Archive for June 6th, 2009
Claire de Lune
by Chris on Jun.06, 2009, under art, music, poetry
Claire de Lune
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,
Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
Moonlight
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masked and costumed figures go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.
All sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight.
The still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives the birds to dream in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy,
The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues.
Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896)
Fast Tube by Casper">Claire de Lune – Faure
Fast Tube by Casper">Claire de Lune – Debussy
Nonjudgmental Ethical Studies Boom as We Slide into A Pit of Corruption
by Chris on Jun.06, 2009, under philosophy, politics
Originating in the USA, this rather bitter little piece seems all too relevant to the UK
According to an article in Stanford Social Innovation Review, “Research identifies four crucial factors that influence ethical conduct”:
* Moral awareness: recognition that a situation raises ethical issues
* Moral decision making: determining what course of action is ethically sound
* Moral intent: identifying which values should take priority in the decision
* Moral action: following through on ethical decisions.
My own more informal work with America’s Wealthiest Families and their lackies, fellow travelers, suck-ups, apologists, minions, and perjured professionals, reveals other factors that influence ethical conduct:
* Lack of moral imagination
* Fear of reprisals
* Failure of nerve
* Need to eat
* Need not to get fired
* Being married or having dependents and needing a job
* Vanity
* Narcissism
* Despair
* Cost/Benefit Analysis
* Prozac
* Xanax
* Profit and Loss Accounting
* Connivance of legal and regulatory bodies
* Political fixes being in
* Daisy chain at the top among regulators, politicians, high level execs
* MBA in charge
* Tendency to write nonjudgmental sociological prose, about moral issues thereby obfuscating and deflecting a felt sense of personal responsibility.
What keeps us from being decent is not lack of knowledge, but as ancient moralists so often said, a lack of the will to do right. That is what sermon and satire and peer pressure are for. But how much leverage against wrong doers in high places do we get with a study like the one linked above? Zip. And that is why such articles are published. Harmless exercises. Impeding no ones progress to the top. Ethics Studies are a big business today as were Papal Indulgences under the Borgias. Ok, yes, I am just bitter because I have yet to find a way to get paid for morally correcting and improving my superiors. I tried it once as a young man and had to sign a letter from HR agreeing that I had been insubordinate. Now, I just cite the moral literature in general terms and do as told. I would suggest you do the same. You owe it to yourself to keep your own ass out of a sling, as have the authors linked above.
via Gift Hub: Nonjudgmental Ethical Studies Boom as America Slides into A Pit of Corruption.
Alex Ross: A Mahler list
by Chris on Jun.06, 2009, under music, Uncategorized
A Mahler List
Pursuant to my Mahler column this week, (in The New Yorker) here’s a list of favorite recordings of the nine, ten, or eleven Mahler symphonies, depending on how you count them. I do this with some trepidation, since Mahler is a personal matter and my tastes are hardly the same as, say, Alec Baldwin’s. But I hope the list will serve as a rough guide to anyone traversing the Mahler mountain range for the first time.
No. 1: Rafael Kubelík, Bavarian Radio Symphony (DG)
No. 2: Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony (EMI)
No. 3: Jascha Horenstein, London Symphony (Unicorn) or Claudio Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic (DG)
No. 4: Iván Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics)
No. 5: Leonard Bernstein, Vienna Philharmonic (DG)
No. 6: Pierre Boulez, Vienna Philharmonic (DG)
No. 7: Michael Tilson Thomas, London Symphony (BMG)
No. 8: Horenstein, London Symphony, 1959 (BBC Legends)
No. 9: Bernstein, Berlin Philharmonic, 1979 (DG)
No. 10: Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic (EMI)
Rückert Lieder, Kindertotenlieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen: Janet Baker, John Barbirolli, New Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI)
Das Lied von der Erde: Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI)
Fischer’s Fourth is brand new, but it has the ring of a classic. I’ve included an alternative version of the Third because the Horenstein is out of print and may be difficult to find. Also, the budget-minded won’t go wrong by substituting Sony Classical’s two-CD package of Bruno Walter’s First and Second. There are so many other recordings that I love: Dimitri Mitropoulos’s First, raucous and alive; John Barbirolli’s relentlessly chilling Sixth, my introduction to the piece; Hermann Scherchen’s Seventh, fascinatingly twisted and dark; and two other unforgettable Walter discs — his Das Lied with the dying Kathleen Ferrier and his Ninth in the dying city of Vienna. Needless to say, even the most storied recordings are a poor substitute for the primal thrill of Mahler live. My first experience of the composer was at the National Symphony in 1978, with Antal Doráti conducting the “Resurrection”; I was ten, and I’ve been a Mahler nut ever since.
via Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: A Mahler list.
Stop the Settlements
by Chris on Jun.06, 2009, under politics
From Avaaz.org:
President Obama’s speech in Egypt today was a stunning step toward achieving Middle East peace. His first new move: to press Israel’s right-wing government to stop their self-destructive policy of building settlements on Palestinian land.
But Obama needs help from around the world to face down the powerful opposition already mobilising against him.
Let’s raise a massive global chorus immediately to support Obama’s statement that the settlements in occupied territory must stop, by joining our voices to a petition based on his very own words.
We’ll advertise the number of signatures in key papers in Israel and Washington DC – support Obama’s message now, sign the petition below and spread the word today…
Click here.
