[It's Got] 99 Problems

I don't know how many of you have been following the Anthology of Rap kerfuffle, but NPR's Jacob Ganz lays it all out.

In brief: the 900+ page anthology of lyrics came out last week - and already people are counting up errors. What does it say when a book about rap put out by Yale University Press and meant for scholars and scholarship seems to be based on online sources without proper fact checks?
Just something (a lot of things) to think about on this Monday afternoon.

Seriously, check out the NPR article.
Then there's the Slate review that started it all.
And an NPR interview with Anthology of Rap editor Adam Bradley, plus an excerpt from the book.

Time Has Told Me

University of Cincinnati Library, you are my favorite. Thank you for digitizing all two hundred and forty-two intact pages of the Spanish Antiphoner, a 16th-century book of Gregorian chants for choir. How beautiful!

(via bibliodyssey)

It's Oh So Quiet Here

Tomorrow is the 15th annual International Noise Awareness Day!

The General Assembly of the International Music Council (UNESCO), Paris, October, 1969:

"We denounce unanimously the intolerable infringement on individual freedom and of the right of everyone to silence, because of the abusive use, in private and public places, of recorded or broadcast music. We ask the Executive Committee of the International Music Council to initiate a study from all angles—medical, scientific and juridical—without overlooking its artistic and educational aspects, and with a view to proposing to UNESCO, and to the proper authorities everywhere, measures calculated to put an end to this abuse."

Down with Muzak?
Check out Right to Quiet Society and the Center for Hearing and Communication for more information.

Interested in noise pollution and acoustic design? Read The Soundscape by R. Murray Schaefer. It's awesome.

Wrap My Words Around You

Ambrose Bierce. He's got wit coming out of his ears.
From The Devil's Dictionary (1911):

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet — two clarionets.

FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
To Rome said Nero: "If to smoke you turn
I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn."
To Nero Rome replied: "Pray do your worst,
'Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first."
—Orm Pludge

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word simulation is from simia, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos stentor) — the ape that howls.

PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

Bird of Prey

Poet Philip Larkin:

Charlie Parker wrecked jazz by - or so they tell me - using the chromatic rather than the diatonic scale. The diatonic scale is what you use if you want to write a national anthem, or a love song, or a lullaby. The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.

- The Paris Reivew Interviews, Vol. II (Ed. Philip Gourevitch)

(I'm still making my leisurely way through the series. I'd still recommend it! Where else are you going to learn special tidbits like: Dorothy Parker subscribed to undertaker magazines?)

When I Take You Out In The Surrey

An impulsive weekend away, but I'm back with this little gem:



Steamboat Seasons: A Medley of Recipes Celebrating the Flavors of Steamboat Springs with Strings in the Mountains Music Festival

"Music, gourmet cuisine, and rocky mountain photography blend together in Steamboat Seasons, a medley of recipes composed by musicians, local celebrated chefs and residents. With anecdotal sidebars, altitude alerts, and culinary counsel, readers are transported to beautiful Northwest Colorado where mountains soar, music sings, and the food is divine."

Extra points if you can fiddle and cook at the same time.

Let Me Tell You A Story Bout A Man Named Charlie

This is a real musical genre. This is a real book.

By: Olive Woolley Burt

(via abebooks)

Heathcliff! / It's Me, It's Cathy / I've Come Home Now

The Ukulele Orchestra covering Kate Bush's literary masterpiece? I think I'm in love.




(bonus: the Kate Bush version)
(via youtube)

A Life / Where Spring Is Sprung

Interviewer: Did you even play a musical instrument?

Ernest Hemingway: I used to play cello. My mother kept me out of school a whole year to study music and counterpoint. She thought I had ability, but I was absolutely without talent. We played chamber music - someone came in to play the violin; my sister played the viola, and mother the piano. That cello - I played it worse than anyone on earth. Of course, that year I was out doing other things too.

From: The Paris Review Interviews, Vol I.

Juliet / The Dice Were Loaded From The Start

Shakespeare and the American Musical, by Irene G. Dash
Secretly, you're psyched too.


(via Indiana University Press)

Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinah

Lost in the Supermarket: An Indie Rock Cookbook
Kay Bozich Owens and Lynn Iwens
"A creative compendium of recipes that reclaims the kitchen for the hip crowd."

I don't know about that, but I do know that I like both Animal Collective and chocolate zucchini cake. So.

Every Day Turns Out To Be / A Little Bit More Like Bukowski

Poetry collection of the day:



Play the Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit, by Charles Bukowski

So Mothers Be Good To Your Daughters Too

And somehow I'm guessing they don't mean that crazy Stravinsky stuff either.

("I Want to Talk to My Teen About Movies, Music" by Walt Mueller)

Paint It Black

Notations 21 is an anthology of graphic scores. It's beautiful! Now if only I was gainfully employed...

Examples:

(Steve Roden)


(Makoto Nomura)

You can see more of the scores (and read about the inspiration behind them) here.

Sitting Waiting Wishing

Alex Ross has a new book coming out in September! It's called Listen to This. Says Mr. Ross: "The new book is a panoramic tour of the musical world, touching variously on Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Verdi, Brahms, Marian Anderson, Frank Sinatra, Cecil Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Radiohead, Mitsuko Uchida, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Bob Dylan, and the Malcolm X Shabazz High School Marching Band. In the Preface, I say that the aim is to 'approach music not as a self-sufficient sphere but as a way of knowing the world.'"

It's not available for pre-order on Amazon yet, so don't bother trying. Not that I've checked once or twice...a day.

All the information that is currently available can be found: here. (And perhaps a preview of what's to come: here?)

Walk Walk Fashion Baby Work It

Liberace: Your Personal Fashion Consultant by Michael & Karan Feder

"Never underestimate a man in hot pants. Liberace, the globally-renowned pianist, swings his closet door open in order to coach you on the fine art of extraordinary dressing for ordinary occasions! Need something to wear to your sister's wedding? Packing for your next Mediterranean cruise? Shopping for a new car? Rest assured, Liberace has the perfect gold lamé number or full-length cape to suit all of your needs.

Not only can you enjoy dazzling photographs of Liberace in the most outrageous of outfits, but you can also punch these photos out to play with twelve paper dolls in hilarious poses! The perfect novelty gift, Liberace: Your Personal Fashion Consultant celebrates and salutes the new 'King of Bling.'"

(via Abe Books' Weird Book Room)

Always Wrapped Up In Her Books

Confession: I love fictional novels about real musicians.

Confession Part 2: I have a particular weakness for Clara/Schumann/Brahms novels. The story is such a soap opera - writers love it! - and I've read them all:


Good Things I Wish You by A. Manette Ansay (2009)



Trio and Trio 2 by Boman Desai (2004, 2006)


Longing by J.D. Landis (2005)
By the way: this is my pick! "What a good book," says the english/music major.


Clara: A Novel by Janice Galloway (2004)

I once walked into a secondhand book store and came out with the only new full-priced book in the store because it was a Clara/Schumann/Brahms novel. The owner nicely pointed all that out to me, but Trio is hard to find and this one was signed so what-could-I-do. Anyway, now the bookstore owner and I are friends; I browse the music section, and his pet cat hides behind the stacks and pounces on my feet when I least expect it.

(If you know of any others, you should pass them along.)

Something Evil's Lurking in the Dark

Fifteen of today's most famous thriller writers collaborated on one book. Get ready for international intrigue, murder, accusations, assassins, and, of course...Chopin?



The Chopin Manuscript: A Serial Thriller (2007)
A novel by:
Lee Child, David Corbett, Jeffery Deaver, Joseph Finder, Jim Fusilli, John Gilstrap, James Grady, David Hewson, John Ramsey Miller, P J Parrish, Ralph Pezzullo, S J Rozan, Lisa Scottoline, Peter Spiegelman, and Erica Spindler

Yes, We Have No Bananas

I love to cook. That being said: there have been a couple of near-emergency-room-level cuts to my fingers over the past couple months, and I'm still wary of any recipe that calls for too much oil (the room getting hazy as I frantically open my high-rise apartment windows to their full inch-wide potential - what do I do?! what do I do?!). I thought for awhile I was going to have to stick with music, but then I found this:



The Ethnomusicologist's Cookbook, ed. Sean Williams

Très bien.
Each chapter is written by a different ethnomusicologist (including Tim Rice, Suzel Ana Reily, and a special poem by Bruno Nettl - big names!); recipes are paired with brief commentary and anecdotes about the experience of fieldwork, musical styles, and eating habits of particular cultures.
Fascinating AND delicious? I think so.

For you: a recipe from the chapter on Bali by Ni Wayan Murni and Jonathan Copeland.

Pisang Goreng (Banana Fritters)

1 c. plain white flour
1 egg
1/2 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
2 c. vegetable oil
6 large, ripe bananas
1/3 c. sugar
2 T cinnamon

In a bowl, mix flour, egg, milk, and vanilla to a smooth batter. Allow to stand for 1 hour. Heat oil gently in a frying pan until almost smoking. Cut each banana into thirds. Dip banana pieces in the batter and carefully drop into the hot fry oil; fry until golden brown. If desired, roll the cooked fritter in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

("Music and food are both deeply integrated into Balinese life. Gamelan rehearsals take place in village meeting halls all over the island. As you walk through the villages, you hear their wonderful percussive sounds and are welcome to sit down and listen. Never very far away are ladies selling food in small stalls. Music and offerings, which always contain food, are intended primarily to entertain the gods and ancestors during the hundreds of ceremonies staged throughout the Balinese calendar of 210 days." p 103)

(I love this book.)

Accordion Crimes

I read a whole book about accordions once.*


Aleksandr Hrustevich, "Summer" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"


(*cough cough, fiction. Great book, though.)