Speaking of composers, and listening to classical music...

Further to my post on Saturday which included a link to a recording of Camille Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony No 3 finale:  I didn't know a thing about this composer, and didn't realise he was responsible for the famous Danse macabre, or The Carnival of Animals, which I am sure I have seen performed as well.  (I therefore presumably have seen his name on programs, but just never been curious to find out anything about him.)

Wikipedia has a long entry on his life, and I see that he was not just a musical child prodigy (as famous composers often seem to be), but he was interested in everything:

As a schoolboy Saint-Saëns was outstanding in many subjects. In addition to his musical prowess, he distinguished himself in the study of French literature, Latin and Greek, divinity, and mathematics. His interests included philosophy, archaeology and astronomy, of which, particularly the last, he remained a talented amateur in later life.

But as so often is the case when reading about famous people in the 19th century, illness and misfortune in their personal life was never far away:

Less than two months after [Camille's] christening, [his father] Victor Saint-Saëns died of consumption on the first anniversary of his marriage.^[11] The young Camille was taken to the country for the sake of his health, and for two years lived with a nurse at Corbeil, 29 kilometres (18 mi) to the south of Paris....

Throughout the 1860s and early 1870s, Saint-Saëns had continued to live a bachelor existence, sharing a large fourth-floor flat in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with his mother. In 1875, he surprised many by marrying.^{[6][n 10]} The groom was approaching forty and his bride was nineteen; she was Marie-Laure Truffot, the sister of one of the composer's pupils.^[58] The marriage was not a success. In the words of the biographer Sabina Teller Ratner, "Saint-Saëns's mother disapproved, and her son was difficult to live with".^[5] Saint-Saëns and his wife moved to the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in the Latin Quarter; his mother moved with them.^[59] The couple had two sons, both of whom died in infancy. In 1878, the elder, André, aged two, fell from a window of the flat and was killed;^[60] the younger, Jean-François, died of pneumonia six weeks later, aged six months. Saint-Saëns and Marie-Laure continued to live together for three years, but he blamed her for André's accident; the double blow of their loss effectively destroyed the marriage.^[6]...

Saint-Saëns was elected to the Institut de France in 1881, at his second attempt, having to his chagrin been beaten by Massenet in 1878.^[73] In July of that year he and his wife went to the Auvergnat spa town of La Bourboule for a holiday. On 28 July he disappeared from their hotel, and a few days later his wife received a letter from him to say that he would not be returning. They never saw each other again. Marie Saint-Saëns returned to her family, and lived until 1950, dying near Bordeaux at the age of ninety-five.^[74] Saint-Saëns did not divorce his wife and remarry, nor did he form any later intimate relationship with a woman. Rees comments that although there is no firm evidence, some biographers believe that Saint-Saëns was more attracted to his own sex than to women.^{[75][n 10]}

Elsewhere it notes:

 Saint-Saëns was a keen traveller. From the 1870s until the end of his life he made 179 trips to 27 countries. His professional engagements took him most often to Germany and England; for holidays, and to avoid Parisian winters which affected his weak chest, he favoured Algiers and various places in Egypt.^[72]

Hmm...Algiers was at the time popular for the homosexual male tourist - Oscar Wilde and his boyfriend used to visit there - so I would assume that this might be a reason for suspicions about Camille too.


Anyhow, I wanted to note something about listening to orchestral music that I have realised after seeing that piece live on Saturday, and then listening to it at home using earphones on a mobile phone.   The earphone experience has a lot going for it.   I mean, with pop music I sometimes find it initially distracting that a vocal track is happening (so to speak) in the centre of my skull.   But if you like an orchestral piece, the immersive sense of being in the middle of it that earphones/headphones give can be pretty impressive.   Or maybe I am just liking hiking up the volume? 

Go on, put on your earphones and listen to that blast of organ at the start, and at a least a few  minutes more, and tell me I'm not right..:) 

It's a wonder he had time to compose anything...

As with (I suspect) most of the public, I might know the names of the big classical composers, and have heard some of their musical highlights, but know little of their lives.  Especially Bach - until I read this, I really don't think I knew the first thing about him:

I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen groschen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty known children, more than any significant composer in history (a procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that “Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by their stubborn and irascible employee.

But you hardly need to study these incidents in Bach’s life to gauge his subversive tendencies. Just listen to his music, which in its ostentatious display of technique and inventiveness must have disturbed many in the austere Lutheran community, and even fellow musicians. Not much music criticism of his performances has survived, but the few surviving reactions of his contemporaries leave no doubt about Bach’s disdain for the rules others played by.

As the title to the post says - a big beer drinking habit and (by the sounds of it) oversexed, and he still had time for his extremely intricate brand of music.   Good thing smart phones weren't around then.

As for the number of children - you would think there must be many Bach descendants scattered through Europe.  However, it would seem that there are in fact none.

Great contributions by Jewish folk noted

The Spectator has a review of a book with the heading:

Is there no field in which the Jewish mindset doesn’t excel?

Norman Lebrecht celebrates the explosion of Jewish talent between 1847 and 1947 in music, literature, painting, film, politics, philosophy, science and invention

In the body of the review is this:

‘Between the middle of the 19th and 20th centuries,’ Genius & Anxiety opens,

a few dozen men and women changed the way we see the world. Some of their names are on our lips for all time. Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka. Others have vanished from our collective memory, but their importance endures in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusion or major surgery; without Paul Ehrlich no chemotherapy; without Siegfried Marcus no motor car; without Rosalind Franklin no model of DNA; without Fritz Haber there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth.

 I don’t know if Lebrecht actually buys into so simple a description of scientific progress, or whether it is just a good, combative kick-off to a book, but either way the main thrust of the argument is inescapable. For the best part of the past 200 years a small and threatened minority has exerted a creative influence out of all proportion to their numbers, and whether they flaunt it like a Disraeli or a Bernstein, or a convert like Mendelssohn, whether they hate it like Marx, are religious or atheist, Orthodox or Reform, assimilist or Zionist, the one thing they share is their ‘Jewishness’.

It's a good argument, even allowing for the later negative contributions to economics, climate change, and political discourse generally of Steve Kates and Sinclair Davidson.   (Is SD himself Jewish or just married to one?  He certainly notes their feasts on the blog.)

And for an added bonus - I get to delete probably scores of comments by Graeme - for whom this post will be like 100% irresistible clickbait. 

EU history

OK, so I know pretty much nothing about the history of the EEC, the predecessor to the EU. 

Hence it was interesting to read this short article at France 24 about how Charles De Gaulle opposed Britain joining it in the 1960's.  (I had no idea that Harold Macmillan would have been waiting to join at that time).  Here is a (large) extract:

In November 1962, de Gaulle hosted then British prime minister Harold Macmillan, an Old Etonian with a famously Edwardian style, at the French presidential summer retreat of Rambouillet – an exquisite Renaissance chateau just outside of Paris. Macmillan was desperate to gain de Gaulle’s approval for British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC).

De Gaulle convened a shooting party for the very posh prime minister. The French president didn’t himself partake in blood sport, but loudly informed Macmillan every time he missed. “The General”, as de Gaulle is affectionately known for his role as head of the Free French during the Second World War, told his British counterpart that the UK would have to ditch its “special relationship” with the US if it was serious about joining Europe.

At one point, the General’s tough stance provoked Macmillan to burst into tears. “This poor man, to whom I had nothing to give, seemed so sad, so beaten,” de Gaulle told his cabinet. “I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder and say to him, as in the Édith Piaf song, ‘ne pleurez pas, milord’ (don’t cry, my lord)”.

De Gaulle kept Macmillan in the lurch for a while. Then he announced at a press conference in January 1963 his opposition to British entry into the EEC. He argued that the UK would want to “impose its own conditions” on what were then the bloc’s six countries. The “insular” character of the island nation across the Channel had created a politico-economic “structure” which differed “profoundly” from “that of continental Europeans”, the General postulated.

The UK “is maritime; it is bound by trade, by its markets, to the most diverse array of countries – and often the most far-flung”, he went on. “It has a lot of industry and commerce but very little agriculture – and its habits and traditions are very different.”

Upon hearing the news Macmillan wrote in his diary: “The French always betray you in the end.”

About climate economics

I had been posting for a number of years that economic modelling on the cost of climate change seemed dubious at best, and a complete crock at worst.  I was puzzled that Pindyck's criticisms didn't have more publicity.

I think this view has finally spread more widely, not only amongst science exaggerating political movements such as Extinction Rebellion, but more broadly into mainstream opinion.

I hadn't realised that controversial Australian economist Steven Keen had thrown his commentary into the mix too.   Now, I know a lot of people attack him for exaggerated attacks on various economic issues (house price bubbles especially, I think), but if he is right in his criticisms in this post, and in the video following, it does seem remarkable that it has taken this long for people to say "this can't be right".



I also note that last month And Then There's Physics had a post and thread about the related topic of Integrated Assessment Models.   Many good comments about them are to be found there. 

Kates's wonderful world of cluelessness

I don't read every word of Steve Kates - honestly, I can only take so much of his Manichean-like shtick.   (He's actually Jewish, so said Sinclair Davidson in comments here once, which surprised me.)

But sometimes, I notice something so spectacularly un-selfaware, I can't help but marvel at what an utter nincompoop he is.

For that reason, I note that he was writing on the weekend, quoting an article about Lenin's rhetorical approach (my bold):

 Lenin constantly recommended that people be shot “without pity” or “exterminated mercilessly” (Leszek Kołakowski wondered wryly what it would mean to exterminate people mercifully). “Exterminate” is a term used for vermin, and, long before the Nazis described Jews as Ungeziefer (vermin), Lenin routinely called for “the cleansing of Russia’s soil of all harmful insects, of scoundrels, fleas, bedbugs—the rich, and so on.”...

When Mensheviks objected to Lenin’s personal attacks, he replied frankly that his purpose was not to convince but to destroy his opponent. In work after work, Lenin does not offer arguments refuting other Social Democrats but brands them as “renegades” from Marxism. Marxists who disagreed with his naïve epistemology were “philosophic scum.” Object to his brutality and your arguments are “moralizing vomit.” …

Compulsive underlining, name calling, and personal invective hardly exhaust the ways in which Lenin’s prose assaults the reader.

This from a man who is completely and utterly convinced that Trump has the "right sentiment" and is the saviour of Western civilisation.

Some quotes and links from here and there:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday equated migrants and refugees to the United States with vermin who will "pour into and infest our country."...

“The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!”...

The 598 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

All of Trump's ugly campaign rhetoric in one place

And today I see that retiree Rafe Champion has moved away from his routine utter gullibility in believing everything Jo Nova says about climate change to joining in to note:

Picking up the thread of Leninism that Steve described yesterday on the dehumanisation and destruction of opponents. This hit me when I saw the way the left dehumanised Pauline Hanson many years ago and more generally the Bush/Howard/Abbott/Trump derangement syndromes.

He thinks Pauline Hanson - the anti immigration populist from way back - was the one being "dehumanised"??   

Sinclair Davidson - you and your blog are sucking intelligence out of the universe.  Congratulations on your contributions to stupidity.

Update:  more from the world of utter un-selfawareness -

Update:   Cult member Kates opines today:

There has been nothing, absolutely nothing that has been done by Donald Trump that has been anything other than what those who voted for him expected him to do and has entirely been within the bounds of good policy.

Things learned

Over the weekend, I learned (via some ABC Radio National listening):

*  China is trying hard to break into the international film market, but they are having trouble given that they want their films to be both nationalist and appeal to other audiences.  (Their film industry is under close government control.)   God knows, with an awful attempt at a blockbuster like The Wandering Earth, they do have a way to go.

*  The world is running out of sand for concrete.  Apparently, you can't just use any sand (like from a desert), and hence too many countries are ruining too many rivers and lakes in dredging up sand.  Australia also apparently sold sand to Dubai for the construction of the Burj Khalifa.   Didn't know that.

* Cricket boxes, for the protection of male genitalia, don't seem to undergo much in the way of testing for efficacy.  And lots of sports result can result in serious injury with cycling (if I recall correctly) at the top of the list for numbers of injuries.   It's a good reason not to get into sport, if you ask me.

Saturday night

Update:  Because Tim showed interest in comments - yes, the organ was played last night in one of the pieces, and it was great to hear.  It was this pretty awesome piece of music, which I hadn't heard before (save for the pop song, as explained below):



The Youtube is just an audio, and is a few years old, but its description would indicate that it was still by the Queensland Youth Orchestra.

I did not know that this piece of music provided the melody to the one hit pop wonder "If I had words" from 1978.  So, I learned something too...

He used to look like that?

Excellent point made on Twitter:

The mixed messages of Okja

It seemed apt, after watching the horrible horse abattoir video on 7.30 last week, that I should watch the Netflix anti-industrial meat movie Okja, which has been out for a year and two and was pretty well reviewed.  So I finally did, last weekend.

Made by the well known Korean director Bong Joon-ho, it has a lot going for it:

*  it looks a million bucks, as they say.  The CGI for the title (giant, genetically modified, pig) character is nearly always completely convincing, and many action sequences look like they would have cost a lot to stage.  It's a terrific looking, well directed, film:



* Tilda Swinton gets to act over the top in her usual scene stealing fashion.  As I have written before, there is something so distinctive about her looks and acting that I can't get my eyes off her in any scene she's in.  She also has a co-producer credit, which surprised me.

* the ending leaves mixed emotions, but at least it's not a complete downer like Bong's Train to Busan.  [Sorry, I thought he directed it, but it was Yeon Sang-ho.]

On the other hand, as some critics noted, the changing tone of the film is pretty eccentric, and sort of puzzling.

The key point is that, for a film which seems for the most part to be intended to make the audience feel guilty about eating meat, the vegan activists are portrayed as well intentioned but both a bit dumb, and too  extreme, not to mention capable of violence.  They don't come out of the movie as bad as Big Meat, but their often unflattering portrayal leaves the film with somewhat confusing messaging.

I wondered whether Bong was a vegan or vegetarian and wrote the movie to promote that diet, but I have read that he only became a temporary vegan for a couple of months after visiting an abattoir for research.   And he pointed out that the kindly girl lead (human) character is not a vegetarian either - she eats fish and chicken in the film.   Fair enough:  but the film is definitely meant to make us feel sorry for the pig like animals awaiting slaughter.

Speaking of which -

SPOILER ALERT FOR ENDING

given that I did know the terrible ending of Train to Busan, I had no confidence at all about the fate of Okja itself at the climax of the film.   In fact, if it was meant to really hit people hard as a way of putting them off meat, it would have ended differently.   But maybe Bong decided that would be a step too far - and audiences could react against the movie.   I guess most viewers would feel like me:  both somewhat relieved at the ending, but also that it undercut somewhat the apparent intention of the film.  The final scenes do seem a bit flat, and Okja's friends did not get the release they also deserved.

As I say, pretty mixed messaging, but still well worth watching.

 

On climbing sacred places

I'm sorry - I really, really do not wish to be showing any sympathy to the obnoxious Right in Australia huffing and puffing about Uluru being closed to climbing, but I do think it's reasonable to see the decision more motivated by an aboriginal rights power play, rather than to do with the question of respect for sacredness of the site to the local indigenous.

Generally speaking, I think humans should get over the belief that any natural formation is more inherently sacred than any other natural place; but you can't tell people they have to stop believing in local or ancient folklore relating to a site, so we have to live with that.

But let's be honest here - there might be lots of "sacred mountains" in the world, but my impression is that very, very few of them are rendered "unable to be climbed" because of that status.   I've been on the side of Mt Fuji and watched some Japanese women do something like a bit of sun worship as it rose - but no one thinks Westerners should be banned from its side.

Similarly, can white liberals stop using such a trite comparison between cathedrals (oh, it's just the same as not allowing people to climb over a cathedral, because it's sacred) and Uluru?   Because, let's face it, hundreds of thousands of non-Christian tourists have been allowed to ascend the domes or bell towers of the great cathedrals of Europe merely to admire the view, and that is actually the closest analogy to white folk ascending Uluru up a set path.  Sure, they wouldn't allow tourists to climb up the outside of a cathedral by ropes, for reasons of both damage that could be caused and aesthetics.   But similarly, no one has a problem with Uluru enforcing a one route ascent because they want the minimum of the rock damaged.   In both cases, if there is one route to the top to accommodate tourists, it's a case of a "sacred" space being allowed to be accessed by people who may or may not think the spot is spiritual.   

The other factor is, of course, that the rock has been climbed for a very long time, giving the impression that the sacredness being defiled was not such an important issue in the past as it is now.

And really, isn't it kind of obvious that claiming, or inflating, sacred importance is just the easiest way indigenous groups have for feeling they can exert power?  Have liberals forgotten the Hindmarsh Island affair?

Having said all of this, I am not suggesting that there is any point in politically disputing the decision - I don't actually feel they should not have the right to ban climbing for whatever reason.  (And actually, the safety issue is a fairly significant one, given the number who have died on the climb.)

But I don't think the populace has to feel guilty about assessing that the decision is not particularly well justified, or high-minded, even on the popularly claimed  "must respect the sacredness" grounds.  Hence, I won't join in the criticism of those tourists who have rushed to climb it (even though I don't really see why climbing it on a hot day has that much inherent attraction, either.)   It reads more just an indigenous political power play.   

 

Laser away your drone problem

Noted at Gizmodo:

The “directed energy” weapon uses an electro-optical/infrared sensor to identify potential threats before using a laser to knock dangerous drones out of the sky. The laser can be powered using a standard 220-volt outlet and when it’s hooked up to a generator it can provide a “nearly infinite number of shots.”

The video:

The vexed question of economic growth and environmentalism

Noah Smith at Bloomberg writes:

Economic Growth Shouldn’t Be a Death Sentence for Earth

He writes:

Among some intellectuals and environmentalists, it’s an article of faith that economic growth must be brought to a stop. If we fail to act, we’ll use up the planet’s resources and growth will suffer a disastrous collapse. For example, British writer George Monbiot has been advancing this point of view for quite some time. In April, he declared:

Perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity. The absolute decoupling [of growth from resource use] needed to avert environmental catastrophe…has never been achieved, and appears impossible while economic growth continues. Green growth is an illusion.

Monbiot is simply incorrect. There are good reasons, both theoretical and empirical, to believe that economic growth can be decoupled from resource use. For many resources, this is already becoming a reality.

He may be right, but it's no doubt complicated if the world were to go aggressively to reduce fossil fuel use.

Just put on Nazi uniforms and be done with

Herr Trump's lawyer argues his boss could not be investigated if he shot someone in the street.  Sure, 5 years later after he stops being President he could be.  But no investigation while he's President. 

That's the authoritarian ridiculousness that Trump Cultists shrug their shoulders about these days.

And those gaslighting numbskulls saying that it's a scandal that current impeachment evidence gathering is being done in private: yeah, just like Grand Juries do, as other congressional committess have done, and in any event, Republicans are sitting in on the hearings.  It is pure gaslighting of their dumb, dumb base as the last resort defence.

And Herr Trump is now calling "Never Trump" Republicans "human scum".   That's after his musing about civil war if he is impeached, a few weeks ago.

No, nothing authoritarian and cultish and stupid and dangerous about this at all. 

Update:

Full on tabloid

Look, Bolt has long been on my "gone completely stupid and offensive" category in my blogroll, and you can't read much of what he posts about anyway, but I still look sometimes to see what he is writing about.

Man, has he gone trash tabloid in his topics, or what?:

Works for Murdoch, what should I expect?

Brexit "win" not really much of a win

I was a bit confused about this - did the Parliament's passing of Boris Johnson's Brexit enabling legislation at a second reading stage mean that the ultimate approval of the deal was a forgone conclusion?  

Jonathan Freedland at The Guardian says "no":

What does it mean? First, don’t fall for the hype that says that parliament approved Johnson’s deal. It did not. MPs simply voted for it to receive a second reading, some of them motivated by the desire not to endorse it but to amend it. As Labour’s Gloria De Piero confessed, she voted yes, “not because I support the deal but because I don’t”. That 30-vote majority will include MPs who wanted to propose UK membership of a customs union, others keen on conditioning the deal on public support in a confirmatory referendum. Screen out the Tory spin: those MPs should not be counted as backers of the deal.

As for the defeat on the timetable, that is the result of what now looks like a tactical misjudgment by the government. By making such a fetish of the 31 October deadline – arbitrarily imposed by Emmanuel Macron when Theresa May missed the last one – Johnson painted himself into a corner whereby even a delay of a few days looked like a humiliation. Both Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Clarke signalled that it might not need much more than a few extra days to undertake the necessary scrutiny – though Nikki da Costa, until recently Johnson’s head of legislative affairs, had said it required at least four weeks – which is hardly that long to wait. Instead of taking that pragmatic course, Johnson felt compelled to call the whole thing to a halt.

Why? The obvious explanation is that this gives the PM a pretext to grab what he really wants: an early election framed as a battle to get Brexit done, with him as the people’s tribune pitted against those wicked remainer saboteurs.

But another explanation suggests itself, too. Any period of scrutiny is unpalatable to Johnson, because he fears that the threadbare coalition that might exist to back his deal will unravel once it engages in closer examination of the withdrawal agreement. Its erosion of workers’ rights; its creation of a new no-deal cliff edge in 2020; its entrenchment of a hard Brexit in law – all those dangers would only become more visible under the spotlight of protracted (or even normal) Commons scrutiny. Bits of his coalition – especially among those Labour MPs who backed him on Tuesday – would begin to flake off.

Wash your hands

Well, this is kind of interesting:

Antibiotic-resistant E. coli is more likely to be spread through poor toilet hygiene than undercooked chicken or other food, according to new research from a consortium including the University of East Anglia. 

There did genetic sequencing of the bacteria from several sources to work this out.

Bird banned

Graeme, you have obnoxious and offensive beliefs which you insist on repeating.   I'm not here to assist the broadcast of those.  

All new comments I see from you, on any topic, will be deleted, sooner or later.  

Go be an obnoxious, insulting nutter on your own blog.

Peaked early, maybe

I feel a bit mean making this observation out loud, because it's possible he is a fragile character who Googles himself looking for affirmation.

Anyhow - I saw Josh Thomas on ABC Breakfast this morning, and I have to say that I find him more "mannered" than ever.   Maybe he's naturally nervous all the time, but he sure didn't come across as natural - it feels like it's all a performance.

They played a clip from a series he has made in the US, which is apparently another comedy/drama like Please Like Me (the charms of which escaped me), and his acting in it seemed to be a severe case of trying too hard to look awkward.   I wonder how the critics are going to take it.  

Thomas is also about to embark on a stand up tour, and he seems to be indicating that it is going to be yet another case of a stand up comedy act that is an attempt at self confessional therapy after a "difficult period".   (He's been single for a year or so, after having 3 different relationships in his 20's.  Yeah, a real tragedy.)   I don't know why this has to be the basis of so much comedy now - I don't think it's psychologically healthy, and I thought Hannah Gadsby had confirmed that for everyone who didn't already realise it as a matter of common sense.

In any case, I don't wish him failure - I just have trouble seeing what his fan base sees in him.

Sinclair Davidson - celebrating the dumb and inane for, what, 15 years now?

Yeah, because if you're going to devastate trillions of dollars of ocean side investment and infrastructure, it's better to do it as rapidly as possible with maximum inundation.