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Home » Open thread 3/7/22

Open thread 3/7/22

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, Glenn Gould was strange. This clip shows his habit of singing along as he played the piano:

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Open thread 3/7/22 — 31 Comments

  1. I think the retrospective assessment of Gould is that he was an Asperger’s case avant la lettre. He wasn’t known during his lifetime to have a domestic or amatory life of any kind, but there’s an art world denizen who says she and he were all but shacked up for four years and that her husband was forgiving about it. He had no known issue.

  4. It appears that instrumentalists, esp. improvisers, practice solfège as a means to make their instrumental performance as natural as humming a little tune. Cf. Keith Jarrett, or George Benson’s solo in “On Broadway” &, as noted by sonny wayz, OP.

  5. Interesting youtuber I found from a link on AT. Unfortunately he hasn’t done an updated video on the actual war action for 4 days. He’s ex-military and has some good references. It’s a different take from the propaganda coming from both sides. Basic claims:

    1) Russian military has always accepted high casualties; won’t be as much of an issue for them as it would be for more western countries.

    2) Reports of the Russians being stopped may have more to do with how they work their logistics where at certain milestones the Russians always stop to set up new supply stations.

    3) WRT point #2, the Russians stopping outside of Kiev has more to do with the range of their advanced weapons and also staging again to set up logistics before final push into city.

    Like I said, different analysis from the “Ukrainians are destroying the Russians” and “Russians about to over run the cities.”

    https://www.youtube.com/c/Taskandpurpose

  6. Fine Gould – but then YT offered me Lesson 1 on Songwriting by Paul McCartney, who can’t read music. So I listened to that, too.
    But now it’s time to practice my first year of piano, so I can read music.
    And sing along, a bit.
    But singing notes gets in the way of playing them, most of the time.

    Music is better than war, but not always more interesting.

  8. Politics, piano, comedy, religion, the whole “package.”

    The open-thread invitation can be abused, I know, and this probably pushes the limits of what can be tolerated (https://tinyurl.com/mr32de4b).

    It’s a link to a video of a man playing “Hava Nagila”, on a piano, with his hands up and his pants down. The man is a comedian and a Jew, and he currently has a job in Ukraine’s government. The Russians should have known that he has big …

  9. physicsguy:

    This Russian military may not care, but Russian mothers will. And what the Russian people will accept as casualties when invading Ukraine is different from what they will accept defending Russia from a Nazi invasion of their own country. Therefore it is not a good comparison.

    I have read and listened to many other independent military analysts and none agree with that guy about the truck line. They say it is actually stalled and explain multiple reasons why.

  11. I would love to see this Gould in a room full of kids playing for (and with) them. I have a feeling it might prove interesting.

  12. Of interest to my fellow residents of the state of Washington but also applies for many other cities and states.

    What it looks like in downtown Seattle right now and what it is like to operate a small business there.

    Brandi Kruse is one of the last great local journalists out there.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4KGgJEg3sQ

  14. Neo, I never said I agreed with him, just a different take. And the fact he hasn’t done a more recent update is telling

  15. physicsguy:

    I didn’t say that you personally agreed with him. I didn’t know one way or the other. But I wanted to challenge what he was saying.

  16. Chap said, “I would love to see this Gould in a room full of kids playing for (and with) them.” It’s an interesting what-if, but I wonder how well Gould could have related to other children– he was an only child as well as a child prodigy, able to read music before he could read words, and found to have perfect pitch at age three. He also habitually wore gloves because he disliked being touched in any way, so it’s hard to imagine him socializing with children or adults during his mature career. And as Gould was a hypochondriac increasingly dependent on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs by the mid-1950s, one can only imagine how terrifying he would have found COVID-19.

    Maclean’s commented on his being named a “Person of National Historic Significance” in 2014: “Glenn Gould (1932-1982): . . . Gould made his first major concert appearance at age 14 at Massey Hall with the Toronto Conservatory Orchestra. In 1955, he recorded a version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which brought him international fame. Known for his many eccentricities—he sat on a battered wooden chair at all concerts and often hummed or sang while performing—Gould stopped playing live at age 32 in 1964. Gould’s reputation continued to grow even after his death.”

    https://www.macleans.ca/society/8-canadian-persons-of-national-historic-significance/

    With the exception of prime ministers, eminent Canadians have to be dead for 25 years before they can be designated as persons of national historic significance. Sad to think that the current PM will be enshrined as soon as he assumes room temperature.

  18. Victor Davis Hanson on Putin, the irredentist:
    https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/06/vladimir-putin-the-latest-of-the-failed-irredentists/

    “Putin is history’s most recent and first nuclear irredentist. He believes any group of Russian speakers anywhere, or former residents of imperial Russia or the Soviet Union, or Russian orthodox worshipers, all belong to Putin’s new Russian Empire. Even if Russian speakers are independent or happy as minorities in other countries, Putin has a grandiose plan to force them into his new mother Russia. ”

    The Russian public, and Russian troops, are being told they are fighting against “Nazis” in Ukraine. In fact, it is Putin who is the Nazi.

  19. Piano’s darkest secret: https://youtu.be/ZXlknI-Jc48

    There’s a brief passage in this vid akin to those vids of deaf children receiving cochlear implants and hearing their parents voices for the first time . . . a brief but wondrous moment.

  20. I get Gould mixed up with Oscar Levant. Two brilliant pianists, both nutty as fruitcakes.

  22. You can see in this video how Gould like to provoke just for its own sake. I suppose it’s better than just another conventional performance, but I never quite forgave him for his knocks on Mozart. Among other things he said something like “It would have been better if Mozart had died younger,” as part of a critique of some of his later music. I think there’s a video of this on YouTube. I didn’t find his critique very compelling, but I realize he was partly going for shock value.

  23. Jimmy, thanks for the details of Gould’s attitude toward Mozart! His playing of a Mozart piano sonata I heard once just dripped with contempt.

  24. “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould” is a good start for one’s initiation into the mystery of Glenn Gould. He was a sublime pianist. He thought and felt deeply. He was an eccentric.

    When Gould’s fame allowed him the luxury to get off the classical music hamster wheel, he did and he never looked back. There are few humans who have lived life on their own terms as Glenn Gould did.

  27. sdferr:

    Welcome back, you haven’t said much lately, or I’ve missed it. Conceivable? Yes.

  28. Gould overhears conversations from neighboring booths, while Petula Clark’s hit “Downtown” plays on the jukebox.

    And if you know his life, you know that The Glenn Gould was laid low by that pop singer and that pop hit. (I love it too.)

  29. Sorry for the multi-comment comment. I had put together a few sensible paragraphs — or so it seemed to me — and what I had written kept bouncing.

    I split things up a bit jaggedly and the words were accepted. I’m not sure what the problem was.

  31. For the Globalist vs. Nationalist “club”, there’s this “interesting” piece that appears to verge on Conspiracy Theory(TM).

    (The problem is, however, in these bizarro times—where truth is stranger than almost any fiction—what defines conspiracy theory??)—

    Anyway, here goes:
    “A Large Scale False Flag Cyber-Attack Now Imminent?”
    (Hint: Putin is in fact in cahoots with the Globalists…EXTRA, EXTRA! Read ALL about it!!)
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/large-scale-false-flag-cyber-attack-now-imminent
    – – – – – – – – – –
    However, here’s a prognostication that’s a bit more prosaic. And far more ghastly, if more realistic….
    “Putin up against a wall – and ready to lash out”—
    https://nypost.com/2022/03/07/putin-up-against-a-wall-and-ready-to-lash-out/

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