Igor Stravinsky (↑, one of my favorite composers) is probably best known for his collaboration with Serge Diaghilev on the The Rite of Spring ballet and its scandalous premiere. But a few years after that, with Diaghilev's prodding, he brought out another ballet score with older, more conservative roots, Pulcinella.

What made Pulcinella different was that Stravinsky took most of the music from lesser-known classical-era composers like Pergolesi, Gallo, Monza, et al. "It was a backward glance, of course, but it was a look in the mirror, too." Stravinsky took whole melodies and bass lines from the old stuff, and within that framework he rejiggered the harmonies, rhythms, and orchestration.

I began by composing on the Pergolesi manuscripts themselves, as though I were correcting an old work of my own. I knew that I could not produce a 'forgery' of Pergolesi because my motor habits are so different; at best, I could repeat him in my own accent.

The reception of the new work wasn't all positive...

I was... attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing 'simple' music, blamed for deserting 'modernism,' accused of renouncing my 'true Russian heritage.' People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried 'sacrilege': "The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone."

... but he had his reasons...

To them all my answer was and is the same: You "respect," but I love.

The fifth issue of Ahhhhh Mega-Zine is ready for your enjoyment. I really liked Javan Makhmali's photos in this one.

Why work more hours.

From an interview with Lynda Barry:

There isn't much of a difference in the experience of painting a picture, writing a novel, making a comic strip, reading a poem or listening to a song. The containers are different, but the lively thing at the center is what I'm interested in.

[via austin kleon]

Electric Purgatory is a cool documentary about black musicians in rock. [via joshua blankenship]

Last weekend I enjoyed a little trip from Atlanta to Winston-Salem. If you find yourself in the area, I recommend a stop in Reynolda Gardens and maybe Mary's Of Course Cafe. Old Salem was neat, but I'm glad we didn't linger too long.

Michael Lewis writes about Iceland and the recent financial meltdown. Man, I'd love to go back there. [via marginal revolution]

The first book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe that I read was the most excellent Democracy: The God That Failed. In the introduction to that book, Hoppe talks about competing social theories and, in face of conflicting arguments about society or politics or economics, how we can decide between them:

The data of history are logically compatible with... rival interpretations, and historians, insofar as they are just historians, have no way of deciding in favor of one or the other. If one is to make a rational choice among such rival and incompatible interpretations, this is only possible if one has a theory at one's disposal, or at least a theoretical proposition, whose validity does not depend on historical experience but can be established a priori, i.e. once and for all by means of the intellectual apprehension or comprehension of the nature of things.

In other words, disagreements can't be solved only by appealing to historical data. In the end "a priori theory trumps and corrects experience (and logic overrules observation), and not vice-versa." A Theory of Capitalism & Socialism: Economics, Politics, Ethics [full text, pdf] takes this deductive approach. Hoppe starts by building a theory of property. We only need property because things are scarce; where there is no scarcity (e.g. ideas) there is no property...

And the rest flows from that. Sorry I don't remember much more than that off-hand, because I finished the book almost a year ago. This draft has been sitting neglected for months and months. Just wanted to clear out the archives. Highly recommended, though.

Yeasayer has a blog while they work on the new album.

I notice that the rest of the band decided to get super organized while I was back in New York. They got a Dry Erase board and started to write ideas for song titles and album titles on it. Great idea guys! Every song should definitely have a title. So I thought to catch up I should start brainstorming some ideas after I ate breakfast. Here are the titles I thought of:

Sugar in the Raw Recycling Ain't Easy Stove Won't Light I (Like my Cereal Hot)

I love planning and organizing things so much that sometimes I’d rather not ever do the actual thing.

(This is actually a running theme in my life. See also: song database but no new recordings, exercise plan but no new muscles. The only time it works in my favor is when having a plan inherently leads to the plan being success, as with a budget.

Anywho…)

About a dozen years ago, Bj??rk interviewed composer Arvo P?§rt. P?§rt has written a number of things I like... Spiegel im Spiegel; Silouans Song; Credo; F?ºr Alina, etc. [via atlanta composers]

Tax rates of the rich and poor:

Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent Second quintile: 9.9 percent Middle quintile: 14.2 percent Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent

Doodling "may help memory recall". I almost always do a little aimless doodling during meetings at work. Now I've got some science to back it up. [via austin kleon]

In an otherwise unremarkable interview with its inventor, I learned that Lenin played the Theremin:

I brought my apparatus and set it up in his large office in the Kremlin. He was not yet there because he was in a meeting. I waited with Fotiva, his secretary, who was a good pianist, a graduate of the conservatory. She said that a little piano would be brought into the office, and that she would accompany me on the music that I would play. So we prepared, and about an hour and a half later Vladimir Il'yich Lenin came with those people with whom he had been in conference in the Kremlin. He was very gracious; I was very pleased to meet him, and then I showed him the signaling system of my instrument, which I played by moving my hands in the air, and which was called at that time the thereminvox. I played a piece [of music].

After I played the piece they applauded, including Vladimir Il'yich [Lenin], who had been watching very attentively during my playing. I played Glinka's "Skylark", which he loved very much, and Vladimir Il'yich said, after all this applause, that I should show him, and he would try himself to play it. He stood up, moved to the instrument, stretched his hands out, left and right: right to the pitch and left to the volume. I took his hands from behind and helped him. He started to play "Skylark". He had a very good ear, and he felt where to move his hands to get the sound: to lower them or to raise them. In the middle of this piece I thought that he could himself, independently, move his hands. So I took my hands off of his, and he completed the whole thing independently, by himself, with great success and with great applause following. He was very happy that he could play on this instrument all by himself.

I wish I could find online Gerald Early's essay, "Dancing in the Dark: Race, Sex, The South, and Exploitative Cinema". It was far and away the best thing I read in Best African American Essays: 2009, but it looks like it's hidden away in Issue 57 of the Oxford American, subscribers only. In any case, Early talks about self-mythologizing Southern culture, American gothic, blaxploitation and sexual taboo. Case studies include D.W. Griffith films like The Birth of the Nation, His Trust, and His Trust Fulfilled; Gone with the Wind; I Spit on Your Grave; Free, White, and 21; Murder in Missippi; Black Like Me; and To Kill a Mockingbird. Read it if you can find it.

When Tyra Met Naomi, a look at racism in the fashion industry.

Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning, a short story by Donald Barthelme.

"It's worth knowing about ten times as much as you ever use, so you can move freely."---Ian McEwan

From an interview with Jimmy Carter:

Q: You've written memoirs, a historical novel, a children's book, poetry---all while running the Carter Center. How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?

A: Well, I get up early. (Laughs.) I'm a farmer, still. I get up around 5 o'clock in the morning when I'm home, so I have three hours of good time to think and write before the normal events start happening in Atlanta at the Carter Center.

Urban Spectacles makes handmade eyeglasses from exotic woods and other materials. I'm due for a new pair. Though I hate to get all fetishy about fashion, if I don't go the $40 eyeglasses route, I might give this guy a look. I've had my current pair for about 8-9 years now.