Today’s morning name (welling up during my sleep from who knows where) was mille-feuille, the pastry.
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The fallen V
July 6, 2016In today’s Zippy, Bill Griffith continues his long exploration of American pop culture, especially roadside culture — diners, motels, and (very often) big fiberglass advertising figures:
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(Note outrageous pun in the title, playing on Norse/nurse.)
Dress for performance and publicity
July 6, 2016Processing material for the last set of CD offers — of chamber music — I was struck by the way the musicians present themselves in performance and publicity, especially through their clothing.
The classic chamber music group is all-male and dresses in dark suits (with white shirts, dark ties, dark shoes and stockings), or even formal attire. Women in such groups, or in all-women groups, tend to dress more fashionably and individually, but not flashily. Groups specializing in new music, experimental music, and genre-bending music are inclined to dress more informally, especially in publicity shots. And some groups are deliberately showy.
On to a few examples. Read the rest of this entry »
Conversations in music: offer #21, the last of the CDs
July 5, 2016The last of the CD offers, five boxes (of 30-40 discs per box) of conversations between musical voices: chamber music, of many kinds (plus a few odd surprises, of discs that have turned up since earlier offers were put together).
Filtering out chamber music involving a piano — most, but not all, of these items went into offer #20, of keyboard music — these collections are heavy on string quartets, from many hands.
At the keyboard: offer #20, in seven parts
July 5, 2016Moving towards the end of the CD offers: a large assortment of music for keyboard instruments, mostly the piano, in seven installments (each with 30-40 discs): six according to the composer, plus one box of collection CDs arranged by performer.
The 31-room elephant in the room
July 5, 2016
Fireworks, hot dogs, and, yes, gun sales
July 4, 2016Three phallic things for (U.S.) Independence Day, the Fourth of July, today: fireworks, one of the classic audio-visual symbols of sexual climax; hot dogs (so common that there’s a whole Page on this blog on wurstlich phallicity); and guns, those icons of American independence and power. In order, from Jack Handey humor in the most recent New Yorker (July 4th, cover by Barry Blitt showing John Cleese doing a Brexit Silly Walk off the edge of a cliff); an assessment of hot dog brands by bon appétit magazine writers; and a Fourth of July gun sale from Cabela’s, featuring a semiautomatic rifle similar to the one used in the Orlando Pulse massacre.
Unlike a panda, which famously eats, shoots, and leaves, a Real American eats, shoots, and gets off.
Not the prettiest stallion in the stable
July 3, 2016(Not about language, but about holidays, advertising, and gay pornstars.)
In my e-mail for the Fourth of July weekend, porn studio Channel 1 Releasing’s patriotic ad (“Red White & Tattooed”) for this year:
Aside from the ridiculousness of the ad — something you expect in porn ads for holiday sales, and often a trigger for giggles — the model looks druggy and disheveled, and I’m put off by the pistol tattooed on his right hip. These things are a matter of taste; still, I judge this lad to be not the prettiest stallion in the stable.
Instrumental music, mostly large-scale
July 3, 2016… and not featuring the piano. The latest collection of CDs from Las Casas Zwicky, as I move through the classical music recordings. Still to come are two gigantic collections, of chamber music and music featuring the piano (yes, they overlap, annoyingly). Meanwhile, a tiny assortment of recordings with instruments other than the piano, and then a bunch of large-scale instrumental works, mostly symphonies. This is offer #19, Instrumental, in two boxes, which can be asked for separately or together.
Hiphop phrenology
July 2, 2016In going through CDs for recent offers — specifically, in the Quirky / Eccentric music category — I came across a hiphop album “Phrenology” by the group Roots. The cover art:
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This is a phrenological chart with a black man as model, with jokey or politically tinged drawings for the regions.
And the parental advisory reflects the lyrics of the songs, heavily laced with the full range of taboo vocabulary and slurs. The track “Pussy Galore” is particularly notable.