You can take your Alfred Brendel recordings and Daniel Barenboim discs and let them gather dust in a cellar as far as I’m concerned; Glenn Gould made Beethoven sound fresh, exciting and just plain fun to play in his quixotic romp through the piano sonatas (the ones he liked, at least).
No more so than in this recording of the opening movement of the Piano Sonata no. 6, Op. 10 no. 2:
Makes me want to stroll to the piano showroom down the road and pretend to be an interested buyer so I can abuse one of the lovely remodeled Steinways again for an hour or so.
If you have ten or fifteen minutes to spare, I would encourage you to read this short story, which I read today and which has left an impression on me.
I came across “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” – written in 1953 by Flannery O’Connor – through the excellent blogger Andrew Sullivan, who linked to this recording of the author giving a reading of her own work.
Analysis and interpretation can be found through the ever-reliable Wikipedia here.
Except, of course, for those times when it is very funny indeed.
CNet.com reports:
Apple customers are known to pay a premium for their Macs, strong design, and integrated software. Apparently, Mac users will also shell out more for hotel rooms too.
According to the Wall Street Journal, travel site Orbitz has been able to segment its audience in Apple and Windows camps. The upshot: Mac users will pay $20 to $30 a night more on hotels than PC users.
I freely admit that this story brought a smile to my face as I sat hunched over my dusty, ageing Dell laptop.
I have always held that there are certain very visible indicators which show when your country is drifting (or, in some cases, is firmly planted) towards the wrong end of the decent-ridiculous spectrum. So I made a list:
1. The word “Democratic” appears in the name
2. Parades consist of ICBMs, tanks and other assorted weapons rather than carnival floats and inflatable, floating Peanuts characters
3. More sports stadia named after current and former heads of state than there are research universities in the country
4. All stadia, hospitals, public buildings and whatever research universities do exist are named after current and former heads of state
5. On the UN Human Rights Committee
6. The goose-step is the military march of choice
7. At big national events, when not goose-stepping, soldiers perform elaborate, highly choreographed dances to national folk music (thank you, North Korea)
8. Bear-wrestling, deep-sea-diving heads of state, or other cults of personality
9. Co-ordinated mass hysteria when the head of state dies (thanks again, North Korea)
To these sure signs of a bad time, we can now add one more, reported today by The Guardian:
10. The prime minister takes the time to meddle in decisions about who should chair the national Football Association following an earlier-than-hoped exit from Euro 2012.
Although it was expected that someone would take the fall for Russia’s loss, Fursenko’s exit came as a surprise.
“I have a feeling there is more to his resignation,” said Vyacheslav Koloskov, a former head of the football union and a former Fifa vice president. “Just three or four days ago, Fursenko said he was looking for a new coach, meaning he had no plans to resign. Something must have happened that made him change his mind,” he told local media.
Hmm. What could have happened to make him change his mind?
Nice going, Russia. Always blazing a trail and setting an example of strong institutions and democracy for all nations to follow.
Who will give us indicator #11? North Korea, got anything new for us?
Semi-Partisan Politics 