Friday, October 29, 2021
Japan, books, paper and associated thoughts
I saw the term "Floating World prose" again recently, and had to remind myself what it referred to. Here's the Wiki explanation:
Ukiyo (浮世, "floating/fleeting/transient world") is the Japanese term used to describe the urban lifestyle and culture, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of Edo period Japan (1600–1867). Ukiyo culture developed in Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), the site of many brothels frequented by Japan's growing middle class. A prominent author of the ukiyo genre was Ihara Saikaku, who wrote The Life of an Amorous Woman. Ukiyo culture also arose in other cities, such as Osaka and Kyoto.
That author Ihara Saikaku was, apparently, Japan's first professional novel writer, after being a big hit in poetry:
...the death of his dearly beloved wife in 1675 had an extremely profound impact on him. A few days after her death, in an act of grief and true love, Saikaku started to compose a thousand-verse haikai poem over twelve hours. When this work was published it was called Haikai Single Day Thousand Verse (Haikai Dokugin Ichinichi). It was the first time that Saikaku had attempted to compose such a lengthy piece of literature. The overall experience and success that Saikaku received from composing such a mammoth exercise has been credited with sparking the writer's interest in writing novels....
Later in life he began writing racy accounts of the financial and amorous affairs of the merchant class and the demimonde. These stories catered to the whims of the newly prominent merchant class, whose tastes of entertainment leaned toward the arts and pleasure districts."
Surprisingly, his genre of "racy" writing included an entire book devoted to short stories of pederasty, The Great Mirror of Male Love. While I had previously heard of (many? some?) samurai operating a somewhat Greek like, "mentoring" pederasty system, I didn't realise that there was an entire popular book devoted to the topic written by the country's first famous professional author. It would seem from Wikipedia that the first English translation didn't appear until 1990, which is also surprising given you can imagine how popular this text would be in the gender and sexuality studies sections of some universities. Mind you, the Japanese being Japanese, apparently a lot of the stories involve bloody and tragic endings:
When the woman woke in the morning, they were both silent, lying in the same bed. She called her son: "Rise up, lazy boy!" But there was no answer. She went into the room and turned back the blanket which covered them, and saw that Shinosuke had pierced Senpatji's heart with his sword passed through his own breast and out at his back.
His mother stood there for a long time overwhelmed at the sight of these two lovers' bodies, and then, in her sorrow and distress, killed herself in the same room.
Just your standard Japanese attraction to impermanence and the tragic!
Anyway, this got me thinking about publishing in Japan in the Edo period, as well as literacy, and I found Sci-hub gave me access to an article in the Journal of the Institute of Conservation all about the topic. Here's some interesting stuff:
In 1603, Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa (1543–1616) established a
hegemony over a country that had seen intermittent warfare
between various provincial warlords over much of the past two
centuries.2 The Tokugawa shogunate controlled Japan over the Edo
period, bringing stability and prosperity to the society and economy.
By the early eighteenth century the capital Edo (now Tokyo) had
become the largest metropolitan centre in Japan, with a population
of over one million. Half of Edo’s population was the ruling class,
the samurai or warriors, and the rest were merchants and craftsmen.
The two other major cities of Osaka, the principal trading centre, and
Kyoto, for centuries the capital and craft centre, each grew to 400,000
residents.3 With the development of monetary economy, economic
power shifted from rural agricultural producers to the urban
merchants and craftsmen (a group that was known as townsmen).
With urbanisation, economic growth and the government policy of
rule by law, literacy increased during this period. The samurai class
now became civil administrators, holding national and local
government posts in addition to their military ranks. They had to
rely on knowledge rather than military power to survive the
politically and economically complex society. Merchants had to
master account-keeping and administration. Rural village leaders
had to manage records of community activities and prepare tax
reports for their local lords. To meet these needs, educational
institutions rapidly spread in both cities and rural villages. By the
end of the Edo period, there were around 270 han-supported schools
for elite samurai education, more than 1500 private academies for
scholarly studies, and over 75,000 private schools for merchants and
farmers (commoner schools) throughout the country.4 Although it is
difficult to calculate, researchers estimate that by the middle of the
nineteenth century approximately 50–60% of the Japanese population was literate.5
How do those literacy rates compare to, say, England?:
In 1800 around 40 percent of males and 60 percent of females in England and Wales were illiterate; by 1900 illiteracy for both sexes had dropped to around 3 percent.
That's a big change over the course of a century. You can read about how that happened here.
Anyway, it sounds as if the Japanese had a pretty good start on literacy.
Back to making books in the Edo period:
Until the sixteenth century, printed texts were produced using woodblocks and were made almost exclusively by Buddhist institutions. By the end of the sixteenth century, movable type had been introduced to Japan from Europe and Korea.6
From the 1590s to the1640s, court aristocrats, political and social elites, priests and commercial publishers used movable type technology, and over 500 titles were printed. However, between 1624 and 1643, woodblock printing began to re-emerge and replace movable type. The dominance of woodblock printing was mainly due to its financial advantages over the movable type.7 Except for a few bestsellers and nineteenth-century popular novels, publishers usually ran a small number of copies at one time and reprinted repeatedly, using the same woodblocks, for an extended period (sometimes over a hundred years). Block printing was ideal for this type of operation because once the wooden blocks had been carved they could be stored and used again as the market demanded. In this way publishers were able to recoup the initially high outlay of production and make a profit.8 In addition, a publisher’s right to print and the blocks themselves had a capital value and publishers could make a profit by selling their blocks, or reduce the risk of the initial investment by buying existing blocks.9 Movable type did not have the same commercial value and came to an end by 1650. At the peak of the printed culture in the eighteenth century, it is estimated that over 10,000 printed titles had been published with more than 10million copies on the market.10 A wide variety of texts, from classical to manuals, were published in response to the demands of an expanding reading population. The dominance of block printing continued into the 1890s, when it was replaced by the new western-style metal movable type and mechanised press. Binding practices also changed from the soft cover side-stitched binding to the hard cover western binding.
That's kind of surprising - moveable font being replaced for a long time by woodblock. What a curious country.
The article also explains that a sizeable paper re-cycling business was created by the book industry:
In the Edo region, recycled paper was first produced at the Asakusa temple for its own use in the early seventeenth century. A network for the recycled paper industry had been established by the early eighteenth century. Edo was the largest waste paper supplier. Below the merchant class was a class of people called eta, hinin or ‘the humble’, who lived in the slums of Edo and who engaged in waste collection, including waste paper. Their waste business was organised under government control and the gathered waste paper was sold to papermakers of recycled paper. There were several villages (communities) in the Edo region that made recycled paper. The first villages started at Asakusa, and moved to Sanyabori in the early nineteenth century, they then moved north to Senjyu in the twentieth century. These villages were located very close to the waste business communities (waste paper suppliers). The recycled paper produced in the Edo region was called Asakusashi (meaning Asakusa paper) and it retained this name even after its production had moved from Asakusa to Sanyobori and Senjyu. Various types of recycled paper including toilet paper, book text paper, book covers, building materials and stationery were made and sold to the market through the recycled paper wholesalers. The paper did not require
the kind of quality needed for writing paper. Thus, recycled papermaking was undertaken by people such as poor farmers, who had little skill in papermaking. With ever-expanding demands, the recycled paper industry flourished in Tokyo until the twentieth century.
This recycling sounds very modern-ish. And toilet paper! I don't think I have ever read much about its history before, but it would appear from this account that the Chinese and Japanese were way ahead of the West in using it:
By the early 14th century, the Chinese were manufacturing toilet paper at the rate of 10 million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets annually. In 1393, thousands of perfumed paper sheets were also produced for the Hongwu Emperor’s imperial family...
...in the Western world, modern commercially available toilet paper didn’t originate until 1857, when Joseph Gayetty of New York marketed a "Medicated Paper, for the Water-Closet,” sold in packages of 500 sheets for 50 cents
Oh, and as a complete aside to this entire post, I just read this in the article about the use of the Roman toilet sponge:
The most famous example of ancient ‘toilet paper’ comes from the Roman world [during the first century A.D.] and Seneca's story about the gladiator who killed himself by going into a toilet and shoving the communal sponge on a stick down his throat,” says Erica Rowan, an environmental archaeologist and a lecturer in classical archaeology at the University of London. The sponges, known as tersoriums, may have been used once or cleaned in a bucket of vinegar or salt water and reused, or they may have been used more like toilet brushes than toilet paper.
Wait a minute: does this give an additional gruesome detail to the crucifixion of Christ? I have always been a bit puzzled about the detail of vinegar, or "sour wine" offered on a sponge - I hope it wasn't a toilet sponge. [Ugh]. I see that there are some detailed articles about whether it was actually meant to be an act of mercy or mockery - but has anyone ever thought before of it possibly being really, really insulting and cruel? (The only reason this thought occurs to me is because I had not read before about the sponge being cleaned in a bucket of vinegar - I assumed they were just rinsed in water.)
[Update: But, of course, it seems nearly every thought has been thought of before, so I see someone on Reddit speculated about this a few years ago.]
What an unpleasant note to end on - sorry.
They knew they were playing a cynical political game all the time
The LNP needs to be severely punished at the next election:
Former finance minister who helped sink carbon price now urging Australia to adopt one
Mathias Cormann, now head of the OECD, was instrumental in repealing the nation’s key climate policy in 2014
I suppose a certain proportion of them were just outright climate change denialists who still prefer to believe spivs and self interested billionaires over scientists - but out of the total LNP, I would guess that 2/3 of them knew all the time that they were just playing cynical politics with carbon pricing.
And Malcolm didn't have the bravery while in power to call it out.
Ever since Gillard lost, the leadership of the LNP has been almost startlingly incompetent and an embarrassment.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Vaccinated, fully
Just had my second AZ vaccination for COVID. Had my first on 5 August - the 3 month wait seems really long compared to the 3 weeks for Pfizer.
But I presume that in 6 month's time, I'll be getting a Pfizer or Moderna booster.
On the topic of COVID more generally, my early observation that that no one understands yet properly why the waves of infection come and go still seems accurate.
Seems to me no one knows why Sydney and Florida numbers dropped away so rapidly, while Melbourne continues to struggle. Singapore is having its own problems with getting back to "normal":
Singapore is looking into an "unusual surge" of 5,324 new infections of COVID-19, the city-state's health ministry said, its highest such figure since the beginning of the pandemic, as beds in intensive care units fill up.
Ten new deaths on Wednesday carried the toll to 349, after 3,277 infections the previous day, while the ICU utilisation rate is nearing 80%, despite a population that is 84% fully vaccinated, with 14% receiving booster doses.
Russia and Eastern Europe are having big problems, but with low vaccination rates, at least it is more understandable:
Russia on Monday reported 37,930 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, its highest in a single day since the start of the pandemic, as well as 1,069 deaths related to the virus. read more
Frustrated by the slow take-up of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine by its own population, authorities are introducing stricter measures this week to try to curb the spread of the pandemic.
I predict: there will be more somewhat puzzling rises and falls in COVID numbers in pretty fully vaccinated locations.
Max Boot is right
This is appalling and insane. But there has always been a lunatic fringe in U.S. politics. In the 1950s and ’60s, the John Birch Society believed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent and that the fluoridation of water was a communist conspiracy.
It’s true that, thanks to Facebook and Fox “News” Channel, nutty views spread faster and further than in the days when conspiracy theorists had to rely on mailing mimeographed manifestos. But the biggest difference between now and then isn’t the Republican grass roots. It’s the Republican leadership, or lack thereof. In the past, Republican leaders stood up to the zealots in their midst. Today, they stoke the flames of extremism — and wonder why they keep getting burned.
Oh look, a new Catholic disgrace
Last weekend, the leading voices of the QAnon camp gathered in Las Vegas to discuss the state of the world and the future of their movement. The prominent names in attendance at the convention included Jim and Ron Watkins, a father-and-son pair accused of inventing the conspiracy theory.
But the speech that ultimately garnered the most attention was by the actor Jim Caviezel, who is best known—at least among the conservative Christian crowd—for playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. Caviezel’s speech, which amounted to a literal call to arms against the liberal worldview, concluded with the proclamation that “the Storm is upon us”—a direct invocation of QAnon’s central conspiracy theory.
On Monday, Caviezel’s speech was quoted approvingly by a Catholic bishop. “All need to listen to this speech,” wrote Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas.
While Strickland didn’t directly reference QAnon in his tweet, his critics weren’t surprised that he agreed with the sentiment. Strickland, who is 62, rose to prominence in the Texas Church while blogging about his daily jogs, priestly duties, parish goings-on, and his eventual elevation from priest to bishop under Pope Benedict in 2012. He has maintained his online presence since then, and while he is just one of some 250 bishops in the U.S., he has leveraged his platform to become one of the leading voices of the Catholic right....
Strickland has supported a nutty right wing reactionary priest:
As the Bishop of Tyler I endorse Fr Altman’s statement in this video,” Strickland wrote on Twitter in response. “My shame is that it has taken me so long. Thank you Fr Altman for your COURAGE. If you love Jesus & His Church & this nation…pleases HEED THIS MESSAGE.”
In subsequent videos, Altman said both climate change and COVID were hoaxes, made homophobic, misogynistic, and antisemitic comments, blasted Black Lives Matter and “cancel culture,” blamed Breanna Taylor’s death on her choice of boyfriends, urged Catholics to avoid the COVID vaccine, called the Jan. 6 insurrection a “false flag operation,” and accused Pope Francis of “betray[ing God] like Judas.” Strickland has only doubled down on his support for Altman, tweeting that the priest was only “in trouble for speaking the truth.” For a while, onlookers speculated that Altman would try to transfer to Strickland’s diocese for shelter.
Quarterly profits noted
Just a reminder about how much the tech giants make:
Google's parent company Alphabet announced profits Tuesday that jumped to $18.9 billion, even as the online colossus faces increased regulatory pressure and shifting of the lockdown lifestyles that have so benefited Big Tech.
(That's a quarterly figure, by the way.)
And how do the other giants compare?:
Google's results came the same day that Microsoft announced a quarterly earnings surge fueled by cloud computing demand, saying it made a profit of $20.5 billion in the recently ended quarter. Revenue jumped 22 percent from the last quarter last year to $43.5 billion.
And a day earlier, Facebook announced that its profit in the third quarter grew to $9.2 billion—a 17 percent increase—and its ranks of users increased to 2.91 billion.
The strong financial figures came as the leading social network battles a fresh crisis since former employee Frances Haugen leaked reams of internal studies showing executives knew of their sites' potential for harm.
Twitter however on Tuesday posted a $537 million net loss in the quarter after settling a lawsuit alleging investors were misled about slowing user growth.
Despite revenue rising sharply with the help of robust ad sales, Twitter still posted an operating loss of $743 million, fueled by the more than $800 million settlement.
Just a reminder: NASA annual budget - now about $23 billion.
The tech giants should really be building cities on the Moon by now. Or at least a cave to keep Peter Thiel in.
A disgusting situation
The idiot supporters of Trump in Australia like to pretend that this doesn't happen - a cultist fascist American mob threatening violence against both Democrat and Republican figures who don't buy into their fantasy conspiracies that Trump won the election. But it is obvious from reading extracts from their "free speech" forums (like Gab or Parler) that such threats would be being made continuously.
And how much effort is Republican leadership putting into dousing this fire? None.
Idiots don't see the threat of fascism when its staring them in the face.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Still that big a deal?
The Guardian makes a big headline out of something that I thought was not meant to be such a big deal anymore:
A-League midfielder Josh Cavallo has come out as gay, making the Young Socceroo the only known current male top-flight professional footballer in the world to be out.
The 21-year-old announced the news in a lengthy and heartfelt social media post, which accompanied a personal video shared by his club Adelaide United, writing that he was “ready to speak about something personal that I’m finally comfortable to talk about in my life”.
I feel a little disappointed that it is no doubt inappropriate now to make the joke that I (as a person completely uninterested in the sport) assumed that they (soccer players) were all gay anyway. [Sorry, but I still think that is a little bit funny when applied to the code full of the most overly dramatic acting seen on the sporting field.]
But really, given that Ian Roberts came out as gay in [Googles the subject] 1995 (!) in the very blokey world of Rugby League, it seems a bit ridiculous that there is still that much attention being given to a guy not even born then who has grown up in the world of youth who are extremely accepting of gay relationships coming out as gay.
Or is it a case that I don't understand how unpleasantly macho the world of soccer really is?
Don't know.
Update: I just watched the social media video. It's extremely slick and obviously professionally made, with dramatic looks thrown in despite it being clear he has had no problem with coming out. It's hard to tell what younger people who are into "influencer" videos might think of it - maybe they won't mind that it's a media construct. But I reckon some people (OK, like me) may think it's a bit too much, and would have thought more of it if it looked like something thrown together with the same message, but without the professional gloss.
A wee space problem
Found this at Phys.org, but I presume it'll be in the popular press soon enough:
SpaceX is taming some toilet troubles in its Dragon capsules before launching four more astronauts.
The company and NASA want to make sure any toilet leaks won't compromise the capsule launching early Sunday from Kennedy Space Center or another one that's been parked at the International Space Station since April.
During SpaceX's first private flight last month, a tube came unglued, spilling urine onto fans and beneath the floor, said William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who used to work for NASA. The same problem was recently discovered inside the Dragon capsule at the space station, he told reporters Monday night.
As a permanent fix, SpaceX has welded on the urine-flushing tube that's inside the company's newest capsule, named Endurance by its U.S.-German crew. NASA isn't quite finished reviewing the last-minute fix.
NASA astronaut Raja Chari, the spacecraft commander, said Tuesday that he has "complete confidence" in the repairs. SpaceX jumped quickly on the issue, he noted, with hundreds of people working on it to ensure the crew's safety.
As for the Dragon capsule in orbit, less urine pooled beneath the floor panels than the one that carried a billionaire and three others on a three-day flight, Gerstenmaier said. That's because the NASA-led crew only spent a day living in it before arriving at the space station.
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Cosmetic surgery takedown
What a stunning piece of journalism on last night's Four Corners, hey?
You know what the shambolic surgery of that "celebrity" cosmetic "surgeon" kept reminding me of? The gruesome eyeball replacement scene from Minority Report, admittedly on somewhat smaller scale.
And, as usual, when I see great investigative journalism like that on the ABC, I keep thinking "how stupid are Sinclair Davidson and Chris Berg for running a vendetta against what's now practically the only network that does great work like this. It's like they want people to stay stupid and unaware."
Personal mystery solved, nearly 30 years later
Way back in about 1993, I lived for a couple of years in a townhouse at Sunshine Beach, just behind Noosa Heads, a stunning part of the world.
What became not so pleasant, however, were many of the summer months during which, at the very earliest start of a brightening sky, (around 4.20 am, due to no daylight saving - I just looked it up to make sure I wasn't mistaken), a single bird would sit in a neighbour's tree to the rear of my courtyard and make a loud call for about 30 minutes, continuously. Then stop.
My bedroom was on the upper floor and faced the tree.
It drove me nuts. It was impossible to sleep through, and after being awake for 30 minutes at that time of morning, it's pretty impossible to go back to sleep again. To get even 7 hours of sleep at night, you would have to be asleep by 9.30pm, which would mean no TV after, say, 9pm, which adults generally like to watch later than that. And it went on for months. I reckon it routinely cut down my sleep to less than 6 hours, so I was just constantly sleep deprived in the summer.
Not only that, I couldn't even see the bird, and although I did try throwing something into the tree one morning (I don't recall what, but it wasn't anything dangerous to the neighbour), it was not to be dissuaded.
I asked at work if anyone knew what type of bird it was, not that that would have helped. No one did. And this was pre-internet, so going on line to see if anyone else was going nuts with a local avian loudmouth was impossible. The only hope would be to ring a naturist on talk back radio, or something.
Anyway, fast forward to now, and my CNA subscription on Youtube throws up a story from Singapore about a bird that many people find particularly annoying for its early call:
And yes, that is it! That is the aggravating call from Noosa, nearly 30 years ago.
Do koels exist in South East Queensland? Yes, they do:
Usually arriving in September, the Common Koel is a large migratory cuckoo which flies to Australia from New Guinea, Indonesia and possibly the Philippines. It breeds in northern and eastern Australia, mostly in Queensland and NSW, south at least to Sydney, where they are common in the suburbs. A few venture into eastern Victoria, and vagrants have occurred as far afield as Melbourne, the Murray River and Adelaide. They remain until March or April, when they return to their non-breeding grounds.
So not only had that bird ruined my sleep, it had probably travelled hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres to do so!
I hate them even more.
Maybe many other people know what this bird sounds like, but I never thought to go searching for it online since the internet made it possible.
But now I know. The wonders of the modern age, etc.
Monday, October 25, 2021
I hope this holds
We really, really, need to let Labor run the Federal government again:
The Australian reports the latest Newspoll has Labor leading 54-46, out from 53-47 three weeks ago, from primary votes of Coalition 35% (down two), Labor 38% (up one), Greens 11% (steady) and One Nation 3% (up one). Scott Morrison is down two on approval to 46% and up one on disapproval to 50%, while Anthony Albanese is steady on approval at 37% and down one on disapproval to 46%. Morrison leads 48-34 as preferred prime minister, out marginally from 47-34. More to follow.
Update: I mean, seriously, the government is a complete shambles:
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Much ado about Mahler
So, I ended up going to a concert at the Queensland Conservatorium last night which featured Mahler's 5th Symphony.
I'm here to tell you: I officially do not care for this composer's work. I've heard something of his once before at a concert, but I forget what. I think this is the first time I sat through a whole symphony, though.
I take it from the notes on the program that he was into creating innovative work that might not be understood for another 50 years. Well, we've gone 120 years and I still don't get it.
From what I can gather (and I am speaking a music illiterate who just goes to concerts and "knows what he likes," and then tries to justify his gut reaction later), the fourth movement (a string-y romantic love poem for his much younger wife) is famous, sort of conventional, and much admired. It seems to have escaped my attention entirely until last night, but I thought it entirely underwhelming. Why is it popular?
Out of the 5 movements, I thought the 3rd was the most interesting and pleasing. As for the 5th and final movement - talk about a composition in search of a final climax! There were so many points where it seemed to be building to an end, only to flitter away again. I know, I have felt this about other classical pieces at times, but for this one it felt particularly acute.
The basic problem I have with the whole piece is the sense of a lack of direction, or structure, or ...something? There are portions that are good and pleasing enough (and pretty loud - if you like it when an orchestra gets dramatically loud [and I do] - there are some good bits), but the thing just doesn't seem to hang together in any pleasing way. I think that some orchestral players may like the way he does give every part of the orchestra a big role at different times - the students playing last night seemed really happy at the end - but that's not enough to satisfy me, in the audience.
Happily, the internet being the internet, Google searching the topic "I find Mahler completely overrated" shows me that I am not alone - even people who don't understand why that 4th movement is considered good:
it feels like his music sounded better on paper than in reality.For example, the legendary Adagietto from Symphony no. 5 didn't move me that much - in fact, sounded kind of cliché to my ears.
(Actually, it didn't move me at all.)
It would seem that Reddit contains a fair bit of pro- and anti- (or at least, not getting) Mahler argument, both sides saying they don't understand the other. But it's good to find people much more familiar with music than me sharing what was just my gut reaction:
Often when I listen to something by him for the first time I have a hard time making much of it. There often doesn't seem to be an obvious sense of direction or a clear emotional implication at any given moment like you would find in Beethoven/Mozart etc.
Or this:
Also, I feel like a lot of Mahler's music doesn't have much of a sense of momentum. Yea, he might make this part faster or louder than that part, but music by composers like Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms, seem to have an intrinsic sense of momentum and development. Brahms never has to force the music to go from here to there, it just happens naturally. Something about Mahler's music feels forced to me.
Yes, exactly.
As for Mahler as a person, here he is, looking stern, as I guess all classical composers usually do:
Curious things Wiki tells me about him:
* his parents had 14 children (!), a lot even in those days, surely;
* he was big on German philosophy:
Mahler developed interests in German philosophy, and was introduced by his friend Siegfried Lipiner to the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustav Fechner and Hermann Lotze. These thinkers continued to influence Mahler and his music long after his student days were over. Mahler's biographer Jonathan Carr says that the composer's head was "not only full of the sound of Bohemian bands, trumpet calls and marches, Bruckner chorales and Schubert sonatas. It was also throbbing with the problems of philosophy and metaphysics he had thrashed out, above all, with Lipiner."[18]
(Maybe I can blame a fondness for Nietzsche as ruining his music...heh.)
* What a surprise, he could be a jerk:
In spite of numerous theatrical triumphs, Mahler's Vienna years were rarely smooth; his battles with singers and the house administration continued on and off for the whole of his tenure. While Mahler's methods improved standards, his histrionic and dictatorial conducting style was resented by orchestra members and singers alike.[67] In December 1903 Mahler faced a revolt by stagehands, whose demands for better conditions he rejected in the belief that extremists were manipulating his staff.[68]
* He did face a lot of anti-Semitism though, so he sometimes had reason to be cranky.
* This was mentioned last night - he married a woman 19 years younger than him who was already a pianist and composer of some talent (they did some of her songs last night, as it happens), but as part of the marriage deal was that he insisted she stop composing. As Wiki explained:
Alma soon became resentful because of Mahler's insistence that there could only be one composer in the family and that she had given up her music studies to accommodate him. "The role of composer, the worker's role, falls to me, yours is that of a loving companion and understanding partner ... I'm asking a very great deal – and I can and may do so because I know what I have to give and will give in exchange."[91] She wrote in her diary: "How hard it is to be so mercilessly deprived of ... things closest to one's heart."[92]Huh.
Anyway, that's it for my amateur take on a classic. Maybe the Ring cycle ruined him a bit for me - classical music that was, more or less, going somewhere, even it if was 15 hours! I see that in fact Mahler was big on Wagner:
Along with many music students of his generation, Mahler fell under the spell of Richard Wagner, though his chief interest was the sound of the music rather than the staging. It is not known whether he saw any of Wagner's operas during his student years.[14]It says he became a leading interpreter of Wagner. Did they ever meet? Not exactly:
It was on 02-03-1876 at a performance of Lohengrin in the Vienna State Opera. ... Mahler saw Wagner in the wardrobe, but as a young student (aged 16) and admirer he did not have the courage to talk to him. It was the second time Wagner conducted his Lohengrin.
Wait! I was about to end this now meandering post, when I find that even his wife didn't think much of his work, and was very upset that he demanded she stop composing:
On her part, Alma moderately appreciated Mahler’s music: she wrote in her journal “As a composer, I do not believe in him very much”. When she received Mahler’s letter on Friday, the 20th of December 1901, her heart froze “Surrender my music? Give up the reason I have lived for until now? My first reaction was to refuse. I cried, I couldn’t help it, because I had just realized I loved him”. Alma finally said yes and agreed to give up her vocation – she would however keep a grudge against her husband her entire life.
Also - he once had a long consultation with Freud:
In 1910, he was shaken by an uncontrollable burst of depression when he discovered his wife Alma was having an affair with Walter Gropius. Divorce was out of the question. Mahler thus looked for help with Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The treatment was too brief though (a sole four-hour discussion-walk) to show results.Ah, just another typically dramatic life for a temperamental artistic type. I mean, how many of them ever have a life that was simple and pretty straight forward? "Met his wife at age 20, married and remained devoted to each other until his death at the age of 75, enjoying good health, financial success and the company of his family until then".
Fin.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Thursday, October 21, 2021
More on China
This is a test of Queensland luck, if ever there was
It's kind of incredible that Brisbane, and Queensland, have avoided extensive COVID outbreaks this long into the pandemic.
Given our charmed run, I wonder if this will break it, or if we will continue to have a semi-mysterious ability to avoid it, despite relatively slow vaccination rates...
Space based manufactured patriotism
As regular readers (all 4 of you!) know, I recommend people look at videos on China's propaganda news network CGTN to get an idea of what the nation is thinking - or perhaps more accurately, what the government wants the nation to think. (Or is it what the government wants other governments to think the nation is thinking? Who knows?)
Anyway, the advent of the recent semi-built space station is being used for what looks to Western eyes like some extremely corny and old fashioned manufactured patriotism. Have a look at all the saluting and reverence at this press event where the latest three taikonauts were introduced:
And then the send off ceremony when the blasted off a few days ago:
The thing is, it's hard to know whether the Chinese public is also cynically aware of how intensely media manufactured this looks, or are they genuinely swept up in this space based patriotism.
I also am always amused at how they are obviously pretty good at this space stuff now, except for an apparent inability to design sleek and futuristic uniforms and spacesuits. These always look to me to pretty baggy and daggy to me - like they are still being designed with a left over Mao era vibe.
If ever they have a death on a mission (and surely they are bound to eventually), I hate to imagine the media dramatics that would be around the funerals.
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