Carl Maria von Weber: Ruler of the Spirits, J.109, op. 26, E-flat major
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 D.944 in C major, The Great C major
Beethoven: Violin Concerto, op.61, D major
I deplore much of the current "superstar" movement, be it in music, academia, sports, business, or elsewhere: the astronomical pay scale and near-idolatrous attention given to the very few, to the detriment of the field as a whole. That did not, however, stop me from enjoying Itzhak Perlman's performance of the Beethoven. The OPO's own Aaron Goldman* can put on a show at least as exciting and excellent as James Galway's, but much as I respect most of our string players, the difference in Perlman's playing was striking. And there's no doubt he draws a crowd: the concert was sold out.
Food, Inc. (2008, Magnolia Home Entertainment, directed by Robert Kenner, PG )
I first heard about Food, Inc. seven months ago, and at that time posted the trailer, a couple of links, and my determination to see the movie when it became available on Netflix. Just before Christmas the disk arrived in our mailbox, so we packed it in our luggage and were able to enjoy it with my brother and his family, which was only fitting, as they are the ones who alerted us to the movie in the first place.
Everyone who eats should see this film. Alas, it only touches the surface of the problems in our food industry and doesn't have time to say much about solutions—but it's quite enough to inspire further research. The film's website might be a good place to begin.
It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust, by Elizabeth Bettina (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2009)
Imagine: You are suddenly torn away from your home and possessions and are removed with others of your kind to a place where you must check in daily with the police and obey a strict curfew. You can't leave, practice your profession, carry anything that might be used as a weapon, visit a bar, or attend any meeting or any form of entertainment. You are imprisoned there for years, and yet for the rest of your life you will be passionately grateful to your captors and will remember your incarceration as pleasant. You are a Jew during World War II, sent to a concentration camp—in Italy.
Elizabeth Bettina, a third-generation Italian Catholic from New York City couldn't get over the picture: Taken in the 1940's of a gathering on the steps of the church where her grandparents were married, in the tiny, Catholic town of Campagna, the snapshot clearly included a priest, a police officer, and a rabbi. A rabbi? Bettina's research into the unmentioned history of her grandmother's hometown reveals a surprising tale of ordinary goodness in a time of extraordinary evil. (More)
One who makes a practice of passing written judgement on books would do well to reveal at least some of the background and prejudices that go into those judgements, so I will make a brief attempt at so doing. Whether or not I like a book is determined by many factors, not all of which I know myself.
I'm a writer—if you can say that of one whose paid, professional writing experiences ended several decades ago—so I like well-written books. I like good grammar, correct spelling, and well-organized paragraphs. I like coherent ideas presented logically and accurately.
I'm reasonably intelligent and well-educated, so I do not like being talked down to. I don't like books that assume I have the vocabulary and attention span of an average fourth grader. I especially don't like folksy books that sound like conversation. That's great for blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, but if an idea is worth putting ink to paper, it's worth a more serious, careful treatment. (More)
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1965)
I picked this book up to re-read it because I needed an antidote to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. You can tell this particular copy has been in my library for a long time by the printing date above. The price on the book is 50 cents. The book itself was written in 1904, and can be found online.
Burnett's characters are as one-dimensional as most of Haddon's, and her heroine is a little too good to be completely believable. But "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" and the question of how much of our good behavior is merely a response to pleasant circumstances is by no means a shallow one. A friend of ours has a daughter who is very much enthralled by the Disney Princesses, an infatuation her mother wisely turns to a learning opportunity, reminding her as often as necessary that princess is as princess does. This is the theme that runs through A Little Princess, as Sara, sneeringly dubbed "princess" for her wealth and spoiled childhood, has her character tried through hardship. If the ending of The Curious Incident was unsatisfactory, that of A Little Princess is definitely contrived and coincidental—but at least it's fun. The book also wins points by making me wish to be a better person, an idea I'll return to in a subsequent post.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Jonathan Cape, 2003)
As with Born to Run, I picked up this book because it was lying around and the title caught my eye. I don't recommend it, but that doesn't mean I found it easy to put down. I had intended to take the book on the airplane with me, but finished before my boarding pass was printed. The story is initially compelling and the premise unique: a murder mystery through the eyes of a teen with Asperger Syndrome. Whether the portrayal of the way someone with Asperger Syndrome might think or act is realistic or not, I can't say. But it's an interesting viewpoint, and I loved the math problem at the end (though it was somewhat poorly worded) and the fact that the chapter numbers are all prime. (More)
Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall (Knopf, New York, 2009)
A book about running? Not my thing. On my daily walks (where by "daily" I mean five days a week and only when I'm not on the road) I've managed to work my way up to doing a quarter of my four miles at what could charitably be called a slow jog, but there my interest ended. However, my nephew received Born to Run for Christmas, and I was curious enough to flip quickly through it.
Born to Run is a fascinating and groundbreaking book. Actually, it's at least three books, interwoven, and it's no coincidence that when I perused it I couldn't decide if it was meant to be nonfiction or a novel. (More)The Franklin Insitute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I don't remember my first visit to the Franklin Institute; I believe it must have been on some visit to Philadelphia when I was very young; all I remember was walking through the heart. Later, however, we moved to the Philadelphia area, and were regular visitors. For two summers I worked in the Franklin Institute Research Labs in the building next door, and even more important to me than my paycheck was the ID badge that allowed me to take the tunnel between the buildings and spend most of my lunch hours in the museum.
After he retired, my dad became a Franklin Institute volunteer, and it was natural for him to take his grandchildren there when they came to visit. By that time, the museum had grown an addition, with new exhibits that made it look like any modern science museum, but the kids' favorite, and my own, was the old building, with its greater educational content and more detailed, written information with each exhibit. Now Dad's grandchildren have children of their own, and on our recent visit to Philadelphia we all looked forward to watching them delight in our old favorites.
The great-grandkids were happy enough, but the rest of us were somewhat disappointed. To our delight, the heart is still there, as is the train that Dad used to drive as one of his docent duties (it's easier to keep a 350-ton locomotive than to get rid of one) but the "new building" style has now infected the old building, too. Many of our favorite exhibits are gone, replaced by displays designed for shorter attention spans and lesser literacy. The math room that had kept our kids entranced for hours was nowhere to be found, and when I finally asked a docent, "Excuse me, it's been a long time since I was here last, and I can't find the math room," he replied, "It has been a long time since you've visited; they took that out years ago."
It took a bit of effort, but we did find Newton's Dream, the kinetic sculpture that so entranced Heather as a child. It's in a different place now, and has been cut down in size, but that didn't stop the children from following it with the same fascination. Also riveting was Der Lauf der Dinge, a Swiss-made movie of a 30-minute Rube Goldberg setup with lots of pyrotechnics and impressive chemical reactions. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you, too, can see this amazing performance, albeit broken into three segments. (Here are the links as well, since I note that embedded videos don't always show up in feedreaders: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Lest I be seen as a totally hopeless conservative who never likes anything new, the museum's newest exhibit, Amazing Machine, is also excellent, and we could have spent much longer playing with its cams, gears, pulley, and linkages had we not been nearing the end of our visit. (Heather: That's what I want for Christmas. You can turn a mechanical engineer into a joyful homemaker, but the engineer is still there.)
The American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York
On my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History I was probably about as young as when I first encountered the Franklin Institute, but in this case nearly half a century elapsed between visits. The AMNA, however, shows more respect for its old exhibits, and the wonderful dioramas that are all I remember from my first visit are still featured, with all their high information content and long descriptions to read. I could easily have spent the entire day among them. Porter found one, the African buffalo, that was sponsored by George Eastman, and remarked, "He sponsored the Buffalo because there is no animal named Rochester, but he should have sponsored the Kodiak bear." Yes, we're still married; I happen to like that kind of humor.
The museum has several new exhibits as well as the old, most of which were quite good. There was a bit of a "politically correct" feel in a few places, but it was not unbearable, and in general the educational value and written descriptions were sufficient. Despite my primary concern for material to read, I am also particularly sensitive to the layout of displays—color, font, background, use and placement of images and other media—and this, too, the AMNH exhibits did well.
One disappointment was the Hall of Minerals, chiefly because whoever is responsible for lighting must have been on vacation. For several months. It was dark. At first I thought the gloom was meant to provide contrast to the brilliance of the minerals and gems, but many of the lights that should have been highlighting the rocks were also out. We very nearly missed the famous Star of India because it was in the dark.
In addition to the old favorites, we signed up for several special exhibits and shows. Traveling the Silk Road was disappointing, but only because I had expected the most from it. It was well done, but crowded, with not as much information as I had hoped and not enough time in the crowd to do justice to what was there. The best part was the section on silk making and sericulture.
I believe Journey to the Stars was a better-than-average planetarium show (more information, less mindless entertainment), but unfortunately I responded the way I always do when faced with a movie or movie-like substance in a dark room, awakening only at the end.
The Butterfly Conservatory was interesting, though I think I've seen more fluttering in the butterfly garden at our own Leu Gardens.
Frogs: A Chorus of Colors was great; Heather would have loved it. Except the part where we learned about the devastation being wrought by the chytrid fungus.
The American Museum of Natural History is well worth visiting more often than every 50 years. The dioramas alone are a homeschooler's paradise.Where Bd [Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis] thrives, generally in moist cool habitats, 50% of amphibian species and 80% of individuals can be expected to disappear within one year.... Currently it cannot be stopped in the wild and a minority of species seem able to survive with a Bd infection as larvae or as adults and these animals likely serve as a reservoir and vectors for future outbreaks. Notable among resistant species are worldwide invasive pest species including marine toads, American bullfrogs and African clawed frogs.
Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green (Puffin Books, London, 2002) and The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green (Puffin Books, London, 1994)
These two books are meant to be read together, with the story of Troy second.
After my very positive experiences with Green's books on Robin Hood, King Arthur, and ancient Egyptian stories, I expected too much of these two. I still recommend them; they are worth reading, and I found that within a week something I read there helped me understand a story I heard later. Nonetheless, there are drawbacks. (More)RootsMagic, my favorite genealogy database program, has released RootsMagic Essentials, a version you can download that is absolutely free! In case anyone is wondering, I don't get a thing for this endorsement; I just like RootsMagic, and I like encouraging interest in genealogy. It looks as if one can do a lot with Essentials, and it might be a great, commitment-free way to keep track of family information even if one doesn't have (yet) a desire to delve any further. Sadly, one of my favorite features, color coding of families, is not part of the stripped-down version, but—tanstaafl—if there is, sometimes, a free lunch, the full-course dinner always costs.
If any of my family members decide to download RootsMagic Essentials, I'll be happy to send along a copy of my database. :)
This actually seemed like a good idea at the grocery store.
V-Fusion, by the same folks who brought you, "I could have had a V-8." (More)
Funny how things click together in this world.
I would never have heard of the award-winning Swiss movie, Vitus, had it not happened to be featured in an article in the Hartford Courant when our daughter's Swiss in-laws happened to be in Connecticut, and happened to look through the newspaper. (Why, O why does English not have a word for the "our child's in-laws" relationship? I have need of it often enough.) Knowing my interest in Swiss German, her father-in-law cut out the article and sent it to me. (I am going to have to invent my own term, I can see.)
That was months ago, and only recently did I have the sense to see if trusty Netflix could provide the movie. Much to my surprise, they could! We watched it this afternoon. Our intention had been to watch part during lunch and finish it during dinner, but we couldn't bring ourselves to turn it off.I've deliberately not included any links to Vitus, because they contain spoilers that I certainly would not have liked to have known about before seeing the film. But I do recommend it, as we thoroughly enjoyed it. It's PG, with a few words I wouldn't want the grandkids to pick up, but that would require reading the subtitles. I'd say they'd probably lose interest in a foreign-language film, but Swing Girls was a hit even though in Japanese.
Vitus combines some of my favorite themes: brilliant children, music, and loving families. Sure, I could complain about one or two things, but overall it was a delightful movie. Actually, the main disappointment was the language, which was falsely billed as Swiss German. I caught a few Swiss German words (and felt for the student being told by his teacher to speak High German only), but mostly I'd say I understood far too much of the German for it to have been anything other than High German throughout most of the film. I'd be interested in the verdict of those who know better, however. The characters freely mix English words and phrases in their speech, so maybe they are equally freely mixing the two Germans, and I'm only catching the few High German words and the much fewer Swiss German phrases I know. Or Swiss German words similar enough to High German that they sound familiar to my ear.
One question I had from the beginning was how they managed to get the actors to look so much as if they were really playing the piano—it looked far too good to be fakes. Here's the answer: Teo Gheorghiu, who plays the older Vitus.
How do we know this is really a Swiss film? The characters carry their cut flowers upside down!
Tales of Ancient Egypt, by Roger Lancelyn Green (Puffin Books, 2004)
King Arthur was my introduction to Roger Lancelyn Green's books, and this inspired me to find more by the same author. Tales of Ancient Egypt did not disappoint. Egyptian gods, goddesses, stories, geography and history are rather muddled in my head, and this book is a great help in beginning to sort them all out. Like Green's Arthur stories, the tales are simultaneously appropriate and enjoyable for children and adults.
Two stories particularly interested me. One is the Egyptian take on the story of Helen of Troy. (Hint: The real Helen remained safely hidden in Egypt until Menelaus could reclaim her; it was a sort of spirt double that went to Troy with Paris and inspired all the Greek-Trojan bloodletting.)
The fascination of the second, entitled Se-Osiris and the Sealed Letter, lies in what it did to my understanding of the Biblical story of the Exodus. In The Sealed Letter, Egyptian magicians boast of their prowess with claims such as, "I could bring a great darkness over the land of Egypt that would last for three days," and "I...could bring a blight upon Egypt that would destroy its crops for one season." The Exodus story of Moses and the plagues always seemed unsatisfactory to me, first in the very strangeness of God using plagues of blood, locusts, darkness, etc. to motivate Pharaoh, and second that the Egyptian magicians would counter Moses's plagues with plagues of their own, rather than the much more logical (and useful) removal of the effects the plagues.
What this Egyptian tale shows me, however, is that God was speaking to the ancient Egyptians within the context of their own culture, in a language they understood.As an avid fan of mystery stories, I’m sure I would enjoy The Da Vinci Code, especially since I’m attracted to Robert Langdon by name alone. As a rational human being, however, I’m reluctant to open its pages. Not knowing any better, I’ve enjoyed such quasi-historical movies as Amadeus and Braveheart, learning only later how fast and loose the productions had played with the facts. Now it’s too late: the false images are burned into my consciousness, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace them with the truth.
That’s the worst of historical fiction. At its best, it provides a wonderful gateway into the fascinating field of history itself, breathing life into the dry and confusing swirl of names, dates, and places that normally overwhelms us in school. But truth should never be sacrificed on the altar of art; if you want to tell the story your way, make up your own characters—don’t lie about real people and events. The Teaching Company, one of my favorite educational organizations whose products I highly recommend, produced two complimentary lectures on fact and fiction in The Da Vinci Code; because we were specifically given permission to pass them on to our friends, I’m posting links to them below. If TTC complains, I’ll take them down. They’re each about half an hour in length. (More)Google Fast Flip seemed like just another gimmick, but having given it a test drive I'm already hooked. Pick a newspaper, say the New York Times. Or a topic, such as Health. You're presented with an eye-catching snapshot of the beginning of the first article. You can see the headline, the first several paragraphs of text, and probably a graphic, pull-quote, or summary. Oh, and also some ads—but (shhh, don't tell Google) the ads are blessedly easy to ignore.
If you like what you see in the article, you can click on it to read the rest. Or you can hit your computer's arrow key and move quickly on to the next article. Did I say quickly? That's why I'm so excited about this. No point-and-click, no waiting for a page to load, just one keystroke and you're there. In a flash. It takes me about a second per article to determine whether or not I want to know more—usually not, it doesn't take much time to scan a lot.
This is far more satisfying than scanning news headlines in a feed reader. The headline itself does not usually give enough detail, and I find myself wasting too much time clicking on links that might have been interesting but are not. With Fast Flip I can take most stories with a single glance, while for many others I find that reading the first several paragraphs tells me what I want to know without having to bother to click through to the whole article. When I want more detail, it's there—but doesn't intrude unless I seek it out.
What will Google think of next? I hope this catches on in a big way; as yet there is not a great choice of sources.
