Month: June 2007

Cover Version Cage Match—International Edition

Today’s competition honors America’s greatest and most successful export of all time. I refer, of course, to “Endless Love.” Seriously, if he was British, Lionel Richie would have his CBE by now for writing this thing.

  • Representing Spain: Daniel y Saray.
  • Representing Brazil: Cidia e Dan.
  • Representing Korea: Park Hyo-Shi and Hwa Yo-Bi.
  • Representing Hong Kong: Jacky Cheung (remember, the guy who looks like me) and Sandy Lam.
  • Representing Australia (and the 80s in general): Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan.
  • Representing the United States, and dedicating their performance to my lovely wife, who’s a big fan: Whitney Houston and her brother Gary.

  • And the winner, by unanimous decision in the seventh round: Diana Ross and Placido Domingo.

    E nulla! Arida landa… non un filo d’acqua

    Phil at Dial “M” requests drink recipes. Even critic-at-large Moe starts licking his chops at that kind of prospect. So here’s a nice summer companion to the Dark Lady. Name, as always, courtesy of my thoroughly operatic wife.

    Manon

    2 oz. gin
    2 oz. dry rosé wine
    1/2 oz. rose water
    1/2 oz. grenadine
    1/2 oz. triple sec or Grand Marnier

    Shake thoroughly with cracked ice and strain into the stemmed glass of your choice.

    A squirt of lemon juice is a salutary addition as well. You’ll want to shake it until it’s quite cold, due to the grenadine and the triple sec; if it’s still too sweet for you, better to cut down on the former than the latter.

    While you’re at it, mix up a couple for these two. They look like they could use it.


    That’s Kiri Te Kanawa and Placido Domingo in Puccini’s take, Manon Lescaut. The late, great Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts.

    Put your hands together

    Lest you think that the gatekeepers of classical music are unduly harsh about the issue of excess applause (for the record, I say clap whenever you want), behold the five graduates of Galesburg High School in Galesburg, Illinois, who were denied their diplomas at commencement because their family members cheered when their names were announced.

    “Lots of parents complained that they could not hear their own child’s name called,” said Joel Estes, the school’s assistant superintendent. “And I think that led us to saying we have to do something about this to restore some dignity and honor to the ceremony so that everyone can appreciate it and enjoy it.”

    Look, the only thing to appreciate and enjoy about a high school graduation is hearing your kid’s name, because the rest of it is insufferably boring. My poor parents have had to sit through six of these hot, overcrowded dronefests—you want to tell them they can’t cheer? Because no jury of their peers—namely, anyone else who’s ever listened to what passes for high-school principal inspirational rhetoric—is going to convict them. Oh, and by the way, those five students who were singled out? Black and hispanic. Proving once again that nothing curdles the minds of those in power in places like Galesburg, Illinois like the realization that you’ll never be in charge of anything larger than Galesburg, Illinois.

    In the same subject area, our friend Alex Freeman sends along this photo. As he descibes it: “Rare footage of Fidel Castro trying to coach Pierre Trudeau in a pick-up performance of Clapping Music.”


    “Come on, asere, you just do the same thing over and over again…. No, no, you pasty man, I’M the one going out of phase. Stay on your own part! STOP CLAPPING WITH ME!”

    Lather, rinse, (exposition) repeat

    Beethoven hair for sale! Beethoven hair for sale! Louis Mushro, hair collector, is selling clips from his collection, including 1/16″-long scraps from everyone’s favorite happy-go-lucky proto-Romantic symphonist. (Warning: Louis will start talking to you when you load the page.) Bidding starts at $500; let’s see, figure 100,000 hair follicles per head, about 3-4 inches long… that’s $800 million for the whole head. Then, I’ll convert all that hair into diamonds, and encrust Beethoven’s skull with them. Whaddya think, $10 billion? Top that, Damien!

    Ce n’est pas un concert review

    I’m always glad to see an Oulipian incursion into the mainstream media, so I was amused to read this review by Bernard Holland in today’s New York Times, in which he says provocative things about the heyday and waning reputations of George Crumb and Krzysztof Penderecki. Here’s the thing: I had to read the review twice to figure out that there was no actual Penderecki on the concert—it was an all-Crumb affair. Toying with the technical structure of a music review to create a vague and disorienting sense of the modern world’s alienation—I like it! (I actually did like it—the connection between Crumb and Penderecki is an interesting one, and one I’ve not really pondered.)

    Gottes ist der Orient! Gottes ist der Okzident!

    If you’re in Boston with nothing better to do this coming Sunday (the 3rd), drop by the Museum of Fine Arts at 1:30, where the Boston Jewish Film Festival will be screening Knowledge Is the Beginning, a 2005 documentary about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra the Israeli-Arab student ensemble founded by Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said. They’ll also be showing the group’s 2005 concert at the Cultural Palace in Ramallah; in between, yours truly and the terrific Israeli flutist Amir Milstein (of Bustan Abraham and Tucan Trio fame) will do our best to say eloquent things about the movie, the group, and anything else that might come up. (Scroll down here for details.)