Monthly Archives: December 2008

Beyond the shoe throwing: America fails in Iraq

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The Bush Administration has proclaimed so many fake milestones and signs of “progress” in Iraq that (according to Patrick Cockburn in the London Review of Books) a genuine milestone has gone by almost unnoticed. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA for short) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments immediately curtails U.S. military and mercenary autonomy in Iraq, forbids permanent U.S. military bases, and sets a timetable for withdrawal, with the last U.S. soldier to leave in 2011.

Approved November 27 by Iraq’s Parliament, the final version of SOFA is a far cry from the initial U.S. proposal back in March, which would have established an indefinite U.S. military presence on Iraqi soil. Like the British occupation of Iraq between the world wars, a U.S. occupation would have made a mockery of Iraqi sovereignty. Over eight months of negotiations, the Iraqis essentially dug in their heels and wore down the American side.

Since Cockburn’s report appeared, there have been signs in the news that U.S. military leaders do not intend to hold up their side of the bargain. Radio Free Europe, a U.S. government organ, is busy portraying the post-SOFA environment in Iraq as a “legal maze” for well-intentioned American professionals dealing with supposedly inadequate Iraqis.

This issue will continue to be important, without generating major headlines, for at least the first half of 2009. Many of the president-elect’s fellow Democrats have never been interested in ending the Iraq war. They just believe they can do a better job of running it.

Chicken joke: Tolkien

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tolkienjToday’s chicken joke queries John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings and other sagas of Middle-earth.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Tolkien: It was foreseen of old by Malbeth, wise servant of the last king of Arnor:

The dark shall betoken a new day
When gold may be found among dross.
In Imladris lies the highway
That a bantam cock shall cross.

[More chicken jokes]

Adventures in bad web design

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Today’s exhibit is the Feedback page at Auburn University Libraries: http://www.lib.auburn.edu/ooc.html. The page has a “Comments” box that appears to allow nine lines of text. Once you try to submit a comment, though, you’ll see a dialog box stating that the length of comments is restricted to thirty characters.

For example, suppose you’d like to let them know I think 30 characters is absurd. Sorry! That comment’s too long. Try telling them it’s absur instead.

It would be great if everyone who reads this — that means both of you — would stop by this page and comment. Very briefly, of course.

(If you don’t want to leave your real email address, use a valid fake one, like no@nomail.no .)

Thanks for indulging my pet peeve. This kind of design is rude, like displaying an “Open” sign over a closed tollbooth.

Chicken joke: Alexander Pope

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Pope, AlexanderToday’s chicken joke evokes a pair of couplets that might be worthy of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) on a bad day. (Christmas is, let us remember, the season of bad verse.)

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Pope: This coxcomb Cock, too tim’rous for true flight,
Flutters, now lands, now looks to left and right,
And, noting no Traffic (save yon venomous Toad),
Steps with a scaly Foot into the Road.

[More chicken jokes]

Chicken joke: Goethe

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GoetheToday’s chicken joke queries Goethe in his own language.

Q: Warum hat der Hahn die Straße überquert?

Goethe: Das Ewig-Weibchenliche zog ihn hinüber.

Translation: Why did the chicken cross the road? The Eternal Hen lured him across.

I think this one works a little better in German than English. It imposes the rustic word Weibchen, signifying a hen or any female animal, onto the “Eternal Feminine” (das Ewig-Weibliche) of the famous closing lines of Faust, Part 2.

[More chicken jokes / Noch mehr Hühnerwitze]

Chicken joke: Thales of Miletus

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thalesofToday’s chicken joke makes idle fun of the earliest of the Seven Sages of Greece, Thales of Miletus (ca. -624 to ca. -546).

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Thales: Probably to advise another chicken.

The answer to the riddle is based on Diogenes Laërtius’ account of Thales’ answers to two questions:

When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, “To know one’s self.” And what was easy, “To advise another.”

The anachronistic picture of Thales is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, a history of the world published in 1493 under the title Liber Chronicarum. I guess any other image, no matter how authentic it might appear to us, would be almost as anachronistic.

[More chicken jokes]

Jordi Savall & Cie.

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Recovering yesterday from a little dental surgery, I gave myself an album I’d had my eye on for some time: Orient – Occident, a 2006 release from the superstar of historically informed performance, Jordi Savall, and his ensemble Hespèrion XXI. I’ve admired Savall since being given a copy of the soundtrack to the 1991 film Tous les matins du monde (All the World’s Mornings). Largely on the strength of Savall’s playing, this film made two obscure baroque composers (Marin Marais and Sainte-Colombe, whose first name is a subject of debate) into French pop stars. Savall’s connection to Basel, where he taught viola da gamba at the world-famous Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and launched his recording career, is another reason for me to be partial to him. What’s more, he’s a student and champion of my favorite 16th-century composer, Diego Ortiz. ¡Como me gustan esas recercadas!

Orient - Occident albumAnyway, this album is a departure from Savall’s early baroque fare, and it’s breathtaking. He takes his ensemble back to the Middle Ages, visiting every shore of the Mediterranean. Orient – Occident serves up Turkish, North African, and Sephardic music alongside the Italian istampittas that medieval music fans are used to. Savall makes the ancient vielle sing as it was meant to do, and as medieval musicians must have played it.

The modern movement to revive historical performance practices (instead of playing everything with Felix Mendelssohn’s equipment and techniques) has had to go through awkward periods in which even the most confident musician isn’t quite sure what to do with these exotic dinosaurs. The learning curve is steep, and “early music” recordings from the 1970s and earlier often have a grim, pedantic quality, or else — truth be told — they seem to be performed by people who turned to the harpsichord or viola da gamba because they couldn’t compete on the piano or cello.

But those days are gone. Thanks to millions of hours of practice, and a million more of poring over historical documents about the music of the past, the viola da gamba, vielle (even the vielle à roue) or the once-fashionable baryton or pardessus de viole have players who can shred strings with the best of them — past or present.

Does the music sound exactly the way that Alfonso the Wise heard it? As with any historical problem, we can never know for certain. But what’s plain is that “early music” performances give us something that departs, as it must, from the “classical” style we’re used to; that’s inspired by the written record left behind by people who performed and heard the music of the past; and that, most important, sounds good to our ears and has the capacity to touch our hearts.

I’m not doctrinaire about HIP (as “historically informed performance” is sometimes abbreviated). I think some of the casual “renaissance-fair” musicians out there are at least tolerable, even if they do little more than play Sixties folk music on a lute while singing with a vaguely Scottish accent. As for new works composed for ancient instruments, I’m all for it. And I think Bach’s Art of the Fugue sounds best when played by a viol consort (as it is here and here).

You probably don’t care what I think anyway. In case you do, Orient – Occident gets six stars out of five.

A couple more things to look at: