when my wife and i were in Japan many years ago we wandered into a club one afternoon, somewhere in Tokyo, and watched a local rock band of young guys playing songs for their not-quite-a-dozen friends - just like local bands everywhere.
last week, YouTube started recommending a bunch of Japanese post-rock / noise bands to me for some reason. i can't even read their titles or band names, so clicking on one is a pure crap shoot.
i like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7apuNjIRe0
GftNC, thanks for the Stewart Lee piece. He hits similar notes pre Trump here
https://youtu.be/D2DkYHbSxUE?si=GqYxfZTM9PqD4NT5
The transcript is in his book How I Escaped My Certain Fate
And, I was reading this great book of, of trial transcripts, of American soldiers accused of human-rights abuses in, in Abu Ghraib, which was of course closed today. And, um … I don’t know if you remember Charles Graner, he was a fat American soldier but he had a moustache, so you could identify him. And he was the guy that organised the photographing of a naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian being dragged out of a cell, er, on his hands and knees, er, on a dog’s lead. And, um, in his defence, er, his lawyer, Charles Graner’s lawyer said that the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian wasn’t being dragged out of the cell but was actually crawling of his own free will. And I just wondered how many other lines of defence they rejected before they settled on that one. And also what the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian might have been crawling of his own free will towards? And I like to think he was crawling towards the notion of Western democracy. But obviously he was having some difficulty knowing which way to crawl, er, because of the hood, er, and because of the fact that he was approaching a palpably abstract concept.
I think Japan does have that Chinese heritage of music education for young people, but the Cultural Revolution destroyed large ensembles of Western music, so you don't have the same ethos as Japan.
The institutions in China have been rebuilt in the intervening 50 years, and music is a required subject for primary and secondary school, but that discontinuity, plus the fact that academic subjects are more highly emphasized means that the situation is a little different from Japan.
You do have the same thing here with students who said that their mother (usually, the father most of the time doesn't deal with this) forced them to play piano, but a number of them say that they hated it at the time, but now appreciate it.
A couple of anecdotes, in Japan, every jhs and hs has a class chorus competition and it always surprised me that there was always at least 1 or 2 students within the class who played piano well enough to accompany. The whole thing is often run by the students, so you get this move away from a teacher centered thing to student led.
Another factoid that always amazed me, when a broadcaster records/televises a concert, they don't have to train the broadcast staff, they can simply give them annotated orchestra scores because they all can read music to a degree that the score acts as a shot list.
In Willie Ruff's autobiography, Call to Assembly, there is a chapter about the Mitchell-Ruff duo (Ruff plays french horn and bass) going to visit China and lecture at the Shanghai conservatory in 1981, which was 5 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The whole chapter is interesting, but this is particularly relevant
One [question] came from an older Chinese teacher. "When you created 'Shanghai Blues' just now," he asked, "did you have a form for it, or a logical plan?" I said, "I just started tapping my foot, then a theme suggested itself, which I played on the horn, and Mitchell heard it. And he answered And after that we heard and answered, heard and answered, heard and answered." "But can you play it again?" the professor asked. "We never can. He would not accept my answer. "But that is beyond our imagination. Our students here play a piece a hundred times, or two hundred times, to get it exactly right. You play something once-something that has great value-and then you throw it away." I said that if we played the same music twice in an improvisation, the second time would be no improvisation at all. "We call improvisation the lifeblood of jazz because the performer is challenged to do it better each time." The old teacher as much as threw up his hands. The mystery persisted.
This isn't to suggest that there are no Asian musicians who improvise, on the local level, there are some folks here whose concerts I go to and have great chops. (perhaps the topic of a future music thread), but I think all of them have had a period overseas where they immersed themselves and then have returned.
Band -- both marching band and wind orchestra -- was one of the really positive things for me in high school. Not just the music. Our band director was a retired US Army master sergeant, and by the time I was a senior I realized that if you paid attention, he was also giving you a master class in motivating young adults.
I wasn’t even born in the 50s but I’m already nostalgic for the days when, rather than re-bombing drowning Venezuelan sailors to make sure none survive an airstrike in a war Congress has not authorised, American operatives in sharp suits and sunglasses instead tried to implement regime change subtly, discreetly and even tastefully, to a soundtrack of Paul Desmond cool jazz classics. It’s called democracy, daddio, you dig?
The historian Frances Stonor Saunders believes the CIA promoted the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in order to discredit Soviet realist art. Donald Trump, meanwhile, just gave some kind of made-up award to the band Kiss, who pretended to be magic animals from space in the 1970s.
A world in which America could imagine abstract art as a cultural propaganda tool is a far cry from one where the president releases an AI video of himself carpet bombing protesters with clods of human excrement, although the 60s Italian artist Piero Manzoni, who canned his faeces and sold them, might recognise Trump as a kindred creative spirit. On balance though, those postwar CIA guys were a better class of bastard.
Because on Monday, quietly and without much fanfare from the mainstream media, the world we grew up in changed for ever and our Euro-doom was decreed. Donald J Trump’s National Security Strategy statement explained, quite explicitly, that he will be actively aiding European far-right nationalist parties to win elections in order to “restore western identity”, end mass migration into Europe, and enforce a contemporary American idea of freedom of speech, which appears to mean the right to say anything irrespective of its accuracy. Don’t like these facts? The algorhythmically amplified far-right avatars of American social media have others. And if those don’t convince you, the president has a cartoon of himself bombing people with shit.
Conservative commentators like to imagine Donald J Trump as a largely unserious presence whose provocative statements are meant to bait the libtards rather than to represent a genuine direction of political travel. Keir Starmer in turn chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast with Magic King Charles of Ye Olde England, and some string.
Trump in turn has already agreed to use the United Kingdom as an enormous energy-sapping battery, housing all the servers needed to generate the algorithmically skewed content that will eventually destroy liberal European democracy. Result! Sir Keir did a great deal with Donald, who then sent him down to the DIY shop to buy some striped paint.
But since Monday’s White House National Security Strategy statement, Starmer’s going to have to up the standard full English at Windsor Castle to at least the level of the late lamented Little Chef Olympic if he wants to avoid the country falling fast into fascism. Baked bean ramekins all round! Just how good can those Windsor Castle sausages be? And will the Royal footmen even be able to find any sausages now Prince Andrew, currently Andrew, is rumoured to have been playing a game involving hiding them?
I used to have a Samoan client who showed me videos of Samoan marching bands--a very big thing there. He said that every town had a marching band. There's a big festival when marching bands from all over come to one city and march in a huge parade. Each band has a clown that messes with the band while they march--laying down in the road, running in and out of the ranks etc. I have no idea why the concept of a marching band resonated with Samoans. Maybe because they have a tradition of drumming and group singing combined with movement?
Keir Starmer chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast
As an alleged teenage fan of Hitler alleged to have told small black British children to go home to Africa, although all in a spirit of harmless banter if he even said it at all, Nigel Farage would benefit from Trump’s foreign intervention in our politics. But being a man of honour and principle he will of course reject America’s direct assistance as it would be hypocritical to do otherwise. Because back in 2016, when Barack Obama said Brexit would harm British trade with America, Farage said: “Vladimir Putin behaved in a more statesmanlike manner than President Obama did in this referendum campaign. Obama came to Britain, and I think behaved disgracefully, telling us we would be at the back of the queue. Vladimir Putin maintained his silence throughout the whole campaign.” Farage and Putin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
We must assume that, unlike Farage’s colleague Nathan Gill, the Reform leader wasn’t being paid at that point to promote Putin, the world leader he most admires, who, although nominally silent himself during Farage’s referendum, certainly had a lot of online bots making a lot of pro-Brexit noise on Farage’s behalf.
Don’t look for much pushback against Trump’s plan for European regime change from America’s on-off enemy-ally Russia or the rightwing British media. Both Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov and the Times columnist Melanie Phillips found some common ground to jointly endorse Trump’s plans, the former saying “The adjustments we’re seeing are largely consistent with our vision … we consider this a positive step”, and the latter commenting “Only Britain and Europe can save themselves. That’s what the Trump administration is saying.” Phillips appears to welcome the dismantling of our democracy as long as it returns us to “principles rooted in historic faith, traditions and institutions”, and the imposition of a puppet fascist government is a small price to pay to get Songs of Praise back on the BBC. And the Kremlin wants to make sure an Islamified UK doesn’t neglect all those beautiful old cathedrals so beloved of its architecturally infatuated international chemical weapons assassins, slaughtering civilians on our streets. Defence analysts discreetly admit we may already be at war with Russia, which is probing our communications cables, badgering European airports with drones and quietly flooding our social media with misinformation to make your Facebook-following uncle foam at the mouth and ruin your upcoming Christmas dinner by insisting Volodymyr Zelenskyy spends all the Ukraine aid money on yachts, cocaine and designer puffa jackets.
And the moment we start sending Russia’s seized assets to Ukraine we can expect to see our entire online infrastructure shut down with the flick of an undersea switch, as British politicians’ eyes melt out of their faces while swathes of civilians evaporate behind them on the high street in invisible chemical warfare clouds, tapping at their suddenly unresponsive phones and asking an inert ChatGPT why their internal organs are wriggling about on the pavement. But the truth is we are now at war with Trump’s America as well, and the only reason we don’t recognise the situation for what it obviously is is because it seems so utterly inconceivable. And still Starmer prevaricates about re-entering the European customs union alongside Trump’s other intended European victim nations, because he worries it may jeopardise our American trade deal, a scarecrow walking into a furnace.
Interesting. I'm fairly familiar with how China does their music education because of the music writing class I've taught. There the emphasis is more on testing and certification than on ensemble playing. I'm sure that there must be a lot of young people who did the lessons and found something they loved, but most of the students who have written essays about their experience complain that it was too much about technical ability and challenge, and not nearly enough about play. They were pushed into it by their parents in order to have an objective certification of their diligence and discipline. Expression was secondary. Their stories are mostly about rediscovering music and learning to love it only after they had either refused any further lessons, or crashed and burned out of the competitive testing at a lower level of proficiency. They only learned to love playing after they came back to it with no outside pressure to excel.
Are there parallels in Japan, or is this one of those cultural differences over how each nation expresses their collectivity?
the combining of roman letters and kanji is pretty fascinating and shows how integrated the writing systems are becoming
I have seen kanji and kana, of course. And romanji. But a combination of kanji and romanji is a new one. Perhaps it has emerged in the years decades since I studied the language....
I am thinking that they are going to end up using chinese tech, and at some point, the Chinese will flip a kill switch and none of our stuff will work.
How I got to Mint Mobile seems strange, at least to me. My wife and I signed up for T-Mobile's cheap plan, unlimited everything for two people aged 55+. Moved to Fort Collins, where every network's coverage was great. Fort Collins had started requiring all wired networks -- phone, power, cable -- to be buried in 1948. The only tall poles left were the power authority's high-voltage lines, all of the cell companies used them, which is why coverage was great. Then the feds decided putting cell antennas on HVAC poles was dangerous and required that they be removed. Fort Collins now has some of the worst cellular coverage of any city. By happenstance, T-Mobile's was the best in the parts of the city where I spent most of my time. At some point after my wife went into memory care I was fixing up service. Mint Mobile was the least expensive of the discount companies reselling T-Mobile service. At the end of the initial period, they sent me e-mail and text saying, "We recommend you change to this cheaper plan." As I recall, all of my phone service since I was an undergraduate back in the 1970s cost more than the $15/month I'm paying now.
Who says corporate America doesn’t have at least some sense of humor left?
Ryan Reynolds makes humorous, self-deprecating Mint Mobile commercials. In 2020 and 2024, he was the world's second-highest-paid actor. Now that he's an entrepreneur, he's also a billionaire.
Who says corporate America doesn't have at least some sense of humor left? I got this card from Mint Mobile. It included a fragment of holiday wrapping paper :^)
The Roman magistrate song
Tune: The Major General's Song (Gilbert&Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance)
Chorus: |: His name is Marcus Tullius Cicero :|
Cicero: My name is/Indeed I'm Marcus Tullius Cicero
1. I am the very model of a proper Roman magistrate although of origin a poor provincial legal advocate
I came to Rome with country drawl, behaved and clothed/dressed still/quite prissily
Then came to fame defending the oppressed poor folks of Sicily.
I beat that Asianic fop, illustrious Hortensius
The greatest advocate till then, an omen so portentious
That gave my standing quite a boost. I moved to better neighbourhood [neighbourhood! maidenhood? hazelwood? Oh, of course!]
I can/could afford now finally some furniture of citrus wood
I ran the course of honors through and "suo anno" at each stage
An akin meteoric rise you'll seek in vain on his'try's page See, does/did not turn my origin as studied legal advocate me into a fine model for a proper Roman magistrate?
2.
I love the lengthy period with con- and subjunctives galore
I best each verbal labyrinth as Theseus did the minotaur
I know my ornaments and tropes from zeugma to apostrophy
I practice hypotyposis that leads to eucatastrophe
I shun the tmesis like the plague, don't mix en- with hypallage
Against non-cretic clausulae I have an aching allergy
Occasions for anacoluth or sentence aposiopese...
[mayonaise? Calliopese? Alcibiades?... Eureka/I've got it/Ah, but of course!]
And don't insinuate insinuations are just lies - oh, please.
I can explain the difference twixt alleg'ry and metaphor
and can provide for evr'y term the context that it matters for
This stanza has too many lines, I humbly do apologise
[eulogize?...extemporize? Nobel prize?... Something more epic!]
But with this topic dear to me the words swell like Apollo's rise
No one can yet convict me of abuse of inconcinnity
My subtle sense of tone does truly verge on pure divinity So I from modest origins, a mere provincial advocate, became the very model of a brilliant Roman magistrate
3.
I dabble in philosophy, in dreams I talk to Socrates
Of rivals I am as devoid as medicine's Hippocrates
A challenger compared to me sounds Numid or Iberian
I'd win a dispute easily no matter what criterion.
I can force words to do my will, of Latin mine is mastery
Comparable my aptitude to expert sculptor's plastery
I keep my gestures dignified, at least when on the senate floor
[senate floor...janitor?...penny whore?...Ah! Of course!]
Avoid the roll-of-eyes and row-of-arms, I'm not a semaphor.
A homo novus though I am, by birth a mere equestrian
I soared through toil and eloquence past nobles more pedestrian So out of plainest origins a paltry legal advocate arose as very model of a palmy Roman magistrate
4.
I have a slave named Tiro who brought forth the art stenography
And who, if fates permit, one day will publish my biography
He notes down ev'ry word that in the public or at home I've said
And of course in the most august assembly here in Rome, senate!
Although with voters common I will be at times gregarious
I find the populares faction utterly nefarious
So without doubt I throw my lot in with the noble optimates [optimates! obstinates? pots and plates?... I've got it!]
For what they're always aiming at "best for the state" approximates
I love the toga candida and the elections annual
My brother Quintus was so kind to write the winner's manual With this assistance I was spared a certain loser's tragic fate Became with vote unanimous of Rome the highest magistrate
5.
I can declaim in Greek like born in Athens or in Miletos
I showed that rascal Catiline who really is in Rome the boss
Some say his motivation was just violated vanity
But then to start a coup attempt was madness and insanity
He clearly was a bolshevik, although I don't know what that means,
and right against the mos maiorum but that's normal for such fiends
I then got hailed as savior of our sacred fatherland
[fatherland...rather bent?...leather scent?...EUREKA]
but squinting sods did disagree and planned my triumphs there to end.
Thus afterwards you exiled me through that tribune so odious
Who had exchanged his honest name for that of vulgar Clodius With fire denied (and water too) exiled to places desolate I fell down from the lofty peak of supreme Roman magistrate
6.
It's said the perfect orator a good man is well versed in speech
And for him who has mastered this no thing to aim for 's out of reach
I climbed through efforts tireless the heights of Attic oratory
I penned some self-promoting but unsuccessful epic poetry
The way I use the language shall one day be made canonical
Which given no bum talks like this should be seen as ironical
Categorise my style as neither Asian nor atticist
[pacifist, can't resist? Oh, me stupid!]
I walk the golden middle course, am not baroque but classicist
I made the Latin language shine and stay for all eternity
To form with Persian, Greek, Sanskrit forever a fraternity And thus despite my origin as country bumpkin advocate my eloquence made me the model of a Roman magistrate
7.
Indeed it was an/the orator who first united as a group
the cultureless humanity fed up with bitter acorn soup
He taught them all there was to know and how to found a/the city state
He was the natural candidate to serve as its first magistrate
We know that our first Roman king - Quirinus Romulus - could wield
The word as well as any sword. The eloquence served as his shield
Then Numa his more peaceful heir could do away with sagum red
[garum fed?...Boba Fett?... Ouch! It' s so obvious]
Inspired by Camena's source/spring he governed in the toga clad
And this tradition it holds true while seven centuries have passed
If to my precepts/teachings you will hold, for many more it's going to last To Rome despite my origins as rural legal advocate The gods called me as model both as orator and magistrate
8.
The orator before all things must never ever be a bore
And even on the dullest topic find his mark and hit full score
But this be done/he does with dignity, avoiding all cheap stage effects
And with quick wit the heckling claque's intrusions craftily deflects
An orator worth of the name of ev'rything has ample gist
And, if he hasn't, he can still make use of an exempla/example list
But I digress - I often do - but this is not the lecture hall
Please don't take it as flattery me saying that I love you all
What is this world, if not a stage, for each of us a part to play?
[part to play...hard to pay...start to say?...I got it.]
And I was given billings prime to take the lead and save the day
For not by chance for Roma's sake in time mine was the consulate
The vilest plot I could unveil and just before it was too late. The gods send forth as champion me, an unknown rusty advocate In time of need to take the role of lucid Roman magistrate
9.
The Parthians do not fear me yet for my strategic genius
No blade I bathed in human blood for I am rather squeamish, yes
Of British cooking I stay clear, a parcel one calls them of rogues
The Gauls I hate for drinking beer (exception made for Allobroges)
No sword is worn within Rome's walls, the sanctified pomerium
Removed from fasces is the axe, no soldier holds imperium
And though I lack the clever stratagems of Quintus Fabius [fabulous, platypus? Ah, that's it!]
And cannot tell apart, ye gods, a spatha from a gladius
I am no blood-stained warrior. The tongue is mighty, not the sword
I have steered through the roughest seas the ship of state to safest port Therefore, despite of origin a humble legal advocate I am the very model of a glorious Roman magistrate
10.
Republican I am at heart, I hate all things tyrannical
Despite nice news of victories both Gallic and Britannical
I would not take - if offered one - a seat in a triumvirate
Political shenanigans of "great men" get me quite irate
My idol is Demosthenes the great Athenian orator
I do philippics just like him and give Rome's fetid foes what for
I hate that guy Marc Anthony and call him many nasty name
[lasting shame?...ghastly maim? Misplaced my head again...Duh!]
A scoundrel very wanton he, too fond of wine, whore, slut and dame
Not worthy of his noble birth, a moral stain on Roma's face
Defiler of all honest things, in short a total gross disgrace! Compare that to my humble self, this Arpinate and advocate Possessing moral stamina, apt for a Roman magistrate
Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
The national parks are so small, and generally don't have the resources the private sector is looking for. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [1] holdings are potentially more attractive. OTOH, as privately held lands, they fall under state jurisdiction for royalties and restoration requirements. Why is so much of Wyoming's coal mined on federal lands? Because even deep-red Wyoming levies much higher royalties and taxes than the feds do, and has much more stringent reclamation requirements.
[1] I spent too many years in western states, and on a western state government legislative staff in particular. In my head, the BLM acronym is always associated with "What have those d*ckheads done now?"
"We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The Department is tapping into America's commercial genius, and we're embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm." Secretary of War Pete Hegseth remarked, "AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI's future positive impact across the War Department."
...
GenAI.mil is another building block in America's AI revolution. The War Department is unleashing a new era of operational dominance, where every warfighter wields frontier AI as a force multiplier. The release of GenAI.mil is an indispensable strategic imperative for our fighting force, further establishing the United States as the global leader in AI.
All things 2025 are 2005 again. This is Rumsfeld's Revolution in Military Affairs v2.0. Find "Networked" and replace with "AI." Find "Iraq," and replace with "Venezuela." They will bring the Shock And Awe again, and then falter on the lack of HUMINT and any plan for what comes after that might bring stability and hope to a population that no one in the administration gives a single damn about.
Complete Charlie Foxtrot in the making once again, but the techbros are ready at the trough.
Warner Bros. has released a trailer and poster for the Supergirl movie coming out next June. Perhaps I'll take granddaughter #1 to the theater to explain it to me.
Teddy the Treehugger? No thanks. Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
when my wife and i were in Japan many years ago we wandered into a club one afternoon, somewhere in Tokyo, and watched a local rock band of young guys playing songs for their not-quite-a-dozen friends - just like local bands everywhere.
last week, YouTube started recommending a bunch of Japanese post-rock / noise bands to me for some reason. i can't even read their titles or band names, so clicking on one is a pure crap shoot.
i like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7apuNjIRe0
On “Open Thread”
We shouldn't forget or forgive what was done by our side at Abu Ghraib.
But now I'm triggered by "palpably abstract".
"
GftNC, thanks for the Stewart Lee piece. He hits similar notes pre Trump here
https://youtu.be/D2DkYHbSxUE?si=GqYxfZTM9PqD4NT5
The transcript is in his book How I Escaped My Certain Fate
And, I was reading this great book of, of trial transcripts, of American soldiers accused of human-rights abuses in, in Abu Ghraib, which was of course closed today. And, um … I don’t know if you remember Charles Graner, he was a fat American soldier but he had a moustache, so you could identify him. And he was the guy that organised the photographing of a naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian being dragged out of a cell, er, on his hands and knees, er, on a dog’s lead. And, um, in his defence, er, his lawyer, Charles Graner’s lawyer said that the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian wasn’t being dragged out of the cell but was actually crawling of his own free will. And I just wondered how many other lines of defence they rejected before they settled on that one. And also what the naked, hooded, bound Iraqi civilian might have been crawling of his own free will towards? And I like to think he was crawling towards the notion of Western democracy. But obviously he was having some difficulty knowing which way to crawl, er, because of the hood, er, and because of the fact that he was approaching a palpably abstract concept.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
I think Japan does have that Chinese heritage of music education for young people, but the Cultural Revolution destroyed large ensembles of Western music, so you don't have the same ethos as Japan.
The institutions in China have been rebuilt in the intervening 50 years, and music is a required subject for primary and secondary school, but that discontinuity, plus the fact that academic subjects are more highly emphasized means that the situation is a little different from Japan.
You do have the same thing here with students who said that their mother (usually, the father most of the time doesn't deal with this) forced them to play piano, but a number of them say that they hated it at the time, but now appreciate it.
A couple of anecdotes, in Japan, every jhs and hs has a class chorus competition and it always surprised me that there was always at least 1 or 2 students within the class who played piano well enough to accompany. The whole thing is often run by the students, so you get this move away from a teacher centered thing to student led.
Another factoid that always amazed me, when a broadcaster records/televises a concert, they don't have to train the broadcast staff, they can simply give them annotated orchestra scores because they all can read music to a degree that the score acts as a shot list.
In Willie Ruff's autobiography, Call to Assembly, there is a chapter about the Mitchell-Ruff duo (Ruff plays french horn and bass) going to visit China and lecture at the Shanghai conservatory in 1981, which was 5 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The whole chapter is interesting, but this is particularly relevant
One [question] came from an older Chinese teacher. "When you created 'Shanghai Blues' just now," he asked, "did you have a form for it, or a logical plan?"
I said, "I just started tapping my foot, then a theme suggested itself, which I played on the horn, and Mitchell heard it. And he answered And after that we heard and answered, heard and answered, heard and answered."
"But can you play it again?" the professor asked.
"We never can.
He would not accept my answer. "But that is beyond our imagination. Our students here play a piece a hundred times, or two hundred times, to get it exactly right. You play something once-something that has great value-and then you throw it away."
I said that if we played the same music twice in an improvisation, the second time would be no improvisation at all. "We call improvisation the lifeblood of jazz because the performer is challenged to do it better each time."
The old teacher as much as threw up his hands. The mystery persisted.
This isn't to suggest that there are no Asian musicians who improvise, on the local level, there are some folks here whose concerts I go to and have great chops. (perhaps the topic of a future music thread), but I think all of them have had a period overseas where they immersed themselves and then have returned.
"
Band -- both marching band and wind orchestra -- was one of the really positive things for me in high school. Not just the music. Our band director was a retired US Army master sergeant, and by the time I was a senior I realized that if you paid attention, he was also giving you a master class in motivating young adults.
On “Open Thread”
Just trying again, in case I found out how to delete one link
Part 1
Stewart Lee: Remember when America used to destroy democracy in style? Those were the days
The CIA once promoted abstract expressionism as a tool of regime change. Now we have AI videos of Trump bombing people with faeces
Stewart Lee
Dec 12, 2025
I wasn’t even born in the 50s but I’m already nostalgic for the days when, rather than re-bombing drowning Venezuelan sailors to make sure none survive an airstrike in a war Congress has not authorised, American operatives in sharp suits and sunglasses instead tried to implement regime change subtly, discreetly and even tastefully, to a soundtrack of Paul Desmond cool jazz classics. It’s called democracy, daddio, you dig?
The historian Frances Stonor Saunders believes the CIA promoted the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in order to discredit Soviet realist art. Donald Trump, meanwhile, just gave some kind of made-up award to the band Kiss, who pretended to be magic animals from space in the 1970s.
A world in which America could imagine abstract art as a cultural propaganda tool is a far cry from one where the president releases an AI video of himself carpet bombing protesters with clods of human excrement, although the 60s Italian artist Piero Manzoni, who canned his faeces and sold them, might recognise Trump as a kindred creative spirit. On balance though, those postwar CIA guys were a better class of bastard.
Because on Monday, quietly and without much fanfare from the mainstream media, the world we grew up in changed for ever and our Euro-doom was decreed. Donald J Trump’s National Security Strategy statement explained, quite explicitly, that he will be actively aiding European far-right nationalist parties to win elections in order to “restore western identity”, end mass migration into Europe, and enforce a contemporary American idea of freedom of speech, which appears to mean the right to say anything irrespective of its accuracy. Don’t like these facts? The algorhythmically amplified far-right avatars of American social media have others. And if those don’t convince you, the president has a cartoon of himself bombing people with shit.
Conservative commentators like to imagine Donald J Trump as a largely unserious presence whose provocative statements are meant to bait the libtards rather than to represent a genuine direction of political travel. Keir Starmer in turn chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast with Magic King Charles of Ye Olde England, and some string.
Trump in turn has already agreed to use the United Kingdom as an enormous energy-sapping battery, housing all the servers needed to generate the algorithmically skewed content that will eventually destroy liberal European democracy. Result! Sir Keir did a great deal with Donald, who then sent him down to the DIY shop to buy some striped paint.
But since Monday’s White House National Security Strategy statement, Starmer’s going to have to up the standard full English at Windsor Castle to at least the level of the late lamented Little Chef Olympic if he wants to avoid the country falling fast into fascism. Baked bean ramekins all round! Just how good can those Windsor Castle sausages be? And will the Royal footmen even be able to find any sausages now Prince Andrew, currently Andrew, is rumoured to have been playing a game involving hiding them?
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
I used to have a Samoan client who showed me videos of Samoan marching bands--a very big thing there. He said that every town had a marching band. There's a big festival when marching bands from all over come to one city and march in a huge parade. Each band has a clown that messes with the band while they march--laying down in the road, running in and out of the ranks etc. I have no idea why the concept of a marching band resonated with Samoans. Maybe because they have a tradition of drumming and group singing combined with movement?
On “Open Thread”
Part 1 obviously had more links than I realised, so is still "waiting for approval".
"
Part 2
Keir Starmer chooses to see Trump as some kind of elderly greedy badger who can be placated with offers of a deluxe breakfast
As an alleged teenage fan of Hitler alleged to have told small black British children to go home to Africa, although all in a spirit of harmless banter if he even said it at all, Nigel Farage would benefit from Trump’s foreign intervention in our politics. But being a man of honour and principle he will of course reject America’s direct assistance as it would be hypocritical to do otherwise. Because back in 2016, when Barack Obama said Brexit would harm British trade with America, Farage said: “Vladimir Putin behaved in a more statesmanlike manner than President Obama did in this referendum campaign. Obama came to Britain, and I think behaved disgracefully, telling us we would be at the back of the queue. Vladimir Putin maintained his silence throughout the whole campaign.” Farage and Putin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
We must assume that, unlike Farage’s colleague Nathan Gill, the Reform leader wasn’t being paid at that point to promote Putin, the world leader he most admires, who, although nominally silent himself during Farage’s referendum, certainly had a lot of online bots making a lot of pro-Brexit noise on Farage’s behalf.
Don’t look for much pushback against Trump’s plan for European regime change from America’s on-off enemy-ally Russia or the rightwing British media. Both Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov and the Times columnist Melanie Phillips found some common ground to jointly endorse Trump’s plans, the former saying “The adjustments we’re seeing are largely consistent with our vision … we consider this a positive step”, and the latter commenting “Only Britain and Europe can save themselves. That’s what the Trump administration is saying.”
Phillips appears to welcome the dismantling of our democracy as long as it returns us to “principles rooted in historic faith, traditions and institutions”, and the imposition of a puppet fascist government is a small price to pay to get Songs of Praise back on the BBC. And the Kremlin wants to make sure an Islamified UK doesn’t neglect all those beautiful old cathedrals so beloved of its architecturally infatuated international chemical weapons assassins, slaughtering civilians on our streets.
Defence analysts discreetly admit we may already be at war with Russia, which is probing our communications cables, badgering European airports with drones and quietly flooding our social media with misinformation to make your Facebook-following uncle foam at the mouth and ruin your upcoming Christmas dinner by insisting Volodymyr Zelenskyy spends all the Ukraine aid money on yachts, cocaine and designer puffa jackets.
And the moment we start sending Russia’s seized assets to Ukraine we can expect to see our entire online infrastructure shut down with the flick of an undersea switch, as British politicians’ eyes melt out of their faces while swathes of civilians evaporate behind them on the high street in invisible chemical warfare clouds, tapping at their suddenly unresponsive phones and asking an inert ChatGPT why their internal organs are wriggling about on the pavement.
But the truth is we are now at war with Trump’s America as well, and the only reason we don’t recognise the situation for what it obviously is is because it seems so utterly inconceivable. And still Starmer prevaricates about re-entering the European customs union alongside Trump’s other intended European victim nations, because he worries it may jeopardise our American trade deal, a scarecrow walking into a furnace.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
Interesting. I'm fairly familiar with how China does their music education because of the music writing class I've taught. There the emphasis is more on testing and certification than on ensemble playing. I'm sure that there must be a lot of young people who did the lessons and found something they loved, but most of the students who have written essays about their experience complain that it was too much about technical ability and challenge, and not nearly enough about play. They were pushed into it by their parents in order to have an objective certification of their diligence and discipline. Expression was secondary. Their stories are mostly about rediscovering music and learning to love it only after they had either refused any further lessons, or crashed and burned out of the competitive testing at a lower level of proficiency. They only learned to love playing after they came back to it with no outside pressure to excel.
Are there parallels in Japan, or is this one of those cultural differences over how each nation expresses their collectivity?
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the combining of roman letters and kanji is pretty fascinating and shows how integrated the writing systems are becoming
I have seen kanji and kana, of course. And romanji. But a combination of kanji and romanji is a new one. Perhaps it has emerged in the
yearsdecades since I studied the language....On “Cory Doctorow and enshittification”
I am thinking that they are going to end up using chinese tech, and at some point, the Chinese will flip a kill switch and none of our stuff will work.
On “Open Thread”
How I got to Mint Mobile seems strange, at least to me. My wife and I signed up for T-Mobile's cheap plan, unlimited everything for two people aged 55+. Moved to Fort Collins, where every network's coverage was great. Fort Collins had started requiring all wired networks -- phone, power, cable -- to be buried in 1948. The only tall poles left were the power authority's high-voltage lines, all of the cell companies used them, which is why coverage was great. Then the feds decided putting cell antennas on HVAC poles was dangerous and required that they be removed. Fort Collins now has some of the worst cellular coverage of any city. By happenstance, T-Mobile's was the best in the parts of the city where I spent most of my time. At some point after my wife went into memory care I was fixing up service. Mint Mobile was the least expensive of the discount companies reselling T-Mobile service. At the end of the initial period, they sent me e-mail and text saying, "We recommend you change to this cheaper plan." As I recall, all of my phone service since I was an undergraduate back in the 1970s cost more than the $15/month I'm paying now.
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Who says corporate America doesn’t have at least some sense of humor left?
Ryan Reynolds makes humorous, self-deprecating Mint Mobile commercials. In 2020 and 2024, he was the world's second-highest-paid actor. Now that he's an entrepreneur, he's also a billionaire.
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To fit the vibe...
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Who says corporate America doesn't have at least some sense of humor left? I got this card from Mint Mobile. It included a fragment of holiday wrapping paper :^)
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The Roman magistrate song
Tune: The Major General's Song (Gilbert&Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance)
Chorus: |: His name is Marcus Tullius Cicero :|
Cicero: My name is/Indeed I'm Marcus Tullius Cicero
1.
I am the very model of a proper Roman magistrate
although of origin a poor provincial legal advocate
I came to Rome with country drawl, behaved and clothed/dressed still/quite prissily
Then came to fame defending the oppressed poor folks of Sicily.
I beat that Asianic fop, illustrious Hortensius
The greatest advocate till then, an omen so portentious
That gave my standing quite a boost. I moved to better neighbourhood
[neighbourhood! maidenhood? hazelwood? Oh, of course!]
I can/could afford now finally some furniture of citrus wood
I ran the course of honors through and "suo anno" at each stage
An akin meteoric rise you'll seek in vain on his'try's page
See, does/did not turn my origin as studied legal advocate
me into a fine model for a proper Roman magistrate?
2.
I love the lengthy period with con- and subjunctives galore
I best each verbal labyrinth as Theseus did the minotaur
I know my ornaments and tropes from zeugma to apostrophy
I practice hypotyposis that leads to eucatastrophe
I shun the tmesis like the plague, don't mix en- with hypallage
Against non-cretic clausulae I have an aching allergy
Occasions for anacoluth or sentence aposiopese...
[mayonaise? Calliopese? Alcibiades?... Eureka/I've got it/Ah, but of course!]
And don't insinuate insinuations are just lies - oh, please.
I can explain the difference twixt alleg'ry and metaphor
and can provide for evr'y term the context that it matters for
This stanza has too many lines, I humbly do apologise
[eulogize?...extemporize? Nobel prize?... Something more epic!]
But with this topic dear to me the words swell like Apollo's rise
No one can yet convict me of abuse of inconcinnity
My subtle sense of tone does truly verge on pure divinity
So I from modest origins, a mere provincial advocate,
became the very model of a brilliant Roman magistrate
3.
I dabble in philosophy, in dreams I talk to Socrates
Of rivals I am as devoid as medicine's Hippocrates
A challenger compared to me sounds Numid or Iberian
I'd win a dispute easily no matter what criterion.
I can force words to do my will, of Latin mine is mastery
Comparable my aptitude to expert sculptor's plastery
I keep my gestures dignified, at least when on the senate floor
[senate floor...janitor?...penny whore?...Ah! Of course!]
Avoid the roll-of-eyes and row-of-arms, I'm not a semaphor.
A homo novus though I am, by birth a mere equestrian
I soared through toil and eloquence past nobles more pedestrian
So out of plainest origins a paltry legal advocate
arose as very model of a palmy Roman magistrate
4.
I have a slave named Tiro who brought forth the art stenography
And who, if fates permit, one day will publish my biography
He notes down ev'ry word that in the public or at home I've said
And of course in the most august assembly here in Rome, senate!
Although with voters common I will be at times gregarious
I find the populares faction utterly nefarious
So without doubt I throw my lot in with the noble optimates
[optimates! obstinates? pots and plates?... I've got it!]
For what they're always aiming at "best for the state" approximates
I love the toga candida and the elections annual
My brother Quintus was so kind to write the winner's manual
With this assistance I was spared a certain loser's tragic fate
Became with vote unanimous of Rome the highest magistrate
5.
I can declaim in Greek like born in Athens or in Miletos
I showed that rascal Catiline who really is in Rome the boss
Some say his motivation was just violated vanity
But then to start a coup attempt was madness and insanity
He clearly was a bolshevik, although I don't know what that means,
and right against the mos maiorum but that's normal for such fiends
I then got hailed as savior of our sacred fatherland
[fatherland...rather bent?...leather scent?...EUREKA]
but squinting sods did disagree and planned my triumphs there to end.
Thus afterwards you exiled me through that tribune so odious
Who had exchanged his honest name for that of vulgar Clodius
With fire denied (and water too) exiled to places desolate
I fell down from the lofty peak of supreme Roman magistrate
6.
It's said the perfect orator a good man is well versed in speech
And for him who has mastered this no thing to aim for 's out of reach
I climbed through efforts tireless the heights of Attic oratory
I penned some self-promoting but unsuccessful epic poetry
The way I use the language shall one day be made canonical
Which given no bum talks like this should be seen as ironical
Categorise my style as neither Asian nor atticist
[pacifist, can't resist? Oh, me stupid!]
I walk the golden middle course, am not baroque but classicist
I made the Latin language shine and stay for all eternity
To form with Persian, Greek, Sanskrit forever a fraternity
And thus despite my origin as country bumpkin advocate
my eloquence made me the model of a Roman magistrate
7.
Indeed it was an/the orator who first united as a group
the cultureless humanity fed up with bitter acorn soup
He taught them all there was to know and how to found a/the city state
He was the natural candidate to serve as its first magistrate
We know that our first Roman king - Quirinus Romulus - could wield
The word as well as any sword. The eloquence served as his shield
Then Numa his more peaceful heir could do away with sagum red
[garum fed?...Boba Fett?... Ouch! It' s so obvious]
Inspired by Camena's source/spring he governed in the toga clad
And this tradition it holds true while seven centuries have passed
If to my precepts/teachings you will hold, for many more it's going to last
To Rome despite my origins as rural legal advocate
The gods called me as model both as orator and magistrate
8.
The orator before all things must never ever be a bore
And even on the dullest topic find his mark and hit full score
But this be done/he does with dignity, avoiding all cheap stage effects
And with quick wit the heckling claque's intrusions craftily deflects
An orator worth of the name of ev'rything has ample gist
And, if he hasn't, he can still make use of an exempla/example list
But I digress - I often do - but this is not the lecture hall
Please don't take it as flattery me saying that I love you all
What is this world, if not a stage, for each of us a part to play?
[part to play...hard to pay...start to say?...I got it.]
And I was given billings prime to take the lead and save the day
For not by chance for Roma's sake in time mine was the consulate
The vilest plot I could unveil and just before it was too late.
The gods send forth as champion me, an unknown rusty advocate
In time of need to take the role of lucid Roman magistrate
9.
The Parthians do not fear me yet for my strategic genius
No blade I bathed in human blood for I am rather squeamish, yes
Of British cooking I stay clear, a parcel one calls them of rogues
The Gauls I hate for drinking beer (exception made for Allobroges)
No sword is worn within Rome's walls, the sanctified pomerium
Removed from fasces is the axe, no soldier holds imperium
And though I lack the clever stratagems of Quintus Fabius
[fabulous, platypus? Ah, that's it!]
And cannot tell apart, ye gods, a spatha from a gladius
I am no blood-stained warrior. The tongue is mighty, not the sword
I have steered through the roughest seas the ship of state to safest port
Therefore, despite of origin a humble legal advocate
I am the very model of a glorious Roman magistrate
10.
Republican I am at heart, I hate all things tyrannical
Despite nice news of victories both Gallic and Britannical
I would not take - if offered one - a seat in a triumvirate
Political shenanigans of "great men" get me quite irate
My idol is Demosthenes the great Athenian orator
I do philippics just like him and give Rome's fetid foes what for
I hate that guy Marc Anthony and call him many nasty name
[lasting shame?...ghastly maim? Misplaced my head again...Duh!]
A scoundrel very wanton he, too fond of wine, whore, slut and dame
Not worthy of his noble birth, a moral stain on Roma's face
Defiler of all honest things, in short a total gross disgrace!
Compare that to my humble self, this Arpinate and advocate
Possessing moral stamina, apt for a Roman magistrate
On “How are you sleeping?”
Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
The national parks are so small, and generally don't have the resources the private sector is looking for. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [1] holdings are potentially more attractive. OTOH, as privately held lands, they fall under state jurisdiction for royalties and restoration requirements. Why is so much of Wyoming's coal mined on federal lands? Because even deep-red Wyoming levies much higher royalties and taxes than the feds do, and has much more stringent reclamation requirements.
[1] I spent too many years in western states, and on a western state government legislative staff in particular. In my head, the BLM acronym is always associated with "What have those d*ckheads done now?"
On “Cory Doctorow and enshittification”
Here's a big one.
https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4354916/the-war-department-unleashes-ai-on-new-genaimil-platform/
...
All things 2025 are 2005 again. This is Rumsfeld's Revolution in Military Affairs v2.0. Find "Networked" and replace with "AI." Find "Iraq," and replace with "Venezuela." They will bring the Shock And Awe again, and then falter on the lack of HUMINT and any plan for what comes after that might bring stability and hope to a population that no one in the administration gives a single damn about.
Complete Charlie Foxtrot in the making once again, but the techbros are ready at the trough.
On “Open Thread”
Warner Bros. has released a trailer and poster for the Supergirl movie coming out next June. Perhaps I'll take granddaughter #1 to the theater to explain it to me.
On “How are you sleeping?”
Teddy the Treehugger? No thanks. Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
On “Cory Doctorow and enshittification”
once upon a time everybody needed a telephone because it was the fastest and most reliable way to communicate with anyone in the world.
today, a telephone is a device that primarily gives advertisers and scammers a direct line to your attention.
On “How are you sleeping?”
Spanish-American War!
who doesn't want to be Teddy R?
On “Open Thread”
Set in stone...
On “How are you sleeping?”
Grenada. They even made a propaganda film about it.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.