Yesterday I went to an afternoon choral concert put on by the Park Slope Singers, a local amateur community group. The main work was C.H.H. Parry’s Songs of Farewell.
There was something pleasantly low-key and make-do about the whole thing. It was a refreshing change from the military polish you’d find at your major orchestra and operas and ballets, every moment from arrival to tickets to entrance to first notes drilled to perfection.
It was informal and welcoming, the audience talked back to the conductor, a man got up to use the bathroom during the singing, and there were miscues and wrong notes here and there. And it was lovely. A group of people volunteering their own time to do something they love and share their gifts. A beautiful thing, to gather with others and do your best.
One of the settings was John Gibson Lockhart‘s poem, “There is an Old Belief”:
There is an old belief,
That on some solemn shore,
Beyond the sphere of grief
Dear friends shall meet once more.
Beyond the sphere of Time and Sin
And Fate's control,
Serene in changeless prime
Of body and of soul.
That creed I fain would keep
That hope I'll ne'er forgo,
Eternal be the sleep,
If not to waken so.
Art
A turquoise standing male figurine from the Wari culture of Peru.
Greyhound Bus, photo by Ming Smith, part of the “August Moon” series on exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Books
Middlemarch, cont. What a fun book. Happy to keep going. Another round of quotes in the meantime…
- “Money’s a good egg; and if you’ve got money to leave behind you, lay it in a warm nest.”
- “Their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze.”
- “I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.”
- “Time, like money, is measured by our needs.”
- “One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!”
- “I don’t translate my own convenience into other people’s duties.”
- “A sense of contributing to form the world’s opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful.”
- “I call that the fanaticism of sympathy. […] If you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might hae no advantage over others. The best piety is to enjoy – when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth’s character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. […] Would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and moralizing over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom.”
Articles & Episodes & Twoots
Middlemarch is trending…
The past isn’t irrelevant, it’s just poorly transmitted. I love this framework: “We first have to look at legacy and innovation as constants and tools.”
Archaeologists Are Finding Dugout Canoes in the American Midwest as Old as the Great Pyramids of Egypt. (via)
2025: New York City’s Electoral College Election.
A guide to falling in love with New York City.
What is the “Brooklyn” of each city?
“It took visiting roma/la condesa to truly realize that “williamsburg” has been one of america’s most powerful cultural exports of the 21st century”.
How sci-fi can have drama without dystopia or doomerism.
Digital avatars when streaming the Australian Open?
No, we are not producing too many STEM graduates and Ignore the Grifters – AI Isn’t Going to Kill the Software Industry.
Movie critic Tyler Smith of Battleship Pretension fame released Cinematic Suffering: Reviews of Terrible Movies.
Movies
Oppenheimer. I like how it takes care to situate you in the time – The Wasteland, Stravinsky, Cubism, etc.. Emily Blunt’s voice/delivery is so good, and don’t think I’ve ever seen Josh Hartnett so fully in the moment. Maybe the best moment is when the man at the center of it all is suddenly no longer powerful. What do you do next?
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The greyest film to date. Wish we had more Snape story. Good to see relationships building among the students, and to see Harry less angry, and seeing his caring side. Also interesting that Harry doesn’t battle in the end, but only witnesses. I don’t think the mourning scene stuck the landing. One cool thing about Hogwarts I’m just now noticing: the kids have phones, no TV, no Switch, etc.. Just newspapers and books and fireplaces and each other’s company.
TV
The X-Files, s4e5 “The Field Where I Died“. Multiple personalities and past lives and doomer cults. Mulder/Scully relationship is more volatile than usual here, with Scully calling Mulder out on his constant selfishness. I like the rich contrasty images in this episode.
Severance, s1e6–9. Rewatch complete, really glad to have done it. Can’t believe it’s been so long.
Music
Missy Mazzoli, Vespers for a New Dark Age. Inventive chamber choir work, very nice.
Yaminahua, Derelict. Opens ominous, hyperkinetic factory EDM.
Brie Larson (yes), Finally Out of P.E.. I had no idea!
Back to Ajate again, this time a pair…
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Challengers OST. If you’ve heard their other work, you know it’s good and you know what you’re in for.
Berlioz, open this wall. Jazz/lounge-inflected house music, see the muted trumpet + found vocal snippets on “nytmp“.
Running
Back-to-back long runs this weekend, practicing running while tired. A few runs in the teensºF, and luckily not windy enough to make it terrible. Race coming in a month and a half!
Mark Larson 