Speaking of nomenclature, Gawker totally had my name in its mouth! Excellent. It’s kind of a good idea. I would love to score an episode of Gossip Girl, wouldn’t that be fun? And, it would be a weird homecoming of sorts; Josh Schwartz, who is in some fashion in charge of it, went to my High School, and played Salieri in our production of Amadeus; I was his “piano stunt double” or whatever; I sat backstage and played all those embarrassing little sonatinas.

I watched the election returns at the home of my friend N—, a conductor, who, along with his lovely girlfriend J—, hosted an election party for approximately ten people in their apartment in Muswell Hill. I came with A— and D—, both with me on the film, and we soon realized that we were both the token Americans who could explain the electoral college as well as the entertainment. We played Literal Charades; it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. When put on the spot to name “Five Americans English People Have Heard Of” I ended up with, like, Bruce Springsteen and M’Shell Ndegeocello? I have never seen a more satisfying face than when England Girl picked her name out of the hat.

‘The last four years I’d been watching, incredulous, the screaming gap between the reigning model of investment and what ought to have been the sensible reality. Everything short-term, without taking into account the social consequences; betting on huge profits without seriously evaluating the risks; a shocking excess in the bonus payments to executives; and, shaping everything, a classically masculine way of doing things.’

Women in Iceland, as elsewhere, are generally more practical than men, they have their feet more squarely on the ground and they study the consequences of the risks they take with greater diligence, says Tomasdottir, who on the week I was in Reykjavik gave a speech on the subject that was received with almost evangelical excitement by the 100 influential women present. Among them was Oddny Sturludottir, a Reykjavik city councillor, who emerged from the meeting eyes blazing.

‘We are all furious in Iceland but women especially so,’ she said. ‘We trusted the men at the helm and now we feel fooled, and totally convinced that if it had been women in charge we wouldn’t be owing all these billions right now. They talk about the Viking model! What is the Viking model? Rapists and robbers! That’s no model for the 21st century.’

Now, in case you’re all wondering why you’re not named Oddný Sturludóttir, it’s because your dad’s name isn’t “Sturla.” This is one of those irregular Icelandic proper nouns, where it’s a feminine name that’s given only to boys. I have a friend Sturla; he claims that even his grade school teacher couldn’t decline his name right. He goes by “Mío,” which is great because you don’t have to do much to that. Just a li’l grammatical aside.

So, anyway, what happened is that Gordon Brown declared Iceland to be, like, a terrorist nation so that he could freeze their assets; this is possible under those post September 11th terror laws (hryðjuverkavarnarlögum, shhhh). Icelandic people freaked the fuck on out, and put up this website which shows them holding up signs saying that they Я not a terrorist. What’s gorgeous about this website is the way it shows a lot of family situations, and a lot of the little ice tchotchkes in the living rooms etc. It’s sort of like an accidental Material World or something. Some of my favorites:

1. I can has órþópídic brace?

2. Happý Familý

3. Painting

4. Figureenz

5. Even Happier Family

6. Design Firm

7. Oh my god somebody need to get this heifer a translation job.

8. Mm-hmm. At Tha Beach House.

9. Is that a halo on the left and a frying pan on the right? What are any of those objects in the background? Where are we? Are we in somebody’s mom’s house?

10. This little boy totally has “L.A. Hair”

11. Traditional Sweater

12. Shoemaker

13. Ginger

Anyway, I find the whole thing completely fascinating. I’m not going back there until late November, by which point I think the frenzy will have calmed down and it’ll be more clear what, exactly, is going on and what can be done about it.

If there is any universal and binding compact among military men under fire, it is this: If you are hit, we will come to get you. Among units that endure, it is a pledge more inviolable than law. And it comes with a corollary. You will do the same for me.

There is something inherently offensive to me about the period between the last two sentences, especially if you read it aloud. Try it out. Isn’t it mad awkward? Anyway, read the article. Good story. Now, if you want to talk about something amazing in the Times, please allow me to be the first to refer you to this unbelievably well-written and touching and hilarious article about the potential closing of the venerable lesbian bar Rubyfruit. This article is great because the language bears the traces of insiders to the community it is describing, as well as enough details to keep people who don’t happen to be 50-year old lesbians engaged. My roommate, when she read it, emailed me and was like, “you have to make sure that you read every single word of this shit.” Quite so: by the third internet page of the article, you get paragraphs like:

On a Sunday evening, the night before Rubyfruit shut down for renovations, Ms. Fierro held a party. By early evening, the place was filled with young women dancing and kissing. It was a striking change from the usual mellowness and the spare, slightly older crowd the space usually accommodated. As music pulsed, Ms. Ledwith stood on the bar and poured orange-flavored vodka into the open mouths of young women who, with their necks craned and tilted in expectation, resembled a cluster of chic baby birds.

Or, my personal favorite:

Because no employee was tall enough to turn on the ceiling-mounted projector, a large rainbow flag was retrieved from a corner office, and a worker jabbed the staff of the flag toward the ceiling in search of the “on” button.

I am completely freaked out that I’m going to be in London during the election! I woted early, but ajhfd647khfnä! GríðЯ8357kþþþ! شeyurgurn! Etc. I am looking for a Safe Space in which to watch this thing, which will be at, like, 5 in the morning London Time. Sûfkejrwk3.

I like Halloween because more people are dressed like how I dress normally.

Anyway, moving on, look at this CNN article and tell me if you can figure out what we’re meant to make of it:

A woman was arrested in connection with the abduction of 6-year-old Cole Puffinburger from his Nevada home last week, the FBI said Monday. Terri Leavy, 42, is believed to be the companion of Cole’s grandfather, Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer, 51. Both were wanted on federal material witness warrants issued in Las Vegas, Nevada, related to Cole’s disappearance last Wednesday from his Las Vegas home, authorities said.

Fontana, California, police arrested Leavy Sunday night, an FBI spokeswoman said. The pair is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate in Riverside, California, on Monday. No charges have been filed in the case. Cole was found Saturday night after armed men took him from his home in what police are calling a drug-related kidnapping. A bus driver picked up Cole as he was wandering alone down a sidewalk in Las Vegas’ east side. Julio Diaz said Cole asked for a ride and “was never shy to ask for help.” “I realized it was a police matter. Something was not right, and I would have to find out what was going on with that boy,” said Diaz, who told reporters that he didn’t immediately recognize the boy.

Cole was reunited with his family after medical checks, Capt. Vince Cannito of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Monday. “He was in good shape; he was extremely healthy,” Cannito said. Tinnemeyer was arrested in Riverside in connection with the warrant from Las Vegas, where police are focusing on a possible drug link to Cole’s abduction.

Citing sources and police, the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper has reported Tinnemeyer may have stolen millions from a Mexican drug cartel, although police have not said what role he may have played in the drug operation or whether the child’s abductors were seeking a ransom. Officer Cris Johnson told the newspaper authorities believe methamphetamine was involved. “The remainder of the investigation now shifts, the focus now goes on to the drug dealing and potential extortion,” Cannito of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Sunday.

Before his arrest, police said Tinnemeyer was involved in “significant drug dealing” involving millions of dollars. Cannito had said earlier that Cole was kidnapped by drug dealers attempting to recover lost money and property. Three armed men, some posing as police, snatched the boy Wednesday after they tied up his mother and her fiance and ransacked the home, officers have said.

Cole’s father, Robert Puffinburger, said the emotion he felt after being informed that his son was safe was “indescribable.” “I’m just glad he’s safe,” Puffinburger said at Sunday’s news conference, his voice breaking. “I can’t wait to see him!” The boy’s disappearance sparked a mass hunt around Las Vegas, Nevada, and a nationwide Amber Alert. A large amount of cash and evidence have been recovered in several jurisdictions, Cannito said. He gave no further details. Also, authorities are seeking a man for questioning called Jesus Gastelum, Cannito said Saturday.

Arrrrgh I want a synopsis!

*A chef was found guilty today of murdering a boyfriend before carving flesh from his thigh, seasoning it with fresh herbs, frying it in olive oil and chewing a section.

*According to a guard, the man was found with a spoon hanging out of his head and part of his brain missing.

*Durant sent a letter to a newspaper saying that after killing Ms Durrell, a divorced mother-of-two from Ilford, Essex, who had just moved to Spain, he cut her body into small parts and ate sections of the flesh.

I wonder what the journalistic protocol is for this use of words like “part” and “section” as opposed to “cutlet” and “gigot” or whatever. Does it say somewhere, “do not use traditional butchery terms to describe the dismembered body parts of murder victims?” I’m sure if that shit were in The Elements of Style I would have heard about it. Or written a song cycle. Or both. But anyway, I do wonder about this whole “section” business. Are we talking, you know, a few nibbles? Or a discrete piece?

Also: don’t kill and eat your man.

Everybody in the city needs to go and see Doctor Atomic right away right away so we can talk about it. I feel the same way about It as I do about Óbama; I feel like he’s 91% awesome, and I’m just not going to say anything bad about hymn until he’s elected. Dr. Atomic – this new production in particular – is amazing. It has its problems, as Mark Adamo wonderfully explains, but I feel like it’s so important that everybody goes to see it. This amazing lady bought $500k of great seats and is selling them for $30, which is (a) amazing and (b) makes it possible that everybody can go see it the way it is meant 2 B س , which is to say, upp close and personal. It is a wonderful experience.

“A marchioness.” “Why, woman it silky experience does not much concern us, back do you think it
“You must see bump nail that to be tail an utter impossibility,”

Now, this morning I got an email from somebody called “Eithne Staunton.” The spam filter got it, but I’ve been checking in there every day and dug it out. And I realized that I might have to call her! Eithne. Now, in my town in Vermont, we had a woman called Ethna Blow, no kidding, whose mother was also called Ethna Blow; they were Big Ethna and Little Ethna, despite the fact that Little Ethna (the daughter) was a power-lifter. Ethna ðnudóttir? I’m not even going down this rabbit hole. Anyway, it occurred to me that I don’t have the adequate command of the Ancient Tongue to make my way through this woman’s name. So, I took myself to Irish Baby Names Dot Com, and lo and behold you can listen to Frank fucking McCourt read the names to you, along with cute stories about their origins! So, it turns out that it is pronoucned “Enya” just like the singer, because it’s the same name. This is the best website ever. Oonagh! I wonder what the ability of, like, Average English People is to see Blathnaid and know how to pronounce it. I feel like Siobhan I’ve come across enough to know, but really not Dearbhail or Eibhleann so much. Anyway, any English readers of this space, let me know what’s going on. Also: is there a resurgence in Ireland of naming kids Old-School? I have some Icelandic friends who just went really oldschool with their baby, which I think is totally great. I’m excited for America to get back to the puritan names, I have to tell you. Lamentation! Learn-Wysdome! Safe-on-Heighe! Celerity! I think I should have been named Celerity Franksson, honestly, but I’ll make do with this old rag.

But now my new fantasy is “People Who Have Won Pulitzers Prize Pronouncing Words Attendant Either To Their Nationality or Profession.” Or really, Pronouncing Anything Just Because. Wouldn’t you pay good money to have, like, Oscar Hijuelos reading out the names of the parks in New York? Or Ned Rorem reading the Examples of Hanky Code? Or, like, Annie Proulx reading the recipe for Chasseur Sauce?

And finally:

Copland: Appalachian Spring
Britten: Violin Concerto
Revueltas: La Noche de los Mayas

or like:

Ligeti: Clocks and Clouds
Salonen: Violin Concerto (LAPA commission)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

Each one has a Warhorse, a Secret Delight, and Something you Probably Didn’t Know. It’s good programming not because it’s adhesive hamentashen or a trip to the Met, but some judicious combination of the two. Those were both L.A. Phil concerts from the 2008-2009 season, by the way. You know who else is doing a shit-hot job? The Boston Symphony. A few years ago, when Jimmý first took over, you got the sense that he was programming New Music in the way my dentist tells me to floss; the tone seemed the same. Now, check out their season overview and see how artfully handled it is. The result is some delicious combinations: Messiaen, Boulez, and Berio: TEXTURE QUEENS! Tchaikovsky, Kirchner, & the Schumann Piano Concerto: THE SSRI SISTERZ!

Check out some of these other blogs and their reactions to all of this. Most interesting to me is this one here, in which an homosexual in Portland engages with the PR Director of the orchestra:

PRDúd Segði: If you look at the orchestra’s entire performance history of Beethoven 9, you’ll find that, on average, it’s performed about once every five years. Many times throughout its history, this orchestra has gone a decade or more between performances. Is that too much for Beethoven 9? Debatable, I guess, but consider this: Portland’s population is growing at a rate of about 40,000 a year. That means today there are 200,000 people in Portland who weren’t even living here the last time the Oregon Symphony did Beethoven 9. If we could capture 1 percent of them, we could fill an entire concert hall with people who’ve never had the chance to hear this orchestra do Beethoven 9 before in their lives – and that’s just 1 percent of the newcomers. That doesn’t even take into account all the other people who’ve lived here their whole lives and still never heard the Oregon Symphony do Beethoven 9. How many of those are there? Another 1.8 million?

Now, I actually totally agree with him. This is a completely good way to think; you want to make sure that people have access to the warhorses! Especially Beethoven 9, which is one of those things that can really change your shit right up when you hear it live. But what you need to do is take Beethoven 9 as a starting point and ax yourself, what is the Most Awesome Way I can turn this into an unforgettable evening? My friend Wickham has a Credenza. This thing is enormous. It’s like, twenty feet long and ten feet high, when paired with its attendant hutch. No matter where you put it, it’s going to be “The room that hath the credenza upp in.” So what she did was construct a nook for it in her loft, and then bought furniture that comparez and contrasts with this giant fuck-off unavoidable ÞING so that the end result is a very pleasurable visual and emotional experience vis à vis the credenza. What she did not do, as the Oregon Symphêrny did, was pair it with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music. That’s like if she had run out to Laura Ashley and stuck some floral ottoman in front of it. I love me a floral ottoman, and I really like that Vaughan Williams. It’s just not doing anybody any favors in the context of that programming, least of whom Beethoven 9!

More gossypp: check out this interview with Emmanuel Ax. Manny say that, basically, the New York Press has been ragging on the Phil for being boring programmers for decades. I’m not sure that I like the whole discourse of “the mainstream media is on my case,” but the last thing that you want is an aggressive relationship between the press and the local orchestra. Nobody wins there. Anyway, the rest of this post has an interesting analysis of the rest of the orchestra’s season, concert by concert.

I think there is a way to do it so that everybody wins. If you make it your mission as an orchestra to do a complete Beethoven cycle in the fall and a complete Sibelius in the spring, it’s the best kind of design challenge.

MOZART
Overture to Abduction from the Seraglio
BERLIOZ Harold in Italy
DELIUS “The Walk to the Paradise Garden”
(from A Village Romeo & Juliet)
ELGAR Enigma Variations

Now, I would venture to say that this concert is neither here nor there. Also I’m not sure where the intermission goes. Each piece has, like, at least one Awesome Thing. The Mozart has a really manic monkey-with-cymbals part for the triangle (am I wrong in saying that it is one of the first instances of this kind of use of triangle?) The Berlioz is a viola concerto in all but name; everybody loves the viola. The Delius is the odd man out here — it’s a ten minute or less orchestral interlude from his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet, and has this pretty cool English Horn solo – until you realize that the Delius justifies the presence of The Most Famous Piece of English Music Ever in the history of Ever with the Exception of Pomp and additionally Circumstance March No. 1, by the same composer. The Delius puts the Elgar in some kind of context; Delius is roughly contemporary with Sir Edward, they’re both English, very melodic, although Delius’s music owes more to Wagner than Elgarz.

If I had my druthers, what I would do is substitute out the Berlioz, actually, which is overprogrammed, for Benjamin Britten’s fucking gorgeous Lachrymae, op. 48a, for solo viola and strings. This piece is quintessentially English, but looks backwards towards another English composer, John Dowland (1563-1626), who died about 300 years before Elgar and Delius. Alternately, if for whatever reason you don’t want to program contemporary music but want to involve local talent, you could commission a composer to orchestrate a wildly different piece of 20^th century English music, for instance, Herbert Howells’s Master Tallis’s Testament, for organ, which to me offers a wider contrast with the Elgar, and have it be a slightly longer concert, or even forgo the Mozart, which everybody knows from Youth Orchestra. Howells’s sense of how to prolong a melody comes out of his experiences as a choral composer; Elgar’s, I think, is more orchestral. The difference is inneresting.

It’s funny, The Classics. With visual art, we are not so obsessed. Once you’ve seen Estarry Night, you know, four or five times, you can make a trip to the MoMer without having to make a visit. You hold the memorý of it in your head, and let the emotional resonance build up a sauce around itself. I’ve been to the Louvre, like, sixty times, and only a few of those times have I braved the phalanx of Japanese to actually behold such a text as the Moner Lisa. I would say that even the most conservative viewers are content to let the Live Viewing of the Greats exist in their memories; it’s almost stronger, in a sense. I guess I never tire of Bach or Beethoven live, but I sure do tire of those Enygma Variations. If I want to listen to them, which I sometimes do, I’ll be naked and it’ll be 7 AM or something. I can revisit the good parts in my head when I need them, and we all know what the good parts Я. Maybe with Bach it feels more spatial, like going to visit a church or something, and with Beethoven, it’s such a journey that I’m always happy to be thrown back on that particular country road. There are some things in the canon, though, that I feel like are best left to the youth orchestras, so they can have a more resonating impact on teenz. All the shit I listened to in the early to late 90’s – whether or not I liked it, even – has a much more profound influence on my writing today, whether that’s Youth Orchestra Mahler 5 or Short Ride in that Fast Machine or the Overture to Candide.

I‘ve been spending a little bit of time on “Think B4 U Speak” dot com, which is a very funny website that’s meant to teach kids not to equate “a non preferable option” to something being “gay.” They argue that, “A lot of anti-LGBT language is said carelessly, and isn’t intended as negative or hurtful. Understand what you’re saying, and think about the potential consequences of the words you choose.” Okay, good. Yesterday, I was stuck for 20 minutes on a B train between 42nd and 47th Streets with about twenty eleven year-olds, and literally every single thing was “so gay,” ranging from a backpack to the fact that we were delayed. Is it weird that I didn’t find it offensive? I’ve always just thought that those people are their own punishments. I guess what I should have done was said something to their teacher, who was, like, Miss 24 Year Old Overworked but Very Put Together with What I Assume was her Name as a Necklace in Hebrew, but instead I just listened to my Palestrina and moved on. Then, though, last night I was walking home from Union Square with my man, and two guys in a truck stalled on the Bowery started shouting all kindza anti-gay this that and the other thing. Their accents were French-Speaking West African; and I just thought to myself, is it not hard enough being French Speaking West African living in America? Do you not have enough hardships that being a homophobe, and an asshole to boot, is really going to tie it all together for you? Or is it the case that life sucks enough that there’s nothing to lose by taking the time out of your evening to scream at a gay couple? Also: I love the idea that this happened in front of CBGB’s, or, the John Varvatos store that took over the space where CBGB’s used to be. Please, girl.