White Peppair

from Thursday, June12th of the year2008.

Just everybody watch this video of Eric Ripert broiling a piece of red snapper in a toaster oven. He is genius. I have a lemon; we are going to score it. A beautiful piece of red snapper. I wonder if Ripert, like Donatella Versace, has an accent awesome enough to be fully rendered out in interviews. Have you noticed that, there are only a few people whose accents will get rendered out?

I had the best Shuffle day yesterday. On my walk to the studio (which takes about fifteen minutes but was prolonged by a brief trip to the dry cleaners), my iPod decided that I wanted to listen to: Hot Chip And I Was A Boy From School, Ratatat Lex, the last movement of Reich’s Daniel Variations, and my most favorite thing in the world, The-Dream’s Falsetto. Very satisfying.

Did everybody read Frank Bruni’s epic take-down of Ago? The best part:

Then came an entree that perplexed us, a pale slab of meat with one long bone. “What is this?” asked one of my friends. “The special veal chop,” said the food deliverer. “But I ordered rack of lamb,” my friend said. I had heard him. “Yes,” said the deliverer. “That’s rack of lamb.” My friend pressed: which was it? “It’s the special rack-of-lamb veal chop,” the deliverer said, at which point we sought deliverance from him and searched for our frequently vanishing waiter, whom I had come to think of as the bucatini Houdini.

This reminded me of this really intense trope that my ear-training teacher at Juilliard used to obsessively explore. It would go like this:

Mary Anthony Cox: Honey, what is this note?
Hapless Student: Um…b-flat?
Mary Anthony: Are you asking me or telling me?
Hapless Student: Telling you.
Mary Anthony Cox: Tell me the answer then, honey.
Hapless Student: B-flat!
[this would be the wrong answer]
Mary Anthony Cox: Honey, have you ever heard of a cat-dog?
Hapless Student: What?!
Mary Anthony Cox: A cat-dog. Have you ever heard of one?

This was her way of informing you that your answer was somehow conflicting with the real answer; it was also a form of psychological warfare. The first time I didn’t understand her, in my entrance audition, she said to me, “Honey, is English your first language?”

Severe times.

12 Comments

  • O mon Dieu, I am een lov wiv Ereek!
    Merci beaucoup, Neeco…

  • I like. 🙂

    Eric is a walking cliche. Glorious.

  • the-dream rules!

    (that is all)

  • This may not be relevant, but my sight-singing prof in college had a habit of flipping through the course catalog of the college during the first freshman music-major atonal sight-singing test of the year, and at the end of one’s selection, without looking at one, he’d casually say something like:

    “Hmm…have you ever considered another major?”

  • And I Was a Boy From School rocks. First Hot Chip song I got obsessed with. F*ing fantastic.

  • Hot chip rocks.

  • eric ripert does have a (sexy) heavy french accent

  • “Now, Honey, what do you want to call ‘it’ if you’re singing down an AUGMINISHED 4/2 and the tonic is fa-flat?”

    God Bless Mary Anthony for those panicky fight-or-flight situations.

  • endilega.

  • I have definitely seen Ripert’s discussion of a nice piece of ‘allybute’ transcribed as such.

    I imagine the trouble we go to with the rendering of accents has to do with how much we are charmed by the bearers of said accents. For him… for heem…. I would take some time.

  • No! I had a three fisted breakfast and a five fisted lunch! So, if I have a no fisted dinner (+-) and run across the bridge tonight (-2) I’ll have had a six fisted day.

  • Mine was in a practice room with judge alone for a solo piano competition. Three contrasting pieces. I know one was Seymour Bernstein’s Mosquito from his Insect series. (Loved the whole thing, intense pieces obviously each after an insect.)

    The judge turns and says…

    “Your technique is horrible. I don’t understand how you manage to get through the piece. But the emotion you bring to each piece is breathtaking. 1 Star!”

    Reverse back slap with a twist.