unarchy idea. In answer
to your question,
How would unarchy deal with the issue of abortion?
I direct you back to my unarchy page
http://www.geocities.com/donaldsauter/unarchy.htm
[now http://www.donaldsauter.com/unarchy.htm ]
Search on the word "abortion". I don't pretend what I say there
will win you over, but it's how I see it.
Also, I don't have any problem with one geographic area having a
different majority opinion than another. You would take locale
into consideration when you do something questionable.
My understanding is that about 80% of the population is pro-
abortion. Nonetheless your concern about equally split issues
remains. Think it through: if a bare majority thinks something
is *wrong*, how severe a punishment do you think the majority
will vote for - when 49.999% are already saying the person didn't
do *anything* wrong?
Anyhow, that's how I see it.
THEE: Thanks for writing back. This is so exciting talking with
an actual presidential candidate. Because this idea of unarchy is
so wacky and doomed, I'm still not sure if you are being serious
or just having fun. Let me throw a couple of curves at you and
see what you think:
1) The majority is not always right. In the 1800's most people
thought blacks should be slaves and women shouldn't vote. We now
know the majority was wrong! Sometimes it takes a few courageous
individuals to lead this country where it needs to go.
2) Juries are expensive. If you've ever watched People's Court,
you will see that many things people go to court over are things
like bad hair cuts, treating a pet wrong, borrowing $50 and not
giving it back. Do you really want people's lives interrupted by
trying these cases by jury?? To think there is a perfect judicial
system out there where people will suddenly not disagree at
anything any more is preposterous!
3) Back to the abortion issue. Even if you are correct that 80%
of people support abortion, By randomly choosing any 10 people,
it would be quite possible that you get 5 who believe abortion is
punishable by death. What happens then?
4) One last thing... without laws, what would prevent someone
from bringing someone else to court over... smoking cigarettes,
selling pornography, killing cows for food, cutting down trees...
Without laws, everything is illegal and everything is legal. Even
if these have already gone to trial, every case is a little
different, so it would not stop people from trying again.
Good luck with these.
"Laws Rule!"
THEE: So, in the Spiderman comic...the kid no longer idolized
spiderman once he saw the bad side? Or did the kid think he was
unworthy, and Spiderman hated him? Idol worship...are we all
guilty? I know people at my church, etc. think of my --- thing
as Idol worship. Why do they care!!! Don't they have
interests?? Just because I can't drool over old coins...or rave
over my garden...what's the difference. My father would always
try to comfort me when people verbally put me down, by telling me
that they were only trying to build themselves up.
ME: I went in to LC on Friday for another productive day. Then,
I had to go in again Saturday morning. It wasn't what I had
planned, but I left some things there Friday, and I had to get
them before the librarian who views me as a trouble-maker found
them. I think I succeeded, even though I was shocked to find him
there Saturday morning.
Had a marathon phone chat with Scrabble Harry [Vernon] Saturday
night. He recently got back from 2 weeks in New Zealand where he
climbed his big mountain, Mt. Egmont, again. He got himself into
a real jam on the way down, but managed to get out of it without
starting a rescue effort.
Hmmm, I always thought you staked out the position that copyright
laws, as with laws in general, were absolute, and the justice
system only examined an action to see if it fell in or out of the
universally understood bounds.
Hself posed the question, what is binaural? Well, I had always
thought it was a synonym for stereo, or maybe a stereo groove
that had the exact same sound impression on both sides. Anyhow,
a web search turned up an interesting essay on binaural. You
might find it interesting.
Linkname: HeadWize - Article: Taking Sound In Another
Direction by John Sunier
URL: http://www.headwize.com/articles/sunier2_art.htm
So far, I haven't been able to find complete opera librettos on
the net, but I've found a good site that at least has a few
thousand of the most popular arias.
How fast does a fast printer print nowadays?
ME: I found some pieces in the Library of Congress a few days and
I thought of you. You had asked (back in Aug 1997!) "Here's a
tougher question - who was the composer of the 'Favorite Waltz of
the Duke of Reichstadt'?"
In W. P. Dabney's "Folio Of Instrumental Music For The Guitar"
(1894) there's an "abridged" version in E attributed to Strauss.
In James Ballard's "The Elements Of Guitar Playing" (1838) it
appears as "Celebrated Waltz" (in D) and is attributed to
Strauss. (You might remember that Peter Danner wrote an article
about this guitar method in Soundboard, Nov 1981.)
I don't have any good reason to doubt the attribution. It's
clear that neither one of these versions was derived from the
other, and neither one was derived from the Carcassi arrangement.
I have a large number of Strauss waltzes in European editions and
was hoping to find it in there somewhere, but I couldn't.
THEE: Thanks for responding. I'm playing a recital at a college
in Georgia next month and am writing program notes. It's good to
see that I'm not the only one frustrated in finding the composer
for Carnival of Venice.
ME: As far as I know, the composer of the Carnival of Venice is
lost to history. I've been curious about this myself, and I've
never seen anyone name a composer, even where it would be very
appropriate to do so. What I wonder is if Paganini was the
*first* to compose variations on the theme.
There is a book by Fuld that tells the origins of many, many
well-known songs. I suppose I've looked in it for The Carnival
Of Venice, but I can't say for sure. [It's not there.]
I personally think it's appropriate to give Ferranti full
composer credit for all of his super-charged variations. In my
own cataloging system, I give composer credit to the arranger of
a folk tune, as opposed to calling it "anonymous".
ME: Forget whatever I asked about the Spanish Fandango in the
last email. Obviously, I was thinking of the wrong piece of
music, which is doubly embarrassing because you had just written
about the Spanish Fandango, and printed the one from Ballard's
Elements, in a recent Soundboard. What I had stuck on the brain
was the piece that Holland calls "Spanish March". This is called
"Fandango" and subtitled "Spanish Dance" in one of the first
publications of pieces for classical guitar I ever owned, the Mel
Bay Folio of Classic Guitar Solos Vol. 2, compiled by Joe Castle,
and that's what always jumps to mind when I hear "Spanish
Fandango".
Anyhow, it's fun to finding early versions of the Spanish
Dance/March (2/4, A major). I think of it as one of the most
well-known guitar pieces, although that may because I met it so
early on. Carusi made a version in 3/4 in an 1837 edition called
Bagatelles Arranged for the Spanish Guitar.
ME: I visited my friend Hself in Dale City, and an era has ended.
The McDonald's juke box has been deactivated. The good news is
they pipe in oldies music that is a hundred times better than any
oldies station I can think of. They were playing songs I haven't
heard in 35 years. Everything seemed to be from 1955 to 1965. I
think it must be a Muzak channel or something. Hself and I were
having as much fun playing name that tune with the piped in music
as with the jukebox, which we pretty well played out over the
years, anyway.
Whatever Lenell has must be contagious. Now there are about
8 kids who are always clamoring for my attention in Mrs.
Hself's class. When I pick two to take aside to work with, a
whole gang follows along - there's no holding the tide back. On
Tuesday, when I had to go, they all grabbed me, yelling, "Stay!
Stay! Stay!" As I was inching my way to the door, they all hung
on. I told them I was going out to stand in the rain, "you wanna
come?" Well, that didn't scare them; they all yelled, "Yes!" I
was absolutely stymied, so I had to call Mrs. Hself to help
extricate me, which she eventually did. Even then, little Ashlee
burst into tears, crying, "But I need help! I need help!"
Earlier in the day, I was helping Tearanie. Generally what I do
is squat down in a baseball catcher's position rather than pull a
chair around. Well, Tearanie was climbing all over her chair and
leaning it this way and that and it toppled over, taking me
along. Luckily nobody got hurt, but Lenell saw the whole thing
(since she's my shadow) and got a big laugh out of it.
I'm a very superficial thinker, so I can't say what the deeper
reasons about Spiderman's behavior were. All I know is that he
thought it would be in the best interests of the poor kid to
disillusion him. I guess he figured the kid would get over it.
I suppose there was a practical side too, since it wouldn't work
for some kid to be hanging around Spiderman all the time. After
all, he had a job to do.
Good for you for standing up to everybody who always try to ruin
what gives you pleasure. I'm not so strong, and will admit,
without going into details, that people have ruined lots of
things for me in my life. I always sort of view it as people
acting out of some sort of resentment or jealousy of you being so
good at something, and get so much enjoyment out of it. Geez,
when you really get into something, like up there with the
world's experts, all you'll hear is, "Well, what else do you do?"
or "Gee, you must have a lot of time on your hands" or the ever-
popular "Get a life!" This from people who don't do *anything*.
On a lighter note, it's off to school I go tomorrow (Thursday).
I'll have to figure out some system with the kids, like taking
two at a time across the hall. We'll see!
ME: How's this for a good deal? My mom's on the lookout for
cheap opera records for me - and she's already snagged a few!
She got me a complete Madame Butterfly and a 2-record set of
Rossini overtures. I know sooner or later she'll find a big old
box of opera records at an auction for $2. Man, this is livin'!
Ebay? What's that???
THEE: Too funny about Lenell and all the other kids clamoring for
your attention!! Can 'People' magazine be far behind? 'The man
who made kids LOVE to learn'...or something. First the City
Paper...then the Sun, and now 'People'... HEY! Haven't you
already had your 15 minutes of fame! I love the part where you
told them you were going to stand in the rain...hmm...Donald the
pied piper!!
It's funny, but some of the kids are probably just responding to
Lenell's Idol worship. It's not really contagious...but it is
sort of. Do you remember in grade school...that someone wasn't
that interesting, until your friends thought they were
interesting?
You are so right with those comments...'get a life', etc. Like
any passion is misplaced and wrong. I don't understand people
like that. Without a passion...all you have is the myth of
Sisyphus...work, eat, sleep, defecate....etc.
THEE: Your latest set of goodies arrived this morning. Thanks
once again for making my day. So, you managed to track down "Down
the Mississippi" for me! The title is the best thing about it,
sorry to say. This was clearly Weidt at his weakest (although in
fairness it was only meant to be a "very easy" student piece).
I was clearly thinking of Charles Harris, not Charles Henlein.
Have you seen those things on "American Memory? -- I'm sure you
have -- all that Harris and Hayden! I only have a couple of
Henlein pieces, and most of the ones you sent are better then
these. Best on a single read-through, seems to be "Nocturne."
Very effective use of harmonics. I think some of the others will
work up nicely, although I don't hold out much hope for the
"Funeral March," which doesn't really have much harmonic
interest.
Your title page of the Ballard is exactly like mine with the
exception of the publishing information. Mine reads:
NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY J. & D. WALKER, 535 BROADWAY; W. HALL &
SON, 239 BROADWAY; GEIB & Co., 499 BROADWAY
In addition, the copyright notice has been moved to the verso.
(The price is the same.)
Based on the addresses, I'm inclined to think my copy probably
dates from sometime in the late 1840s or early '50s, not 1838
(copyrights are poor indicators of actual publication date). In
1848 William Hall withdrew from the firm of Firth, Hall & Pond,
continuing with his own business at 239 Broadway, Firth & Pond
moving to Franklin Square. Geib was last noted on Maiden Lane in
1847. D. Walker is probably Daniel Walker, who was in business
with Adam Geib from 1829-1847. I will leave it to you to take it
from there. Almost all these firms were eventually taken over by
Ditson.
Yep, Blantchor quotes from Rossini and Boieldeau. Who, prey tell,
was Lorgion?
ME: So I go into Ms. Hself's class Thursday morning with a plan
- I'm *only* gonna help kids who are in their own seat, and only
after they raise their hand. Well, the first thing Ms. Hself
says is she laid down a new rule - to get my help a kid has to
stay in his seat and raise his hand. Hmmm... mental telepathy
or something? The only refinement was Ms. Hself's plan involved
holding up *2* fingers for Mr. Don.
So we're all on the same wavelength, right? Well, that lasted
about 45 seconds. I'm trying to help Tearanie learn to count
money, and they start migrating over till there's the standard
mob scene. Ashlee had drawn a picture with a heart on it for me,
but Ayomide vandalized it so Ashlee was upset and trying to tear
up Ayomide's papers and I was trying to calm everybody down. I
thought I'd work with Ashlee, to help brighten her up, but
somebody wouldn't let her use the chair, even though it was empty
and that's when I had a minor brainstorm and just slid down to
the floor with my back to the wall and had Ashlee settle down
beside me. See, what's so brilliant about that is they can only
surround you on *3* sides (not counting up, which they rarely
attack me from. Well, Christopher always tries to give me head
butts.) That was working pretty well, and when Ms. Hself came by
laughing and asking if I needed help, I said no, I was hanging in
there. Some of these scenes would make humorous photos, I think.
Last year I would do my few magic tricks for the kids, but this
year I figure it's best not to stir them up even further. Maybe
on the last day of school...
I'm not a disciplinarian, and I *try* to have fun with them when
I'm trying to get something across. Also, I seem to remember the
excitement of having people besides teachers coming into class.
For example, my third grade class got a big kick when the
teacher's son, probably about 25, visited.
ME: Been working on adding one last book report to my evolution
page, and that's it for sure. Somebody recommended I read Beak
Of The Finch, so it's only fair that I do. It was such drudgery
reading it that I had to renew it twice to finish it, and even so
it's gone overdue.
I don't know if I ever invited you to my recently added "review"
of John, Paul, George, Ringo... & Bert. If you do visit it, just
keep in mind that I'm no critic, and no writer, either.
ME: Here's my answers. Thanks for putting my feet to the fire!
> Thanks for writing back. This is so exciting talking with an
actual presidential candidate. Because this idea of unarchy is
so wacky and doomed, I' m still not sure if you are being
serious or just having fun.
I am completely serious about the unarchy idea. That doesn't
mean I lose any sleep over the prospect of it not being
implemented tomorrow or in my lifetime. I'm just putting it out
there.
> Let me throw a couple of curves at you and see what you think:
> 1) The majority is not always right. In the 1800's most people
thought blacks should be slaves and women shouldn't vote. We now
know the majority was wrong! Sometimes it takes a few courageous
individuals to lead this country where it needs to go.
No system of justice can rectify past injustices. Under unarchy,
courageous individuals would still be more than welcome to set
the masses on the right track.
About slavery specifically, do we know for sure what the majority
thought? Were the opinions of the slaves counted in? Did you
know that slavery was dying of its own accord until it received a
shot in the arm upon the invention of the cotton gin in the
1790s?
The bigger issue is, how can any group of people know what
"right" will be a hundred years in the future? Should we revoke
men's right to vote now based on a hunch that a hundred years
from now they couldn't imagine allowing it? How's your crystal
ball working?
> 2) Juries are expensive. If you've ever watched People's Court,
you will see that many things people go to court over are things
like bad hair cuts, treating a pet wrong, borrowing $50 and not
giving it back. Do you really want people's lives interrupted by
trying these cases by jury?? To think there is a perfect
judicial system out there where people will suddenly not disagree
at anything any more is preposterous!
If the jury believes you have brought a frivolous charge, they
will likely make you foot the court costs *and* pay damages to
the accused.
> 3) Back to the abortion issue. Even if you are correct that 80%
of people support abortion, By randomly choosing any 10 people,
it would be quite possible that you get 5 who believe abortion
is punishable by death. What happens then?
Read my page a little more thoroughly; under unarchy juries would
be large enough to ensure that they represent the views of
society at large.
> 4) One last thing... without laws, what would prevent someone
from bringing someone else to court over... smoking cigarettes,
selling pornography, killing cows for food, cutting down
trees... Without laws, everything is illegal and everything is
legal. Even if these have already gone to trial, every case is a
little differant, so it would not stop people from trying again.
See my answer to no. 2 above. It would only take one trial
before it's obvious what majority opinion is on any issue. In
fact, I can imagine mechanisms for taking polls on various issues
even before taking them to court. You could look up the result
of the similar case on the web.
I agree one hundred percent - every case is different. That's
something our own idiotic justice system doesn't understand. I
bristle at the word "precedent". If someone was found not guilty
of cutting down a tree in his back yard, you decide whether that
will influence your decision to bring charges against someone who
cut down a hundred trees, causing all kinds of problems for the
neighbors.
THEE: I forgot who James McHenry is. Did I ever know?
THEE: I did discover that the Wheaton Public Library has a more-
or-less permanent used book and record sale going on. I was too
excited when I was in there yesterday to do any concentrated
looking, though I did snag one book. I think I'm going back this
afternoon. I didn't see any box sets that would indicate the
presence of operas, but I think a visit to the library would be
well worth your time.
ME: How much are the Wheaton library records? You know me - I'll
pay 50 cents a disk, even though it's an outrage.
Got a glimpse of the dollar coin and Maryland quarter today. I
don't lose sleep over it, but I'm not thrilled with them turning
U.S. coins into happy meal prizes.
ME: James McHenry was some guy in Maryland history who got a fort
named after him which had a flag still visible by the dawn's
early light. Many years later he had an elementary school named
after him which has a 1st- grade class of 5- and 6-year-olds (I
guess) taught by Ms. Hself.
I figure Christopher gets his head butts from professional
wrestling. He also does something that's vaguely familiar -
grinding his knuckles into the top of your head while calling
"Noogies", or something. Ms. Hself told me that she is not
trained to deal with someone with his problems. He needs serious
psychological counseling. I just view him as a wacky kid who
doesn't try at school, but a psychiatrist might see tomorrow's
psycho.
Was up to Baltimore today and picked up some records on my wish
list that mom bought me at a thrift store. That's livin'! How
many moms will look after you like that?
Thanks for looking at the unarchy conversation. Did you notice
how calm I remained in the face of someone practically calling me
a joker or a moron? No problemo - I've heard every objection to
unarchy a thousand times, and there's not one I can't shoot down
in a micro-second (to my satisfaction, anyway!)
THEE: Records are indeed four bits at Wheaton. There probably is
one or two there that would interest you. It's paradise. My
weekend haul: Five books, three records, including a four-volume
set of Brahms' symphonies. That's rock!
I did get my first automated traffic ticket. I got a letter in
the mail and it contained two blurry photos that purported to
show my Nova running a red light in D.C. on March 15. I
apparently ran it 0.6 second after it turned. They District
would like $75 from me. How do you fight such a thing?
THEE: Thanks for the information on the Duke of Reichstadt Waltz.
The attribution to Strauss could refer to the father, Johann I,
who was already beginning his career by that time. I am dating
the waltz at no later than about 1824 for historical reasons: The
Duke (Napoleon's son) died after being treated rather shabbily in
Vienna, and there was quite a bit of outrage in Paris, some
famous poems were published, etc. The Castellacci variations
seems to date from this period in Paris, to catch the wave of
public interest in the Duke. Carcassi's seems to be a little
later.
Last May, my wife and I drove through New England on one of our
once-a-decade drive-around vacations. I had your detailed
instructions for the Library of Congress all printed out and
ready to go, but no one had told me you just can't get a hotel
room in Washington D.C. without reservations well in advance. We
spent half the day looking for a place to stay, from Manassas to
downtown, and finally said the hell with it and drove to
Baltimore. So, one of these days, we'll come up on the train and
have reservations!!
ME: I look forward to checking your site out. I presume it shows
various Beatle contracts? I had always wished someone would
publish a book filled with such things. I'm basically text-only
at home, but will take a look at the local library.
THEE: My site is: Beatle Money at:
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/manicstreet/526
if that won't work just type in "beatle contracts" on Yahoo!.
It'll come up very close to the top.
THEE: Henlein's "Exiles Dream of Home" is another interesting
one. I think it based on a previous piece I can't put my finger
on right now. Songs where some immigrant narrator longs for the
country of his birth were standard 19th century fare, as you no
doubt know, and I've got a number of examples. I once gave a talk
trying to show how these songs morphed in the country music and
songs about the old homestead and mother. (Yes, Stephen Foster
was in there somewhere.)
A couple of questions. Were those notes on ornamentation your
addition, or in the original music? And did you notice that four
lines from the end there is a slide up to a C-sharp? Bet he means
an A, or did Henlein have 21 frets on his guitar?
THEE: Subject: Re: Congratulations on winning Laxton's Superb!
Hi, Donald! You've won the best journalism site award!
Here are the results:
http://beatles.about.com/entertainment/beatles/library/weekly/bljournalism.htm
The award is attached. I know it's huge, but I had to do the
graphics myself, and on a borrowed program at that. Shrink it if
you like, it won't hurt. Please link it to
http://beatles.about.com, if you would.
Thanks again for participating!
THEE: Now...if you had said FORT McHenry...I would have known a
little about your reference. I never knew the guy's first name.
I've heard of 'noogies'. Can't remember if my kids did that. I
always hated it. Do you ever meet the parents of the kids? Have
you seen Christopher's parents?
What...you don't like coconut?? Watch it. I think secrets like
that are up there with giving out your SS#. I'll have your
whole life story in a week. Oh... yeah...I know most of it
anyway already.
You did remain very calm when people put down your ideas for
unarchy. I think the thing I don't like about it...is the
feeling of powerlessness I get. I mean, now, I have no power
either... just one vote. BUT, I don't feel powerless. Probably
the government has a good PR man. In a pure democracy, I'd be
nothing. Now, I'm a college grad with a good job...and a new
house...totally buying into the american dream. Your ideas
would force me to wake up.
ME: re operatic West Side Story
Phooey. After having so much fun making fun of Kiri's Puerto
Rican accent, and being impressed by Jose's American accent, I
find this credit:
Dialogue: Nina Bernstein (Maria) - Alexander Bernstein (Tony)
Phooey phooey.
The same page also credits the choreography of the original
production, and a page 2 article is subtitled "Between Broadway
and the Opera House" so it's safe to say it was acted out.
I need your cell phone number. As you were getting into your
car, WMUC was starting up a song by Death Cab For Cutie.
You wrote that you know nothing about Fanny, but I've tried to
impress on you that their signature tune was Hey Bulldog. That's
worth knowing, right?
You were right when you questioned if "duophonic" was really the
word in question. I botched it. It was really binaural. Here's
the site:
Linkname: HeadWize - Article: Taking Sound In Another Direction
by John Sunier
URL: http://www.headwize.com/articles/sunier2_art.htm
Your ticket in the mail is enough to send *me* up the nearest
bell tower with a high-powered rifle. Turning onto New York
Avenue once I saw a bunch of tell-tale flashes that made me feel
like, uh oh, they got me. I never got anything in the mail, but
I was worried sick at the time. My claim is that I entered the
intersection on a yellow light. Anyhow, I was raging - and
please eat these electrons - but I thought, if I get a fine for
this, what I will do is, if there's ever a police car behind me,
and I see a light turn yellow, I'm gonna slam on the brakes so he
rear ends me. My defense (besides "he was tail-gating") will be
that one time I got a ticket for entering an intersection on a
yellow light, so I've learned never to do it.
THEE: Don't get mad! I'm trying to be "the guy who yields to
everyone." It's saved me from getting in confrontations, but I
guess I'll explode one of these days.
I just did a search for you on eBay of "Bill Wilson." There's a
lot! Alas, Mr. Wilson founded AA, and all the Bill Wilson
articles concern that fact. It must be a different Bill Wilson.
ME: Hself visited last night (Monday), and I always use that as
an incentive to bake up something desserty, mostly just box
cakes. I mention that because I have a secret for making box
cakes even better than the supplied directions. Use *2* eggs
instead of 3. The more crumbly texture makes for slightly more
difficult serving, but is more luxurious to the tongue. This
will go on a web page some day, but you read it here first.
Today was a bit more low key with the kids because there was a
substitute in Ms. Hself's class, and I didn't want things to get
stirred up too much. They mostly kept to their seats while I
went around.
Remember when Eddie Vetter sang Masters Of War on some television
show? (Do I remember that right?) Well, I claim I heard the
song that Dylan reworked slightly to make Masters Of War on the
Irish album with 150 songs I mentioned. The original, or at
least a forerunner, was called Rich Irish Lady. Not only is the
tune and music very similar, but the spirit and subject matter is
related. The song spews a lot of venom at the rich Irish lady,
and even gets into dancing on her grave at the end. I heard 4
songs on that Irish album that Dylan reworked for his own.
Hmmm... Unarchy makes you feel *more* powerless??? Makes me
wonder if I'm saying it all wrong. In the system we have now,
you can cast a vote (which as you know is worth nothing) for
somebody you *might* agree with 58% of the time. If you get
called to be on a jury, you have 1/12 of the "power" - but you're
not even allowed to draw on your own common sense and conscience!
Don't worry about the sometimes obscure subject lines; for
reasons not even known to me I feel like useful, sensible and
direct subject lines are a drag. So I try to come up with
something dumb that just *might* make sense *after* the recipient
has read the email. Actually, I think it all came out of an
objection to subject lines in the first place. If you received a
letter in the mail that didn't have a subject line on the
envelope, you wouldn't throw it out would you?
ME: Thanks for the insight into the "Exiles Dream of Home" title.
I hadn't stopped to even let the title sink in. Let me know if
it ever occurs to you where you think it came from.
Those spelled out ornaments are on Henlein's original. I treat
all of the 1st-generation copies of this music I've been getting
as archival. I don't do anything to it except, in some cases,
despeckling, connecting broken lines, and filling in noteheads
and beams. The idea is, *if* the guitar world should ever get
excited about the music, it would make much more sense for people
to come to me rather than go to the library. They would get a
far better copy with far less hassle for far, far less money -
while avoiding any further wear on the originals at the library.
I also think the high C# should be an A, although I experimented
with subtracting *2* leger lines, bringing the note down to F#.
I wonder if either modification by itself is enough to make the
passage sound totally right. To my ears, the last E harmonic on
that line sounds wrong, and I've experimented with a B harmonic.
No doubt, I'm way off base. The problem is probably that I just
can't play the passage well enough.
All I know about Lorgion is that one publication I have, called
"Galopes, Marches, Walses" published "a` Amsterdam chez Guido.
Vyxelstraat ? 132" It has a nice picture on the cover of a
couple dancing. The curious thing is that of the 14 little
pieces in it, 3 explicitly say "ARR. PAR J.J. LORGION" and the
others don't say anything. The cover doesn't name an arranger.
It sure gives the impression of being the work of one person,
though.
Sorry you were a little disappointed with the Weidt. I had fun
with it with a guitar friend. The challenge was to sound like...
banjos! There was an amazing story behind how I found it so
easily. I tracked it down in the copyright catalog (which is a
story in itself.) Anyhow, it had a 1903 copyright date, which
turns out to be the *only* year of copyright holdings that are
still at LC - and the Weidt piece was among them! So I got it in
minutes, as opposed to the days it takes to pull a piece from the
copyright warehouse (presuming the piece you want is even there.
It's always a fishing expedition.) But the real miracle is how
the copyright year came up in small chat with a librarian there
that day, and she knew about the special case of 1903 - and went
on down and grabbed it. Hope that makes it a little more special
to you.
If you ever want some Carulli for the soundboard - and before
somebody publishes the "Complete Carulli" (ha ha) - let me know.
I've gotten some neat Carulli from LC. One piece in particular I
think is the funniest thing ever - BUT, no guarantee it would
affect everybody that way. That would be his Pot Pourri, Op. 74.
Do you know it?
THEE: I just came across this site for the first time. What a
find. I hope this isn't old and no longer in progress. What a
great idea. I have a site that would fit in to this, and I would
also like to help on this site. I'd love to be a part of it in
some way.
My site is: Beatle Money at:
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/manicstreet/526
if that won't work just type in "beatle contracts" on Yahoo!.
It'll come up very close to the top.
ME: Thanks for the enthusiastic words. If you're referring to
being a part of the "Meet The Beatles" webring, please do contact
the webring master.
THEE: Sorry for the mixup, but I was wondering about Beatles.lib.
Is there anything going on with that? Is there an area in which
a person could help?
THEE: I'm glad you brought up that Carulli Pot Pourri. I think
you find it funny because it used that famous tune from Figaro.
Not one of Carulli's masterpieces, but it has its moments. The
version I have has a number of typos, including a number of
missing F-sharps in the a minor section.
For me, the wrong harmonic in the Henlein is not the last one on
that line, but the first. It just seems to come out of nowhere
after the D major section. Maybe just play it as an open E?
The "Home Sweet Home" variations reminded me of another set you
past along on the same tune by de Janon. I think I liked the de
Janon ones a bit better, but I can't lay my hands on it at the
moment. Guess I'll have to come up with a better filing system!
I enjoyed your story about finding the Weidt. Glad it was easy
for you. I've collected a fair amount of Weidt, but had only the
title for that one. I've been able to find out a bit about him.
His first name was Alfred and he lived from 1866 to 1945. A
native of Buffalo, NY. This past winter at a paper show in San
Francisco I found a picture of him in his prime on an ad for a
1904 mandolin/banjo festival. Looks quite the Prussian.
Discover I have the piano music of that Saint-Saens. Will have to
take another look at the Fiset with that in hand. Yes, some
tricky chords in that one.
THEE: It's a photo taken aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
(HST)!!
The title of the article gave me a chill though... "HUBBLE FINDS
AN HOURGLASS NEBULA AROUND A DYING STAR"
Interesting that PJ [pearl jam] would select such a thing for
their Binaural album! Guess the 'eye of god' comments people made
about the photo caught their imagination....maybe as they become
older, they don't feel like stars...but artists. Or maybe their
thinking like Dylan did 'he not busy being born is busy dying'.
Ok...it's Eddie VeDDer...not Vetter. I'll forgive you this time
;-) Anyway, Eddie sang Masters of War on a PPV Dylan special.
Funny that Dylan plagerized some old Irish Album.
Oh, I know I have no power now. I know Clinton has no morals.
BUT...even I can't agrue against an economy that seems to be
working... at least for me. I probably don't really understand
unarchy though.
THEE: Thanks for getting back to me. I still think you idea is
doomed because it's entire foundation rests on the theory that
some day we will live in a world where people don't disagree
anymore. Your own writing says that lawsuits will nearly come to
an end.
You still never answered what happens WHEN a person is punished
as a murderer for committing an abortion. Even given the fact
that most people support abortion, there are definitely places in
this country where the majority are against it. The only remedy
would be to fly hundreds of jurors in from all over the country -
this sounds expensive to me.
I would like to hear what some of your common sense answers are
to some of the cases that are currently tying up our court
systems: 1) The cuban boy who may be sent back to cuba, 2) Gays
in the military, 3) Flag burning, 4) high taxes, 5) public school
system, 6) prayer by students in school.
You see, while your idea is the perfect remedy for all the truly
frivolous lawsuits, it provides no answers for the 1000's of
legitimate disputes.
Happy campaigning, feel free to respond,
ME: I'm quite surprised and thrilled to win the best Beatles
journalism site! Thanks for putting the effort into running the
poll.
Sorry to be so prehistoric, computer-wise. One of these
millennia... (On the other hand, it's very telling that people
would choose a text-only Beatle site.)
ME: No, there is no effort afoot to document the Beatles
phenomenon along the lines of beatles.lib or any other way that I
know of. Thanks for asking about it; I feel quite honored that
there is some sympathy for the idea. You may be the first to
have commented on it.
If it's more than just you and me, I wonder if maybe Robert
Fontenot, the Beatles guide at about.com would have any ideas on
spreading the word and maybe finding someone who would coordinate
the effort.
ME: About BGE Home
Their flyer says the average price from Washington Gas (my
provider) for 1997-1999 was 36.4 cents per therm. BGE Home's
deal is 33.9 cents. My Washington Gas bill says I paid 31.89
cents for the first 45 therms and 21.95 cents for the remainder.
I don't know if it's different up in Baltimore, but I would be
very leery of BGE Home's scam.
The orchestral album you gave me has a couple of movements from
Virgil Thomson's "The Plow That Broke The Plain". That's really
neat, because I played the guitar part on that with a local
orchestra one time.
THEE: Thanks for pointing my browser at your "J,P,G,R...& Bert"
article. I enjoyed it very much and I'm still sorry I've never
seen the show.
May I flag two typos I came across? I know you hate that, but
when you're known as Mr. Typo, as I am, you stop caring so much.
Both are in the Preacher transcript.
"Oh my friends, oh my dear FRINEDS in Christ..."
And
"he has ALOUD commandin' voice"
I've plunged into the article on the zany worl of binaural. It's
about 16 feet over my head, so i must dismiss it as nonsense; my
first response when I don't understand something.
ME: Back in 1974, there was an article in the Evening Sun about
Rev. Asbury Smith and his 50 years of good work. Here's a
sample: "Within the community, he is best known for his
leadership in the battle - beginning in the early 1930s - for
civil rights for black people." I didn't even know that anybody
was fighting that early. Anyhow, that's one example of why, in
my mind, at least, he was "outstanding".
Sorry I clobbered Eddie's last name. I remember looking at it
both ways and taking a guess. Hey, I blame it on our language.
Like even Sauter is pronounced Sauder.
Went to a recital at U of M Thursday night. In the parking lot I
was eavesdropping on a couple speaking German, and only catching
a word here and there. As the woman veered off toward her car
her last words were, "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young." Anyhow, it
seemed odd to me.
Actually, it's not too big a surprise hearing original versions
of early Dylan songs. It's well known that he made extensive use
of folk tunes. Some Dylan bashers claimed that he never wrote an
original note, which is far from true of course. Dylan's
position was that the tunes were in the air to be used, why start
from scratch?
Hmm... I'm still working on the subject MyCn18. Is that the name
of the astronomical object on the Pearl Jam cover?
ME: Subject: why are first grade teachers so happy
The singer at the recital is from the Metropolitan Opera company,
and I was expecting arias, but the program was art songs. The
woman 2 seats down explained that a recital full of operatic
arias is considered cheap. So now I know. This neighbor
[Marilyn Moore-Brown] was herself just back from a stint of Porgy
And Bess in New York. She also teaches at Levine, and turns out
she knows my violin friend Hself there.
Here's a Britishism that's probably old hat to you. The other
day on the phone, Welsh Harry described someone with "eyes like
p---holes in the snow." That was a line used in John, Paul,
George, Ringo... & Bert, but I just figured it was written for
the play.
In a This Is Pop a week or so ago, you mentioned someone with pop
hits in 3 or 4 decades? I forget who it was. Do you know in the
country music world, there's a guy named Hank Thompson who has
had hits in 6 decades, or will when he gets one this year.
p.s. they make the little things count
ME: Glad you enjoyed the JPGRB page. I do remember the torture
the first few minutes of the video put you through. But, that
was probably for good reason, as the video was as a driveway
crack to the grand canyon.
Thanks a million for the corrections. (I think you missed
iMcomparable.) I *welcome* corrections; I *beg* for them.
Apparently, you must've read my mind somewhere along the way
about how I feel about when somebody reads 2000 words you wrote
and the most important, and probably only, comment they have is
how your fingers fumbled a word. Definitely a worse put-down
than, "It was stupid." I have never verbalized this before.
You had a very nice Lennonism in your email: "the zany worl of
binaural". I think people should get extra credit for typos that
make sense.
You know, I had a bug in my HTML code where nobody could email me
by clicking on my email address. Nobody told me about this until
a half year later!
I should know "kunstkopf" but I need help. Me and my arthead?
THEE: Subject: Kopfache
The binaural article says "...expensive professional 'dummy
heads' ('Kunstkopf' in German)." As I said, reading the article
makes me feel like I have a kunstkopf.
I spent the last several days reading "The Catcher in the Rye,"
which was given to me in 1986. The book has a lot of baggage
associated with it which it doesn't deserve, of course. However,
in one chapter, Holden talks about how he likes Jesus but feels
that the disciples ruined it all afterward. This made me wonder
if Johnny L. had read the book himself before sitting down with
Maureen Cleave. Perhaps that is a dark realm of significa that
we should just leave alone.
You have to know about my feelings toward the South in the Civil
War: I'm rabidly pro-North. I think the South got off easy.
Mary Chestnut's diary entries were pro-South, of course, and very
anti-North. Thus, I'm not a fan of hers.
"Belmo's" has grown weary of announcing that it is going out of
business, and has resumed publishing. Are we surprised?
I just received a couple of "Psychotronic Video" mags. The
editor is a big Beatle fan. One of the issues has a long Pete
Best interview. I'll pass it along after I read it, someday. My
mag backlog is stacking up again.
THEE: Re: unarchy is *simple*
I didn't know people fought for civil rights for blacks in the
1930's either. Guess that minister was amazing. I'm still
enjoying the mini-series/video 'The 60's'. It has sections on
civil rights, but since one actor has caught my eye--Josh
Hamilton--I usually fast forward thru sections he isn't in.
I will forgive you for clobbering Eddie's last name. I don't
know if he will. There was some travelling Seattle
magazine...'MONK' or something... that I subscribed to a few
years ago...and they spelled Eddie's last name 'vetter'. Now I
don't forgive them. They should know...being from Seattle...
and publishing stuff.
Too funny that the german couple were talking CSN&Y. Guess you
know that Eddie and Neil Young are bestest of friends. The
german couple were probably Pearl Jam fans.
Yeah, MyCn18 is a young planetary nebula...who's image will be
on the Pearl Jam cover. What can I say...Eddie probably had me
on his mind again. 'My'...short for M~~. 'C'...C~~...I'm not
sure how n18 got there....but trust me. It's all about me.
Hourglass figure?? Yeah...I can pass for that ;-)
THEE: I was visiting your page
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7049/aguad.htm
[now http://www.donaldsauter.com/dinisio-aguado.htm ]
and I found it very interesting. I am planning to write a web
page on Dionisio Aguado myself, and I wonder whether we could
share part of our material. I am sending herewith one of his most
famous -and difficult!- rondoes so that you can use it on your
page, if you wish, provided I get some credit for it. :-)
ME: Went to the reference shelf fearing my memory had caused me
to utter forth more nonsense, but "Kunst" apparently still means,
as it did in my 8th-grade German class, "art". I guess Kunstkopf
relates to the idea that the head was sculpted, as opposed to
organically grown.
Related words:
Ku"nstler = artist
Kunstfreund = art-lover
Kunstgewerbe = arts and crafts
Kunstbutter = margarine (ah ha!)
Calm down! You beat the South's butt 135 years ago - time to
forgive and forget! You don't want to risk provoking a comment
in a Patrick Buchanan editorial along the lines of, "Why all this
wallowing in the atrocities of a long dead regime?"
Ignoring the Catcher In The Rye's excess baggage, I think your
discovery was fascinating. You want next year's Laxton's Superb
Beatles journalism award? Whip up a site: The Origin of Every
Beatle Thought.
That reminds me, Greg Sandell has a site detailing every known
financial transaction every Beatle ever made. I think he calls
it "Beatle Money".
Do you have an actual issue and page reference for that Billboard
quote saying everyone's bored with the Beatles? I'm slightly
shocked. I'd think Billboard would agree with the southern hick
in JPGR...&B - "We still have (had) millions to make off yous
guys."
Still curious if you ever heard that British simile for tired,
sunken eyes.
Had to work a binding miracle on one of the books I got at
Wheaton Library. The pages are brown and brittle, and would
break loose wherever you opened it.
ME: I'll second that "close friends" theory. It reminds me of a
comment Hself put in my guest book about how she's afraid she'll
get to know me better on the web then in real life.
My birthday is May 17. That's 5/17. Talk about numerology, note
that 17 - 5 = 12 and 17 + 5= 23 (almost)!
My site just won a "best of the web" award in the following
category. Very interesting that a site *with no graphics* could
win the poll. Also, I feel like I have about 50 more Beatle
pages to put up.
Linkname: The Laxton's Superb Web Site Awards - Beatles journalism
I still mean to take a look at MyCn18. (For a dinosaur like me
that means downloading an image file and firing it up in a viewer
program.)
THEE: Hey, Don! Congratulations! I guess the guy didn't read as
far as your evolution mish-mash, huh? ;)
Your award graphic looks fine in a browser - display it proudly!
Bye, bye Lynx, right?!
THEE: Of course, kunstkopf can't mean dumbhead, I realize.
After all, anyone who watched "Hogan's Heroes" knows how to say
dumbhead in German.
A lot of folks from the south act as though the Civil War never
ended. Thus, I act that way as a representative of the north.
You know, of course, the story I tell about seeing Joan Baez sing
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." When she sang the line "He
was just eighteen, proud and brave, But a Yankee laid him in his
grave," I considered disrupting the concert by yelling, "That's
good shooting, soldier!"
ME: Fired up some old Billboards on microfilm at LC the other
day. The article "Chart Crawls With Beatles" on page 1 of the
April 4 1964 edition had your quote right there: "Just about
everyone is tired of the Beatles..."! Whew, if they were burned
out by April 1964, it was gonna be a *long* decade. Still,
something tells me that Beatles were bery bery good to Billboard.
In the same article they tell about a Love Me Do pressing master
getting accidentally broken that severely handicapped output.
Notice lots of other very interesting things. In the Jan 1
issue, on page 1, was an article on the British record boom of
1963 - with no mention of the Beatles. October sales were up
40% over 1962. Hmmm, I wonder how come.
Pages 6-7 had Capitol's double-page Meet the Beatles ad. What
really surprised me was a 3/4 ad on page 16 by Epic plugging the
Dave Clark Five! I'd've never guessed.
They showed the British charts in the Hits Of The World section.
Some entries that I found interesting:
1. IWTHYH [I Want To Hold Your Hand]
2. Glad All Over
3. SLY [She Loves You]
7. Dominique
14. T&S ep [Twist & Shout]
15. IWBYM (Rolling Stones) [I Wanna Be Your Man]
17. With The Beatles(!!! I'd heard about this selling so well to
make the singles charts.)
The lead story in the Jan 18 Billboard was "British Beatles
Hottest Capital Single Ever" - even though at this point they
were still only No. 45 on the chart!
On page 1 of January 25 is "Beatles Heat Flares In Court" wherein
VeeJay filed for an injunction against Capitol and Swan. Good
luck, guys. On page 3, "Spector Off To Europe". Hmmm, I wonder
when he'll come back? [On the Beatles flight to New York, Feb 7
1964.]
At LC the other day I stumbled on a really neat thing - an early
American edition (1790s) of a song called "The Fowler - A
Favorite SONG by the celebrated Mr. MOZART". This is Papageno's
song "Der Vogelfa"nger bin ich, ja" from the Magic Flute. It has
a version for solo guitar at the end, which would make it far and
away the oldest American guitar music I have found so far.
You know, I was thoroughly convinced in a lecture at the Archives
once that the Civil War was caused by Lincoln. Don't ask me for
particulars now, but the claim is he was surrounded by people and
advisors screaming "don't do this or that!" but did it anyway,
and it led directly to war. Making us the only country that
needed a war to get rid of slavery.
By the way, the exact Pat Buchanan quote came back: "*To what
end*, all this wallowing in the atrocities of a long dead
regime?"
THEE: On Friday, I was walking down the hallway at work that
I always walk down when I go to lunch or to get a cup of coffee.
The walls are decorated with European museum posters.
Do you know that almost every day for two and a half years I've
been walking past a poster from some art museum in Vienna that
says in big letters "kunst museum"? It's true! I finally
noticed on Friday. Boy, did I feel like a kunst, I mean dummy.
Thanks for thinking of me at the record sale. I look forward to
your findings.
Here are my findings, re: Mac's April 10, 1970 press statement:
Lewisohn reprints four pages (all of 'em?) on page 371 of "The
Complete Beatles Chronicles." However, he overlays the pages,
one on top of the other, obscuring most of the text, except for
that on page one.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Schaffner reprints five questions on page 135
of "The Beatles Forever," including the all-important:
Q: Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an
active songwriting partnership again?
A: No.
Lewisohn and Schaffner both call this press statement big news,
"worldwide," "sensational," etc.
They differ on how the statement was released. Schaffner says it
appeared with British copies of the "McCartney" LP. Lewisohn
says it just appeared with review copies. I'll go with Lewisohn
on that one.
Rebuttal? Additions? Let me know!
I like Lincoln all the more for starting the war and getting it
over with, and uniting the country. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool
northerner!
ME: What cracks me up about Carulli's Op. 74 is those little
4-measure blasts of all the earlier themes in the middle of the
last one. My edition is by "Au Trophe'e Musical, Chez OMONT",
plate O.93 (funny plate number, too) and it has the missing G#s
in the minor section, too. Notice that they're ok in the 4-
measure "recapitulation". I think it's kind of neat that he uses
a tune from the Marriage of Figaro *and* the Barber of Seville.
I feel a little stupid and frustrated that I can't place the
Barber of Seville tune as many times as I've played the opera.
In a collection of waltzes by Carusi, there's one called
"Mozart's Favorite Waltz". I absolutely reject that it was
really his favorite waltz (ha ha), and could hardly believe that
he wrote it. At LC a few days ago, I tracked down some piano
versions of it. Apparently it really is part of his K.606,
although I'm still not clear whether Mozart is believed to be the
composer of K.606.
Anyhow, the point is I stumbled on an early American edition of a
song called "The Fowler - A Favorite SONG by the celebrated Mr.
MOZART" which is "Der Vogelfa"nger bin ich, ja" from the Magic
Flute. There was a version for solo guitar at the end, and the
format reminded me of The Philadelphia Hymn in your book.
Rereading your notes on that piece brought some questions to
mind.
You say many pieces with a similar format were published in that
era. How many is "many"? Is there the potential for discoveries
of unknown pieces for guitar from this time frame in this format?
The Taylor piece came from LC. Has someone already gone through
the M1.A1 class there piece by piece looking for guitar? (M1.A1
is the class for American sheet music of all sorts published
before 1820.) Where did you get the Taylor piece? Do you have
"The Fowler"? You or somebody else have probably already written
on this, but do we have a firm idea of how the word guitar was
used throughout that period? Was it used for English guitars and
"Spanish" guitar simultaneously? Or did the latter neatly
replace the former? I guess I'm vague on the introduction of the
Spanish guitar to America.
Besides the nice - but bass-less - guitar version and the credit
to *Mr.* Mozart, I like the use of the old German typeface for
the original lyrics. There's also a handwritten [ca. 179-?].
It's in a different hand than on the Taylor.
No doubt the de Janon version of Home Sweet Home is more
ambitious, but I think Henlein's is rather satisfying for the
amount of effort involved - almost none. De Janon's is a
struggle - like almost all guitar pieces, even the ones we call
"easy". I also give Henlein extra points for the waltz
variation.
Playing the first harmonic in the Henlein as a plain E does sound
a bit better.
ME:
> I still think your idea is doomed because it's entire
foundation rests on the theory that some day we will live in a
world where people don't disagree anymore.
No. People will still disagree. Unarchy provides a means for
making a decision even when people disagree. I still maintain,
though, that we are all in fundamental agreement as to what right
and wrong is. Even Jeffery Dahmer knew he had to hide what he
was doing.
> Your own writing says that lawsuits will nearly come to an end.
If a system of justice works swiftly and surely, people should
get it through their heads to stop doing bad things. The system
of justice will remain active as long as they don't get it
through their heads.
> You still never answered what happens WHEN a person is punished
as a murderer for committing an abortion.
That person is subject to the maximum punishment that the
majority agrees to. (Almost certainly none, in the case of
abortion.)
> Even given the fact that most people support abortion, there
are definitely places in this country where the majority are
against it. The only remedy would be to fly hundreds of jurors in
from all over the country - this sounds expensive to me.
Why, in this electronic age, would people need to travel
anywhere?
> I would like to hear what some of your common sense answers are
to some of the cases that are currently tying up our court
systems: 1) The cuban boy who may be sent back to cuba, 2) Gays
in the military, 3) Flag burning, 4) high taxes, 5) public school
system, 6) prayer by students in school.
In cases 1 through 6, majority rules - whether Donald Sauter
agrees with the majority; whether Rick Medved agrees with the
majority.
ME: Why bye, bye Linx? My graphics-less site just won a "best of
web" award, dinnit?
Let's make one thing perfectly clear - it wasn't "the guy's"
decision - this was an unarchic vote of the entire web citizenry
(who cared.)
Did I ever tell you about my y2k bug?
ME: Main story at school on Thursday was Christopher. He's the
one I mentioned Ms. Hself doesn't know what to do with. He was
across the hall being talked to by Ms. Hself (computer lab) and
Mr. Hself (crisis management, I think). I don't know what he did
to get himself there, and he also had a black eye and a big cut
over the eye (closed up, not bleeding.) I don't know what the
story there was, either. Anyhow, after a few minutes, I started
helping Christopher with some assignments, and it went well. Mr.
Hself asked me to get him to a class by 10:30 where kids get
special attention, which I did. It was all so peaceful; although
I guess it's unreasonable to hope that some big change has come
about. Sometime later in Ms. Hself's room when I was helping
Ronnie (a little girl), Angel (a little boy, Hispanic, "Ahn-hay-
l") and Tearanie (just like her name; she's the one that knocked
me over) Christopher came back and came over and held on to me
for a while.
On the way back I stopped at a yard sale and bought a record and
3 cds. The record is amazing. It dates from about 1906 and is
as thick as 3 modern records (I mean before records died) and is
only recorded on one side. It has a great looking Columbia
label, which is a sentimental favorite since Columbia started out
in D.C. Definitely suitable for framing. You know, the
gramophone - as opposed to the phonograph - was invented here in
D.C., too.
Sorry, not familiar with that sort of astronomical naming
convention. MyCn18 sure looks more like a chemical compound to
me.
THEE: good luck with this one... :)
you still haven't convinced me. In fact, it had become apparent
that you haven't fully thought this through. What you are doing,
is taking each situation I give you, coming up with the "ideal"
outcome, and saying that this will happen in every case.
Like in the case of abortion, you are refusing to answer the
question of what happens WHEN someone is found guilty of
abortion, and instead coming up with all the scenarios of what
happens when they are found INNOCENT. But let me tell you, I
don't care how big your jury is, under your system, there will
come a day when someone IS found guilty - and is sentenced to
imprisonment, or death. What happens then?? Let me answer that
question for you: Thousands of people rush to the courts trying
to convict others of the same crime - total chaos breaks out...
riots... etc. OR do we let that person go to prison for life,
while her neighbor was found inocent of the same charge??
You are right that even jeffrey Dauhmer knew what he was doing
was wrong, but to say that we all have a common understanding of
what right and wrong in all ALL things, is simply not true. If
so, tell me... what is the common understanding of Gay Marriages,
owning firearms and military spending? You say, leave it to the
majority, but we will never all agree on these things, which
means every case that goes to trial will have a different
outcome.
Also, did you know, sometimes the majority is wrong. What do you
do then? I would really like you to answer this question: What do
we do when the majority is wrong?
Here's one for you: Right now, the majority think we should be
able to own guns. What happens if, in a few years, the majority
feels guns should be illegal. Do we immediately arrest all gun
owners? yes or no? if you say "no" then your system breaks down,
because we have the majority saying it is illegal for people to
own guns, but many people own them. - now we have total
lawlessness!! I know what your answer will be: "common sense
people would never outlaw guns" but the truth is, we never know
for sure how we will think in the future. I think we will
probably agree on this.
Once again, I think your system is the perfect solution for a
select few cases in our society, but the plan breaks down when
tested against complex issues.
You seam like a very smart individual. Do you know what the
meaning of the word "Republic" is? Look it up. We, right now,
live in a Republic. It was a brilliant idea created by our
founding fathers. What it means is that individuals have certain
inalienable rights that can never be overstepped. It means the
will of the majority cannot impose on the rights of the
individual. It specifically protects the individual against the
majority! Do you understand how beautiful this is? I know what
you will say: "Yes, but the majority would never hurt the
individual anyways - because they want what's best for the
country" am I right? Believe it or not, life doesn't always work
out this way. Our founding fathers knew it, I know it - some day
maybe you will know it too. With your system in place, we could
no longer be called a Republic, did you know that? We would still
be a democracy, but not a republic. Is that written somewhere on
your web page?? Do you believe that this is true??
That's cool that you will be putting some of my thoughts on your
web page. Feel free to use my full name - Rick Medved.
THEE: Poor Christopher. Did you ever find out how his eye got
hurt? Is he being abused? Is he being neglected...which is
another form of abuse...and hurting himself since he's not
supervised enough? Who knows. Glad he had a nice session with
you. I think in this crazy fast world...you're a solid calm
presence for these kids.
I don't think I ever saw a record that was recorded only on one
side. Mom use to have those thick 78 speed records. She had
'Yes... we have no bananas'. Guess that was my favorite of her
old records.
I didn't know the gramophone was invented in DC.
ME: I know I have the whole McCartney self-interview(?) in some
otherwise un-noteworthy book, but I found the whole thing in Chet
Flippo's bio (which I've never read). Here's all the material
relating to the "breakup". It comes along about 2/3 of the way
through, which is noteworthy in itself.
Q. Did you miss the other Beatles and George Martin? Was there a
moment when you thought: Wish Ringo was here for this break?
A. No. [Why should he for a solo project?]
...
Q. Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?
A. No. [Note: not "*What* Beatles?"]
Q. Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a
solo career?
A. Time will tell. Being a solo album means it's "the start of a
solo career" and not being done with the Beatles means it's a
rest. So it's both. [Note: "rest" not "end of"]
Q. Is your break from the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to
personal differences or musical ones?
A. Personal differences, business differences, musical
differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my
family. Temporary or permanent? I don't know.
Q. Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active
songwriting partnership again?
A. No. [What was the last song they collaborated on, anyway?]
100 million people can call me stupid, but I've never found
Paul's "statement that the Beatles will never work together
again" in there. (Lewisohn, 25 Years in the Life.) Nothing
close, even.
There's an interview with Lewisohn in Beatlefan #81 where he
softens his stance. "Perhaps the best date to end it
[Chronology] would be the date that Paul McCartney in effect,
although he didn't actually use those very words, announced that
the Beatles had broken up by saying that he would never again
work with them [no] and had no desire to work with the others
[No.] ... Just by looking at the fact that the last six months
they all did things on their own sort of really underlined the
fact that they had broken up before we realized it, if you like."
A London newspaper clipping reproduced on the cover of Beatlefan
Apr 1985 was headlined, "McCartney On Own Dooms Beatles?" It
includes no statement from McCartney, only that he is
"undertaking a number of independent projects."
One time I had accumulated some reasons for not calling the
Beatles broken up on April 10, such as studio time reserved for
them later in the year, maybe even 1971 - which Paul wouldn't go
for.
ME: Notice that the Germans use "art" sometimes in the sense of
"phony", as in Kunstbutter = margarine. So Kunstkopf and
Dummkopf might not be that far off from each other.
The other day, after the news, the announcer on WWMD announced
the upcoming artist for the first time I've ever heard. He said,
"Here's the Sandpipers." Maybe the same day, they played the
same song twice in a row. I can't think now what it was.
In a men's room at U of Md., amongst good ol' grout graffiti like
"grout expectations" and "the grout gatsby" was "grout mask
replica."
THEE: Thanks for all the grist on the self-interview. I hope I
handled it adequately. I have to side with those who consider
Paul's statement very important, if not the ultimate statement.
You'll give me credit at least (I hope) for not saying that the
Beatles arrived in Hamburg the day Stu Sutcliffe died. Lewisohn
indicates that John, Paul, and Pete arrived a day later, and
George the day after that.
I can't come over this week because I'm listening to Capitol's
"The Pet Sounds Sessions" and since that's a very good
collection, it would violate my rule of never bringing anything
good over.
THEE: Tomorrow (maybe Wednesday), I start "Hello Campers!" a
book celebrating 50 years of Butlin's Holiday Camps. Did I buy
it for the picture of Rory Storme and the hurricanes on the back
cover or for the photos of the bathing beauties from the late
'70s inside? I'll never tell.
ME: Did my taxes tonight. It's always a complete surprise. I
can never guess beforehand whether their voodoo formulas will say
I made or lost money last year. Back in first grade I would have
thought it was a simple subtraction problem, income minus
expenses. You know, there's still expenditures from 1986 that
figure into my taxes.
If *my* memory isn't tricking me, I think copyright expirations
happen on calendar year boundaries.
I think I did damage to a really dear little record I bought
Sunday. I was cleaning it with alcohol, which I always figured
was safe, whether or not effective, and I'm afraid it ate away
some of the recording surface. I think this record might be an
acetate, or shellac or lacquer.
Speaking of private productions, I passed up a 2-record set by
the Oxon Hill United Methodist Chior (sic). That cover is worth
25 cents, right?
I played all 9 sides of Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto today.
Movement 2 has the music to Eric Carmen's All By Myself. I knew
that that came from something classical, but I never memorized
precisely what, so it came as a surprise. Oh yeah, there was a
bonus track on side 10 not announced on the box.
I'll admit that:
Q. Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active
songwriting partnership again?
A. No.
*sounds* the most like "The Beatles are dead." But it's not, and
he never said it (the latter.) Also, I could be proven wrong,
but I don't think that question and answer got passed on to the
public at large by the media, in which case it's hard to argue
that that's what everyone based their understanding on. Hop in
the nearest time machine and you'd find it was just another in a
long line of reports of the Beatles' demise, starting in 1966.
Of course, the way my brain works, I'll never believe they've
truly observed a planet outside of our solar system after crying
wolf since I was a little kid. "But we *really* mean it this
time..."
THEE: Subject: Childhood's end
We must concede:
Brian Wilson will never do anything as good as "Pet Sounds"
again.
Taxes will always be a big pain. That's why I'm trying to think
only of where we'll go to dinner after we drop another Benjie
note at H&R Block tonight.
There is no foolproof way to clean records.
Paul McCartney announced, however obliquely, to the world that
the Beatles were finished on April 10, 1970...and he was right.
Monica Lewinsky will probably outlive us both but at least O.J.
Simpson probably won't.
Raquel Welch wears a wig and the disguises probably only begin
there.
Shane won't come back.
There is no Santa Claus.
It's just possible that George W. Bush will be our next
president.
Sorry.
ME: I played all 9 sides (!) of Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto
yesterday. Why so many sides? They're 45s! When lps first came
out, classical music was also released on 7-inch 45s. You could
choose your favorite format. [Now I believe it has more to do
with Columbia going with LP while RCA was banking on 45s.]
Yes, Emil Berliner invented the gramophone in D.C. in 1887 (date
of his first patent). It differed from Edison's phonograph in
that it had a disk (as opposed to Edison's cylinders) with
lateral, zigzag grooves, instead of Edison's "hill and dale"
grooves. Not surprisingly, in the early models, you rotated the
turntable manually, with an egg-beater type mechanism.
I supposedly studied astronomy for a year of graduate school, but
it was really just more physics. Heaven forbid that astronomy
students should actually observe or know celestial objects.
Anyhow, it's not like there is one grand naming convention for
celestial objects. It's a total mish-mash. Generally names come
from the sky survey that include the object. Like an early
survey was by a guy named Messier who just cataloged the fuzzy
objects he could see with a primitive telescope. Thus, M33 is
the Andromeda galaxy (if I remember right.) A bunch of galaxies
are called NGC231, for example, where NGC = new galactic catalog,
or something. Note that comets are named after their
discoverers. I think even amateur astronomers who discover a new
asteroid get to name it, or at least propose a name.
Tried to fight a ticket for an expired parking meter. The court
date was today. I won't go into details, but I came away very
disgruntled. I thought the deal was, if you go to the trouble to
go to court, have a few excuses, are polite, and cry a few real
tears while swearing you'll never do it again, they let you off
easy. Think again, donald.
ME: Subject: and then there was instant karman by
lennoncavallo...
Butlins made JPGR..&B. Also, Mike McGear swears that they only
served *left* chicken leg and thigh parts. See if your book
sheds any light on that.
A good one for oxymoron collectors: oblique announcement.
I believe I mentioned I once was in the presence of a Playmate of
the Month? A completely forgettable experience, I assure you.
Or would have been if you hadn't brought it up. You remember a
scrawny one from Maryland, and hardly pretty by any gauge, in the
late 1970s?
THEE: My Butlin's book is enjoyable but, quite clearly,
propaganda.
ME: Snuck on down to LC again today. Started at the Newspaper
and Periodical room, looking for "Beatles Break Up!" articles.
Most interesting discovery was that the Baltimore Sun reported it
right on April 10. The trigger was not the famous self-
interview, but an article by Don Short in the April 9 Daily
Mirror. He said he knew of a statement by McCartney locked in a
safe at Apple. This, of course, was denied by an Apple
spokesman.
Also found a piece on the upcoming closing (May 10) of the
Olympia Vaudeville house in Paris. This was where the strip
tease was invented. I guess this is the same Olympia theater the
Beatles played; at least it had the same owner, Bruno Coquatrix.
I'm still recuperating from wrestling with microfilm.
In the music reading room, my exasperating experience was - not
for the first time - matching wits with Netscape's "search within
page" function. Man, that thing has a mind of its own. Drives
me bananas.
Otherwise, had a successful visit. Looked up some good info in a
Columbia Records history/discography on my old Columbia record,
and copied guitar music from 1885.
THEE: Major bummer this morning: I gave a listen to "Peace
Sing-Along" by Mitch Miller and the Gang. I assumed that all the
tracks would be like "GPaC," [Give Peace A Chance] with Mitch
himself insincerely crooning the lead. Not so. EVERY other
track just features "the gang" in chorus with no leads by Mitch.
"GPaC" is definitely the stand-out track.
Beatle references in the Butlin's book are few and far between,
though there may be an account of a Rory Storme and the
Hurricanes concert to go with the photo. I haven't come across
it yet. A caption to one snapshot says: "Above, Sybil (centre)
who 28 years later was midwife to Ringo Starr's first
grandchild." So there you have it.
We saw the movie "High Fidelity" last night. It's about the
world of fanatical record collectors. Hmmm. Actually, it was
very, very good. They played a Dylan song called "most of the
Time." What album is it on? It was terrific.
ME: Subject: 33.333 rpm
Thanks a million for the book sale hot tip. Even though I got
the dregs, they were very good dregs. Only 2 covers had the
wrong records in and I can survive that. One I only needed for
the cover, anyhow, and the other was just Gilbert & Sullivan
highlights although I thought it was cool it was by the
Regimental Band of the Scots Guards. Finally got a Traviata
libretto - but it was Italian/German only. What are those
Germans thinking of?
That Sybil mention in the Butlins book seems really bizarre to
me. Who would know such a thing? Anyhow, we can't really fault
a Butlins book for sparse Beatle mentions.
Most Of The Time is a good one from Oh Mercy, my favorite post-
Infidels Dylan album (not counting the Bootleg Series.) It also
has Man In The Long Black Coat, which you've said you don't like.
The "hit" (ha ha) song was Political World, which is about my
least favorite on the album. I remember WHFS played Everything
Is Broken once.
Don't know anything about fanatical record collectors. As far as
vinyl is concerned, I can stop at any point.
ME: An old guy had gotten there presumably not long before me -
and he just about wiped out all the opera records! Now, you
might think, hey, he had just as much right to them as me, maybe
he's a lifelong opera fanatic and collector. No! I got talking
to him (even before I found out he was the one who claimed the
records) and found out not only was he not an opera fan, he
really was just getting started as a music listener. He only got
a record player 2 weeks ago! He told me something about his
fiancee broke the engagement (remember, he's about 75, with
maniacal white hair, glasses with a heavy band, and practically
street person clothes) and so he was trying to find hobbies.
Anyhow, he had a cart with about 1000 records on it (at about 12
cents apiece.) Probably only a few hundred were opera, but I
still claim life ain't fair.
THEE: I was steamed at the Butlin's book because it had a nice
photo of Rory Storme and the Hurricanes but no details about
their appearances. However, I did learn this much: Butlin's paid
dirt, so Rory and co. were not quite in the big leagues when they
played Butlin's.
THEE: I guess each student must face some tears at times. No one
likes to be told what to do. Did you ever hear John Lennon's
'Working Class Hero'? I have a version that Tin Machine (Bowie)
did. How once you are born, people tell you what to do from the
first. I guess it's all necessary for survival and for
civilization to continue...but when you look at how stressed some
kids and adults are...it makes you wonder.
Wally Ford went to school in Richmond...he has a degree in Organ
Performance I think. Now he also is a harpist. He studies harp
in Maine during the summers with a Ms. Chalafeu. I know I
spelled that wrong. This lady was even on Johnny Carson's
show...with four female harpists. Wally has a full time job at
some catholic church, plus does gigs. He even performed with
Roger Daltrey of The Who when he was backed by an orchestra a few
years ago. I only see Wally at viewings. He went to Italy to
play in an Opera. Paul Buker, the former singer of Hself's
band...Tell Gadara...went to the same Opera to sing. I believe
Wally met the pope. A friend of Wally's (another
Paul...hmm...both of these Pauls are on AOL too) played the organ
when the Pope came to Balto.
ME: Just gave Rigoletto another thorough going-over using
4 or 5 books, the libretto, a highlights recording in English, an
opera-for-orchestra version, and, oh yeah, the real, complete
thing, itself. One of the neat things about Rigoletto is a real
plot, as opposed to "boy meets girl; girl dies" (Boheme) or "boy
meets girl; boy kills girl" (Carmen). It's based on a Victor
Hugo play, and a summary of that play agreed with Rigoletto
*sentence-by-sentence*, except the names had to be changed to
satisfy the censors.
Mom got me another Carmen, and it's a doozy. It's meant to go
along with a film strip (thus the subject line) and there's a
narrator that talks between - and over - musical numbers.
Actually, this would be a great way to familiarize oneself with
any opera.
Should I let this out? - I now have 4 real Ken Griffin albums,
along with 2 "Ken Griffin by impostors" albums. Such a
collection! Finally made a highlights tape for Welsh Harry today,
and it turned out so well I'll have a hard time parting with it.
Made split pea soup yesterday (Friday), and also a red cake.
(Safeway had sold out of yellow and white.) I don't recommend
red cakes. Red soda, yes; not cakes. Made a cheese cake for
taking up to Baltimore tomorrow.
P.S. Found a Who reference in an email from my cousin Hself.
Wally Ford is a fantastic musician who grew up next to my
cousin. He was in my grade at school, although never in my
class.
ME: Actually, it's probably easier for me to forget to send off
an email than most people (forgetting the age factor). I compose
my messages with a word-processor off-line, as opposed to working
right in the mail program, and I work up all of my emails before
sending any of them, in case something comes to mind to add to an
earlier one.
I know exactly what you mean about how we push ourselves for no -
or dumb - reasons. But I always get uncomfortable thinking about
that because it gets too close to "what's it all about?" Why do
we bother with anything besides eat, sleep and sex? Or, if you
give it another second's thought, why bother with those, even?
I figure for some people, a real nice-looking yard is a source of
satisfaction and pleasure, like buying 25 cent opera records is
for others. For me, it's a matter of weighing how much
displeasure I get at a given point in time from looking at and
slogging through an overgrown yard, versus the 3 hours it will
take to cut it. So there's a natural balance between the
drudgery and the benefits. I can't complain.
I don't know if you can have one dreg, but "dregs" is that
undesirable stuff that settles at the bottom of a wine barrel or
cider jug. Sound familiar now?
THEE: I watched the new documentary on the making of "Imagine,"
called "Gimme Some Truth." It was shown last week on the Bravo
channel. It was produced by Andrew Solt, with Yoko serving as
the executive producer. It was a mix of "Imagine" documentary
footage, about 30 percent of which we already saw in "Imagine:
John Lennon," and some of the videos. It was real good stuff.
ME: I hope consorting with hypocrites doesn't completely wreck
your life. I've just about wrapped up the training phase for
being a census taker (!!!) I have a friend who said it was great
fun (back in 1970), so I figured I'd give it a try. Also,
working at the school has given me a bit more confidence dealing
with people. Obviously, it's going to be hard for me to convince
somebody who says "Get lost" how important the census is when I
think it's dumb myself. (It *could* be very valuable if they
collected the right info.) And I dread the thought of inflicting
a long form on some poor soul. "And this should only take about
an hour and a half..." I mean, why do you think they threw it
away in the first place?
Listened to side one of "The Best Loved Overtures of Weber" today
(Thursday). Delightful music; delightful old recording quality;
delightful old cover (1952); delightful old label (about
2/3 size). That's 4 out of 4 stars.
You mention Jefferson and LC in Today In Pop. Did you know that
they have about reconstituted the original Jefferson donation of
books to LC? I think it's on view now. Sounds sort of exciting,
although, I guess if you can't actually browse the collection,
maybe it's no big deal. They went to the trouble to get the
exact same editions.
This reminds me, the first stupid census training class on Monday
wrecked my plans to go down and join in the LC birthday
celebration.
House On Haunted Hill is another movie that holds a special place
in my life sort of like Gorgo (and Seven Ghosts). I suppose we
saw it and made a big deal of it in the following years, although
I don't remember anything about it.
Do we the public know yet what happened regarding the 2
helicopters that "crashed" up in Iran in 1980?
Those Epstein diaries make me sad. Also the mention of the
inventor of nylon. There's a guy who should have been sitting on
top of the world.
While I'm proud of my little opera book collection, it's way too
piddling to brag about on the web - not like my collections of
American guitar music and guitar & piano music. I'm just a
*beginner* at this, and might never progress much further. I do
have a few questions that I think rec.music.opera might have fun
with. For instance, there's an old Lloyd Price '50s slow rock
song called Just Because that sounds to me (and some others I've
played it to) a *lot* like a famous aria in Rigoletto called Caro
Nome.
Funny you should mention tailgaters. Just today I made a right
turn onto a road in a gap *plenty* big enough for me. But the
guy way up the road was probably doubling the speed limit and was
determined not to ease off his gas pedal. So he swerves around
me - over a double yellow line, with oncoming traffic not so far
away. Where's it get him? He just had to throw on his brakes
for the car that I had pulled out behind. After that, I was just
creeping along behind him, hoping he was feeling like a jerk.
Keep in mind, it takes a *lot* to make me mad on the road. I
accept that I will have to make adjustments for other drivers out
there, and for their occasional misjudgments. Heck, I can't
claim I've never done something stupid myself. But things like
this are just *too* insane...
THEE: Once when I was at mom's...and Hself was living in her old
grandfather's house, I stopped by. I was surprised to find out
that she had decided to go to college because I went to college.
I never knew I had influenced her that way. Sometimes, you
affect people...and you just never know. I know you are
affecting all of those kids you tutor. Who knows where that will
lead! All good I'm sure!!
98 Rock was making a joke about census takers...and how dangerous
it could be. How the people that didn't fill out the census
don't want you to know how many people live there, etc. Be
careful please. Do they train you for hazardous duty??
It's interesting how you can hear all the plagiarism in music.
From Dylan to this Lloyd Price. Sometimes it's hard to decide if
you've heard something before when it's going thru your head...
while you are creating. Just giving the artist the benefit of
the doubt. Have I ever had a completely new thought? I always
liked Ecclesiastes' 'there is nothing new under the sun'. Bowie
made a career of not being totally creative, but by taking the
things he liked, and presenting them his way.
Don't the old Opera records have old record sounds? Maybe that's
part of the fun. Eddie Vedder loves vinyl vs CD sound. That's
why the Pearl Jam fan club sends the 'Christmas' single on a 45.
Funny... half the members don't even own a turntable!!
I don't think tailgaters ever realize what idiots they are. And
even with all the aggressive driver rules out there now...I would
get fined for that before a tailgater. It's just the way it
goes. I still can't figure out how there aren't even more
accidents. I just don't understand how I can be going 50 miles
per hour, and NOT be able even to see the headlights of the idiot
behind me. They make me nervous, and I don't drive as well.
Hself are heading to Branson Misouri next Saturday... have you
heard of the place? I hadn't till they started planning this
trip. Some super-dooper country music show town.
THEE: I think it's cool that you're going to be a census worker.
Hself considered it. Say, did they tell you explicitly that you
can't substitute your own questions? Well, I'll tell you: YOU
CAN'T SUBSTITUTE YOUR OWN QUESTIONS! Oh, OK, you may ask for
favorite Beatles song or opera.
I hope I didn't elevate the Monroe County Library Sale too highly
in your estimation. It will be a real thrill to be back at it,
but, frankly, we've already been to the record bonanza this year,
at Stone Ridge Country Day School.
Have you only seen six movies? I feel the same way. I didn't
see "Stigmata."
I have a follow-up to the Epstein story to send you today that
may make you sadder.
Thanks for a wonderful, red cake enhanced evening. You may
convert me to this opera biz, after all.
THEE: Subject: tablature website
Just wanted to thank you. I learned quite a bit today. Not
being very musically inclined but having the lifelong desire to
be, I started playing with the guitar a couple years ago. The
biggest difficulty was in reading music, which is getting better,
but is still not quite as simple if I had been able to learn as a
young person. So thank you again. Just lovin' it,
THEE: Subject: JOHN PAUL GEORGE RINGO AND BERT
I was intrigued to come across your review of the 1985 production
of my play at the University of Maryland. Although it seems quite
evident that director McCready took liberties with the text and
music ( adding songs and scenes that don't appear in the
original) he nevertheless seems to have been faithful to the
spirit and essence of the show.
With good wishes,
Willy Russell
ME: My stint as a census taker lasted a week and a day (not
counting training.) People were so rude and mean that I couldn't
take it anymore. I told the crew leader I would be glad to
continue, with one little concession - that I have blanket
permission to pepper spray anybody who could use a good dose.
That didn't fly.
Right now, it's in the works for me to go to work for Glenridge
elementary school as a "temporary aide" till the end of the year.
I'm looking forward to it, even though it would have been much
more ideal to work at James McHenry.
I saw Mozart's Magic Flute in a student performance at U of Md.
3 times last week. Hey, you might hear the same pop song 3 times
in a week, right?
I have a friend who saw your Beatlefan on my coffee table and
said, "Hey, isn't that Linda McCartney's husband?" Beats the
tired old Wings joke hands down, eh?, except this wasn't a joke.
Same with the Help! cover, where she pointed out Paul and told me
that his wife died a while ago.
Got a thrill checking my mail this afternoon (after being offline
for 2 weeks) and finding a message from Willy Russell, of
Educating Rita and JPGR...&B fame. It wasn't even a threat or
lawsuit.
THEE: Subject: Whale transitions
I just happened to see your January post about the new pages
while searching to see if anyone had responded to my most recent
postings. I'm posting chapter by chapter synopses of a book
(compilation of research papers) entitled "The Emergence of
Whales: Evolutionary Patterns in the Origins of the Cetacea"
(Advances In Vertebrate Paleontology) edited by J.G.M.
Thewissen. You may find it of interest, as the fossils and
other evidence being considered show in a very progressive
fashion how land mammals became whales, and who the closest
terrestrial modern-day relative of whales is. (Hint: it lives
in Africa in rivers and it's brown-colored). You may wish to
peruse t.o. or DejaNews for my posts. I'm hoping to do a chapter
a week.
Jim Acker
THEE: Hself made it home safe and sound yesterday morning. She
had all sorts of adventures, including being pulled over for
speeding at about 5 a.m. yesterday, as she raced to the airport.
She was going 76 mph. She got pulled over in Mooresville, Ind.,
home town of John Dillinger. The cop asked, "Do you drive this
fast in Maryland?" She considered saying, "Yes, and everyone
passes me." Instead, she apologized profusely and got off with a
warning.
THEE: Subject: who are you....who you are...
Do you know those two songs? 'Who are you' by The Who...and 'Who
you are' by Pearl Jam?
'Nobody's Child' sounds like a familiar title. Guess I've heard
the Beatles' version.
You remember a poem you learned way back when!! Amazing. AND,
when I read the line...I was really...amazed. And confused.
Doesn't seem like an in depth...life's meaning...sort of thing...
but to each their own. "and oh but we were silly, a-rock-,
rock-, rocking to a Mother Goose rhyme."
THEE: Subject: your guestbook
what's incredible is the diversity of emotional reaction, from
outright insulting rudeness to gleeful surprise and joy -
amazing!
PS: even though horribly negative, I should think that you get
quite a kick out of even those bad responses
THEE: Congratulations on having your instructional site:
Donald Sauter's Classical Guitar Bits & Pieces
included in the WannaLearn directory, a directory of the best
free, family-safe, online tutorials, guides and instructionally
oriented Websites on the Net!
We have recently been featured in Entertainment Weekly, the Time-
Warner publication, as the portal site that "turns education into
revelation". As the quality of the sites to which we link is a
crucial part of our success, we thought it appropriate to convey
this news to you. In recognition of the high level of
achievement that your site represents, we are pleased to present
you with the "WannaLearn Select Site Award", and encourage you to
include it with whatever other distinctions your site has earned.
ME: Any dumb emails you get relating to this, please forward them
on to me. Thanks. Like I say, my entire internet life is now
devoted to just trying to keep up with this lunatic.
I went to the commissioner's office at the courthouse again
yesterday (Friday) trying to take action against his email
harassment; to try to take out a warrant for perjury for all the
lies in his peace order against me; and to try to have the peace
order - which he conveniently dismissed an hour before the
hearing - expunged from my record. In essence, I got laughed in
my face for all 3 efforts. That's our justice system in all its
glory. On the plus side, I got the commissioner so worked up that
he came storming out from behind his protective glass yelling at
me to get out. There was a nice audience for all of this, so I
was happy.
THEE: If I get more letters from that redd guy, I will forward
them. I think others supported you...but figured the guy was a
jerk, and didn't bother asking you about it. I hesitated...since
I didn't want to embarrass you...but since I really know you...I
knew he was nuts.
Sounds like that guy is mentally unstable, so be very careful. I
don't have much faith in our justice system either. Glad the
commissioner's freaking made you happy. Wish you had it all on
video.
THEE: Thank you for your wonderful site! We dusted off ye old
Monopoly game the other day and had us two consecutive games with
our best friends whereby we ran into a messy situation in both
games: we fumed of anger! We`re still the best of friends since
our disagreement remains within the context of the game, thank
goodness.
Our disagreement is on the definition of bankruptcy : when is a
player bankrupt? We agree with the official rule that "a player
is bankrupt when he owes more than he can pay either to another
player or to the bank" and "if his debt is to another player, he
must turn over to that player all that he has of value.....".
Now we found ourselves in the situation that player A owed player
B much more than he could pay. Player A had alarmingly little
money and the few properties he owned were all mortgaged.
Thereby, in our view, player A should turn over all he has of
value to player B.
At this point, player C suddenly enters the scene and offers to
buy all the mortgaged property belonging to player A for a very
tempting price which would cover player A debt to player B. This
would give player C, who was already pretty well off in the game,
an overwhelmingly advantage, whereby of course player B protests.
Our friends argue that player C has this right. We argue that the
moment a player has a debt that exceeds his assets, he is
officially bankrupt and thereby in no position to be negotiating
a "side-deal", in particular when it comes to selling off
mortgaged property. Mortgaged property is not an asset at this
point. Our friends argue that a player may sell his mortgaged
property to another player at any agreed price AND at any time,
and is thereby not officially bankrupt until such a point where
he owns absolutely nothing - that is to say, they insist that a
mortgaged property is still an asset.
I would be most grateful if you had any views on this, so that we
may continue playing this wonderful game peacefully.
THEE: I have Beatles film titled "1001 things you never knew
about the Beatles" 16mm color 15 minutes long. Do you have any
comments?
THEE: I am trying to find an excellent article on the Fermi
Paradox. I believe it was in Analog about 10 to fifteen years
ago. do you have a reference?
THEE: Subject: In dreams
Just found your site on accident looking for the IQ Marilyn vos
Savant had posted in the book of world records. I must say, this
is a very interesting site. : ) Very entertaining.
I just read the page on dreams, and how you, as the participant
in the dream, don't know everything that is going to happen.
Well, do you know that you are dreaming? Wouldn't that count as
something that you, as the dreamer, should know? Certainly you
know that you got into bed, and went to sleep, right? But not in
the dream you don't.
Interestingly enough (to me anyway), I once had a dream where I
found a magic lamp (yes, three wishes, the whole bit). The first
thing I wished for was to know EVERYTHING (presumably, then I
would know what would be best to wish for next). Well, I was
flooded with information, topmost of which was that I was
dreaming.
Does this make any sense? I wished to know everything in a
dream, and the first thing that I knew was that I was dreaming.
I didn't see THAT coming.
Anyway, the shock caused me to wake up (darn it, it would have
been interesting to have stayed in a dream, knowing what was
going on). I don't have any explanation for it, and it only
happened once.
However, something else to consider: How do you know that you
are actually taking part in a dream? How do you know that the
mind doesn't just fabricate these MEMORIES of dreams? If that
were the case, the whole mind could bend towards the creating of
the dream, and it would only SEEM that one part didn't know what
the other was doing, when in actuality, the mind knew all along,
but chose to selectively choose which facts to put in the memory
where.
Anyway, just a thought. : ) Good site. : )
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Helpful keywords not in the main text: Hself = generic name, male or female (Himself, Herself). LC = Library of Congress. SB = Soundboard magazine. Welsh Harry = Harry Vernon (see tribute page). Mom = Jane L. Sauter (see tribute page).
Parents, if you're considering tutoring or supplemental education for your child, you may be interested in my observations on Kumon.