Regional

Sarah Bryan Miller recently had a post up at the St. Louis Post Dispatch in which she responded to a question asked by the New York Times Art Beat Blog:  How does an orchestra earn its status?

The discussion was occasioned by the gift of $85 million to Cincinnati arts groups by a put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is patron named Louise Dieterle Nippert. Wakin, reporting on this, got a storm of reaction over calling the respected Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, one of the major beneficiaries of the gift, a “regional orchestra.”

Why, SBM wonders, are orchestras as good as Cincinnati’s and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra classified as regional when they regularly play better than orchestras in the ‘Big 5’.   She made me chuckle:

The New York Philharmonic is the only symphony orchestra in the United States older than the SLSO; it’s in the center of the American artistic universe, and it can have its pick of players. But I’ve heard the NY Phil play like absolute pigs, reportedly because they collectively detested the conductor. (”It’s hard to play well for a conductor you don’t respect,” said a freelancer friend who sometimes works with them. I dunno; when I was a professional singer, that attitude wouldn’t have washed - and most listeners are going to blame the people producing the wrong notes, not the guy with the stick.) I can’t imagine the members of the SLSO pulling a stunt like that.

I love irreverence toward the New York Philharmonic.    

I don’t get too worked up that the SLSO doesn’t get as much recognition as orchestras from larger cities. It makes it easier to recognize the people who really know what they are talking about from the poseurs.  For instance, I’ve never been a big fan of Alec Baldwin and had no idea he was a classical music fan until I read this New York Times piece about his love of classical music and his relationship with the New York Philharmonic.   And even as  I was reading I wasn’t really sure how serious I was taking it until I read this:

Asked about his favorite performances, he rattled them off: “The Solti Mahler Ninth. Any Copland with Slatkin when he was in St. Louis. I like the Mahler cycle that Tilson Thomas did.”

And I realized he was serious.   Because SLSO recordings of Copland from back in the 80’s are fabulous.   I have a hard time listening to other orchestras’ interpretations of Copland because I think Slatkin’s are the gold standard.

People who really love a type of music always know who can really play it.   Worldwide fame isn’t important; playing famous venues isn’t important.  It’s the talent that counts.  It’s like back in the 20’s when white musicians knew that Louis Armstrong was a huge talent even though he wasn’t allowed to play certain venues because of racial segregation.  They would go to his venues after hours and jam with him.  Because they knew how good he was.   It’s the same in the classical music world.  

SLSO has a CD out right now, a recording of John Adam’s Dr. Atomic Symphony.   It is getting critical acclaim.  It seemed that the SLSO fell off of many people’s radar after Slatkin left but now the radar is picking up a bleep. (Full disclosure:  I hated the Hans Vonk years and even cancelled my subscription, I was so bored during those years by what they were playing.  So I can’t blame anyone too much for ignoring SLSO during those years.)

Maybe I’d just rather be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond, but I don’t really see any downside to being one of the best “regional” orchestras in the world.   As long as the word “best” is out there.

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

To the end, that is.

Spoilers under the fold. And if you haven’t watched it yet I strongly advise you to not click through.

Gifts

 Booking Through Thursday asks:

What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)?

Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?

Yes, I did get books for Christmas and I got bookstore gift cards.   I always ask for books but I don’t mind getting gift cards and choosing them myself.   This year my favorite little independent bookstore sent out an email reminding us that we could make an online wish list, which I did.    Which made asking for books easy – I just gave everyone the web address.

The other day I was reading someone’s book blog (I wish I could remember whose) and the blogger mentioned that she had was trying to work through “reader’s block”.  That phrase kept coming back to me and I realized that I’ve felt like I’ve had reader’s block for a few months.   Ever since I was sick this summer, in fact,  and I couldn’t read.   Oh sure, I’ve read since then.  I finished War and Peace.  But it hasn’t felt fun and pretty much everything has felt like an assignment.

That’s why I took a break from all of my reading clubs, so I wouldn’t have any actual assignments and I could read what I wanted.  But I haven’t wanted to read much of anything.

I’m currently reading Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy which I’ve been working on for months now.  It was my “work” book that I take with me to the office.  I read it during lunch, but it’s been to busy to have lunch for a couple of months.   And now that it gets dark early there is no reading at stoplights.   At night I just don’t feel like picking it up when I’m at home even though I’m enjoying it when I do find time to read it at lunch.

I’m reading Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, a very small book that is entertaining.  I started it six weeks ago, read to about the middle and haven’t picked it up since.  

That’s why I thought I’d ask for more books for Christmas.  Maybe new fuel on the fire will warm me up a little.

First, here was my current stack of books that I’ve bought but still not read:

 

It’s a good selection including the bottom book which is AS Byatt’s new novel and a couple of Roman mystery novels by Steven Saylor. 

I also have a stack of books that people have lent me that I haven’t gotten to yet:

Again, a pretty wide selection ranging from a Harry Potter “add on” book to a non-fiction book about the Cardinals. 

Here’s what I got for Christmas, either directly or with the book cards I got:

 

The new Margaret Atwood novel, Julia Child’s memoir, a novel by Penelope Lively that appealed to me when I read the review, the Simon Mawer novel that was nominated for the Booker and a novel by Jane Gardam because I’ve been running across her name lately and when I asked the bookseller she gave me a thumbs up on her.

So hopefully out of all of these books I’ll find something I want to read.  And if not, there’s 2666.   And the library.

2666

When the entire world decided to read Infinite Jest together last year I demurred.  I just wasn’t interested enough to commit the time to it. 

Now there is going to be group read of Robert Bolano’s novel 2666.  I might try that.

The format here will be similar to Infinite Summer’s group read of Infinite Jest. There will be a schedule, a weekly recap, and some analysis from guides. There will also be a Twitter hashtag. Since this read is not limited to or sponsored by Infinite Summer, I propose #2666 instead of #infsum—partly because it’s one character shorter and partly because people are already using it.

Pages 1-51 are due the week of January 25th so I still have time to pick up the novel and keep on schedule.  And if I don’t like it I can always drop out, right?

If I do this I’m going to have to figure out how to make that squiggly line over the “n” in his name.    Or maybe I’ll just always refer to him as “RB”.   Yeah … that’s the ticket.   RB.

At the Movies: Nine

I went to see Rob Marshall’s film version of the musical Nine during the holidays.  I never saw then stage musical so, unlike his version of Chicago (which I really enjoyed), I can’t compare it to the original.  I’ve never seen the Fellini film on which Nine is based either.

Nine is a lot like the film version of Chicago in that all the musical numbers take place in a character’s imagination and supplement whatever is going on in the “dramatic” portion of the film.    Like in Chicago, the numbers are filmed in a strikingly visual way – they mostly take place on an unfinished movie set.   I’ve always enjoyed Rob Marshall’s choreography and wasn’t disappointed.  He also gets really good performances out of his actors, including actors that you don’t automatically think of as “musical” actors.   They all looked like they were having a ball doing the singing and dancing.  And I think Marshall has a natural eye behind the camera – this is a visually appealing movie. 

But I didn’t like it.

Mostly I didn’t like it because I didn’t like the music.   That isn’t Marshall’s fault of course, he didn’t write the music.   But it is hard to like a musical if you don’t like the music.  I thought the music was boring and found myself drifting away in the middle of musical numbers.  I liked the choreography but thought that Marshall was working hard to keep the audience’s attention from drifting away from the music itself.  

In Chicago the choreography complemented the music and the music, lyrics and choreography worked together to create an overall illusion that we were drawn into.  And despite the fact that Chicago is written as a series of vaudeville style acts, each musical act does advance the plot.   I didn’t really find that the musical “acts” in Nine advanced the plot.  I don’t think they were supposed to; I think they were supposed to give the audience insight into the various characters and insight into how the main character saw the other characters. It is a very psychological story.   But that created a problem, at least for me.

In Nine every time there was a musical number it felt as if the action stopped and the plot was put on hold.   The story revolves around the psychological problems that Daniel Day Lewis’ character (a famous Italian film director) is having in coming up with a movie script. With only a few brief exceptions he is never a part of the musical numbers; they are performed for him or about him – he is passive, either taking them in or not even present for them.   I found myself impatient during them.  

I wonder if part of the problem is that Marshall filmed each musical number as the movie equivalent of a vaudeville number.  The numbers mostly took place on an unfinished movie set played outward to an audience.   To me the musical scene that worked the best was the scene involving Nicole Kidman’s character which cut back and forth between live action dialogue between the characters in narrow Italian streets and the  song which took place in a movie set Italian piazza.  It wasn’t filmed like vaudeville – it was filmed a bit more like an old MGM musical number.   The characters weren’t playing to an audience, they were playing to each other.

But although the music was the key problem I had with the film, I also didn’t like any of the characters.   I’m not sure why that mattered.  I didn’t like any of the characters in Chicago, they were not supposed to be likeable.  But I was fascinated by them.  I wanted to know what they would do next.   In this film, the characters are all … stuck.  I kept waiting for them to do something.  Anything.  But they are all waiting for the main character to do something.  Maybe that’s why Nicole Kidman’s character, Claudia, is refreshing.  Because she takes matters into her own hands.

Daniel Day Lewis does such a good job playing an Italian that if you didn’t know who he was you might think he was Italian.  But his character is a self absorbed, chain smoking, rumpled (actually, dirty looking) Italian.   Not anyone I’d want to be around.  And although a lot is made of the fact that the character is a famous film director, we just have to take their word for it.   We see none of his prior work.   Without seeing his “genius” in action it is difficult to understand why anyone would put up with him.   He does nothing but mope around.  

Marion Cotillard does well as his long suffering wife but she isn’t given nearly enough to do except look long-suffering.   Penelope Cruz is his mistress and is little more than a caricature.  Kate Hudson and Sofia Loren are in bit parts that add almost nothing to the film (although it was fun watching Kate Hudson looking almost exactly like her mother back in the Laugh-In days). 

I enjoyed Nicole Kidman.  I’d say that she did a lot with such a small part but that’s partly because her character is key to the plot so she was given something to work with.  But credit where it’s due, she took what was given to her and made something of the two or three scenes she was in. She also, admittedly, owes a lot to wardrobe and makeup who made her look like a dead ringer for Brigit Bardot (although I’m assuming that since she is named Claudia the role is supposed to be a takeoff on Claudia Cardinale, but no matter).  

Judi Dench was, as usual, fantastic and totally wasted in the role.

In the end, I just didn’t care if the main character ever found himself or ever made a movie again.   It is possible that this musical just doesn’t translate well to film, but since the musical derived from a film I find that hard to believe.  So I have to lay the blame for failure at the feet of the director.

I did, however, like watching the Italian scenery.

Stargate Bye Bye

My Stargate Sg-1 viewing has come to an end with the end of the 10th season on hulu. Hopefully they’ll start putting up early seasons of Stargate Atlantis at some point.

If SyFy hadn’t canceled it, and if the actors probably weren’t incredibly tired of doing it, I think Stargate SG-1 could have gone on forever. The writers figured out (a la Joss Whedon) how to have a Big Bad each season with an overarching story arc but with stand alone episodes interspersed here and there. So the mythology was consistent but the stories were always (relatively) fresh. They also figured out (a la Joss Whedon) how to successfully introduce new characters while never quite losing old characters.

Few characters ever died a final death on Stargate Sg-1. They either came back to life, or returned as the same person from an alternate reality, or appeared in flashback-type scenes. If their character was in the USAF the writers didn’t have to kill him, they could just promote him to the Pentagon where he would disappear into its bowels for months at a time. Or send him on a mission to Atlantis.

As the show evolved it continued to work although in all honesty I think the middle years were the best. The writers replaced the commander of Stargate Command three times and made it work. The writers managed to replace Richard Dean Anderson and make it work.

Since Stargate SG-1 constantly made comedic references to other sci-fi movies and sci-fi television series it seemed appropriate that, by the end of the series, 2 out of 5 members of the SG-1 team were refugees from the cancelled FarScape series and the Big Bad for the last season was the cancelled Firefly’s Morena Baccarin.

In the show’s 200th episode the writers brought back one of my favorite characters, Marty the alien. Marty showed up in two earlier seasons, first as an ordinary looking guy who is convinced aliens exist. It turns out he is an alien who has had his memory wiped and a human memory implanted. But the memory of finding this out gets wiped too, although maybe not completely. Marty shows up in a later season as a writer for a television series about a space transportation mode that looks suspiciously like a stargate and with a cast that looks suspiciously like the SG-1 team: USAF colonel Jack O’Neil, Archaeologist Daniel Jackson, USAF Major Samantha Carter and Teal’c the alien . A hilarious episode.

For the 200th episode, the writers brought back Marty. His TV series was cancelled after only 3 episodes but now he has convinced a studio to make a movie out of the concept.

Daniel Jackson: Who makes a movie out of a TV series that only lasted 3 episodes?

Teal’c (the alien who loves human pop culture): It allegedly performed well on DVD.

The SG-1 Team is supposed to act as script advisors.

For all the FarScape fans out there, here’s the clip where Claudia Black’s character, miffed to find that the movie is still going to use the old SG-1 team and there won’t be any character based on her, tries to sell Marty on other script ideas. As an alien, Black’s character has been spending time acquainting herself with Earth television and movies. First she floats an idea that sounds suspiciously like The Wizard of Oz. Then she tries this:

My family is so cool that, even though none of them watch Sci Fi, when I said someone should find me a FarScape DVD for Christmas my sister did. So I’ve watched a couple episodes (all Season 1) which is enough for me to sort of get the parody (although from youtube comments I guess it includes characters from later seasons).

Now I’ve got something else to watch as I withdraw from my nightly Stargate-before-bed fix.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite moments from the last couple of seasons of Stargate. The alien, Vala Mal Doran (Claudia Black), has been missing for months and has returned to tell SG-1 that she has suddenly just “found herself” pregnant without doing any of the things one does to get oneself pregnant. The Airforce team (Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping and Beau Bridges) are speechless but the other alien, Teal’c (Christopher Judge), is not:

Hello 2010

It’s so nice to see you!

I don’t usually make resolutions for the new calendar year. For one thing,  I know I’ll break them almost immediately.   But mostly I think it’s because I still tend to think of September as the start of the new year even though I’ve been out of school for almost twenty years.

The only resolution I’m making this year is to change the way I make donations to better the world.  I resolve to give my money to organizations that work day-in-day-out, year after year on issues that I care about.  That means I will not be giving any money to individuals running for office.    

Other than that, no resolutions.  But maybe some wishes.  Yes, I do wishes.

Not “I wish for peace on Earth” kind of wishes (although I do wish for that) but “I wish I were different” kind of wishes.   Don’t worry, I’m a pretty rational person so I don’t suddenly wish I were 5’5” instead of 5’8”  or wish I looked like someone else.   I don’t even wish that I were nicer.  There are some things that just don’t change.

But other things I have a bit of control over and I wish I would do those things.    So in the spirit of the New Year maybe, if I wish hard enough and clap loud enough, in 2010 I’ll:

• do more stretching
• make more homecooked meals
• spend more time with friends I didn’t see enough in 2009
• catch up on my French history project that I mostly put aside a couple of years ago
• Learn some more Italian (which should be easy with my new “phrase a day” Italian calendar from AB)

And if I don’t, oh well.

Felice Anno Nuovo!