excursions of the mind

Quotes from Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

2011-02-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

"Rest, rest and riches," he said--"it's only after forty one begins to value things of that kind. And half one's life, perhaps, is lived after forty. Solemn thought that. Bear it in mind, young man, and it will save you from most of the worst mistakes. If every one at twenty realized that half his life was to be lived after forty..."

The next four weeks of solitary confinement were among the happiest of Paul's life. The physical comforts were certainly meagre, but at the Ritz Paul had learned to appreciate the inadequacy of purely physical comfort. It was so exhilarating, he found, never to have to make any decision on any subject, to be wholly relieved from the smallest consideration of time, meals, or clothes, to have no anxiety ever about what kind of impression he was making; in fact, to be free. At some rather chilly time in the early morning a bell would ring, and the warder would say, "Slops outside!"; he would rise, roll up his bedding, and dress; there was no need to shave, no hesitation about what tie he should wear, none of the fidgeting with studs and collars and links that so distracts the waking moments of civilized man. He felt like the happy people in the advertisements for shaving soap who seem to have achieved very simply that peace of mind so distant and so desirable in the early morning.

Shall I tell you about life? Well, it's like the big wheel at Luna Park. You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all round, and in the centre the floor is made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly. At first you sit down and watch the others. They are all trying to sit in the wheel, and they keep getting flung off, and that makes them laugh, and you laugh too. It's great fun. It is very much like life. You see, the nearer you can get to the hub of the wheel the slower it is moving and the easier it is to stay on. There's generally some one in the centre who stands up and sometimes does a sort of dance. Often he's paid by the management, though, or, at any rate, he's allowed in free. Of course at the very centre there's a point completely at rest, if one could only find it. I'm not sure I am not very near that point myself. Of course the professional men get in the way. Lots of people just enjoy scrambling on and being whisked off and scrambling on again. How they all shriek and giggle! Then there are others who sit as far out as they can and hold on for dear life and enjoy that. But the whole point about the wheel is that you needn't get on it at all, if you don't want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes them think they've got to join in the game, even if they don't enjoy it. It doesn't suit every one.

People don't see that when they say "life" they mean two different things. They can mean simply existence, with its physiological implications of growth and organic change. They can't escape that--even by death, but because that's inevitable they think the other idea of life is too--the scrambling and excitement and bumps and the effort to get to the middle. And when we do get to the middle, it's just as if we never started. It's so odd.

Now you're a person who was clearly meant to stay in the seats and sit still and if you get bored watch the others. Somehow you got onto the wheel, and you got thrown off again at once with a hard bump. It's all right for Margot, who can cling on, and for me, at t he centre, but you're static. Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic. There's a real distinction there, though I can't tell you how it comes. I think we're probably two quite different species spiritually. -- p.282

南方的文学

2010-07-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

上次小麦说起南方的作家，发现我也读过不少南方的文学，非常喜欢。想不如系统的把南方作家都读一读。在网上查了一下，有哪些比较著名的南部小说。看到这个书单(I'm a list person)：

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2009/aug/27/best-southern-novels-all-time/
The Best Southern Novels of All Time

# 1 已读
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by WILLIAM FAULKNER (1936) (120 votes)

A profound exploration of race and all its attendant complexities. Faulkner’s rendering of the Southern “class” struggle through the life of one figure, Thomas Sutpen, makes Absalom, Absalom! the only serious rival to Melville’s Moby-Dick as the great American novel.
—Richard King

# 2 已读
ALL THE KING’S MEN by ROBERT PENN WARREN (1946) (80 votes)

Robert Penn Warren’s book is an unqualified masterpiece. It is all-encompassing and eclipses everything else on the list. One could make a reasonable case for its being the greatest American novel ever written. Seemingly nothing escapes its scope or ambition. —Ben George

All the King’s Men is a terribly ambitious and sometimes maddening novel, five or six novels crammed into one. It is cumbersome, perhaps, but it is a generative novel, a novel that is so innovative it changed the novels that followed, or made them possible. Descendents of All the King’s Men are various—from popular political novels to, oddly, road novels like Kerouac’s (there is a whole Beat sequence in Warren’s book—a trip to California). And, in the weary voice of Jack Burden, we hear the slow, cosmic disappointment of Binx Bolling, who came after. —Moira Crone

# 3 读过一半
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by WILLIAM FAULKNER (1929) (64 votes)

This stylized and ultra-literary concoction still manages to engage us. We work our way through four hundred pages of convoluted, sometimes impenetrable prose—and the members of the Compson family appear before us in all their appalling egoism, fear, greed, innocence, and hubris. Reading, you almost forget that this is fiction—the characters are so fully realized. As the final dissolution of the family comes to pass, you want to avert your eyes but you keep turning the pages—in fear and trembling. An unbearable tragedy, yet simultaneously a joy—as we recognize that the thirty-year-old, small-town author has gone the limit, investing his mind, soul, passion, psyche, everything, in the novel’s creation.
—William Caverlee

# 4 已读
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by MARK TWAIN (1885) (58 votes)

If you can discern anything about the greatness of a book by how often someone has either banned it or tried to have it banned, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn surely must be the greatest Southern novel of all time. Critics can say what they want about the book’s ending, but I challenge anyone to come up with an American writer who was braver, funnier, and more eerily perceptive than Mark Twain. —Bronwen Dickey

Huck, the battered child, and Jim, the runaway slave, are capable of feeling painful sympathy, for each other and for others. Others aren’t so burdened. Huck wishes he weren’t. Others, including the King, the Duke of Bilgewater, Tom Sawyer, a justly popular undertaker, and the River itself, can put on a show. It’s the funniest great book there is. —Roy Blount, Jr.

# 5 已读
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by HARPER LEE (1960) (57 votes)

Okay, this is kind of like voting for Albert Pujols as best hitter—really predictable. But who doesn’t love this novel for its descriptions, its drama and humor, its characters that are now ingrained in the American psyche, and its explorations not only of race in the South but also of femininity and class? Even the questions that hover around the book (why did Harper Lee not write another? just what was Truman Capote’s role?) have become part of its lure.
—Hope Coulter

Even though it simplifies race relations in the South, and even though Atticus really could have done more to save an innocent man’s life, almost every American remembers reading this book as a watershed moment. —Michael Kreyling

# 6 已读
THE MOVIEGOER by WALKER PERCY (1961) (55 votes)

In Percy’s classic tale of love and longing in New Orleans, Binx Bolling woos his secretary, falls for his cousin, and muses lyrically on the nature of the search. This book has kept me company in China, Slovenia, Argentina. When I’m going to be away from home for any extended period of time, The Moviegoer is as essential a part of my travel kit as my toothbrush. I can open it to any page and instantly feel calmed. “To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”
—Michelle Richmond

If a better book than The Moviegoer has been written, I’ll cut off my little toe. —Ada Liana Bidiuc

# 7
AS I LAY DYING by WILLIAM FAULKNER (1930) (52 votes)

I once heard a poet say she never reads novels. When asked why, she said, “Because I always get about twenty pages in and then I realize, hmm, THIS isn’t As I Lay Dying.” In comparison, everything else is a bit of a disappointment. —Keith Lee Morris

# 8 已读
INVISIBLE MAN by RALPH ELLISON (1952) (47 votes)

Write a novel this good and this significant that doesn’t die in the pursuit of significance but, instead, comes alive. Go on. We’ll wait.
—Wyatt Mason

# 9
WISE BLOOD by FLANNERY O’CONNOR (1952) (44 votes)

Flannery O’Connor’s seriously dark comedy Wise Blood is among the finest American novels squarely about religion—awash with street preachers, yearning rustics, fake and genuine self-inflicted blindness, roaming pigs, a stolen mummy pressed into service as a faux Holy Child, descriptions of an allegorical sky no one ever seems to see, a soul-consuming gorilla costume, and a battered black Essex automobile as pregnant with meaning as the Pequod in Moby-Dick. It is also a brilliant critique of what O’Connor called the “American tendency to address a problem by changing its appearance.”
—Mark Winegardner

Didn’t she turn over a rock with this one? And she didn’t flinch one bit. Renders the surreal believable. —Melissa Delbridge

# 10 已读
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1937) (41 votes)

Janie springs to life from the pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and her half-understood yearning, her wordless understanding, grabs our hearts. Zora Neale Hurston, through her Janie—who, pondering under a pear tree, begins to understand what it means to try to live a fulfilled life—speaks for some of us in words, desires, and thoughts that we did not know could be articulated. She not only lives our experience, she makes it sing. —Jesmyn Ward

前10本已经读过7.5，剩下的 #7 Faulkner 我架子上有，打算读，O'Connor 读完短篇，要继续读长篇的。

11. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers 已读
12. A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole 已读
13. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner 已读
14. A DEATH IN THE FAMILY by James Agee
15. LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL by Thomas Wolfe
16. BELOVED by Toni Morrison 已读
17. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin 已读
18. THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker 已读

前18本，我读过13本。一方面挺欣慰得，觉得自己这么多年努力读书，还是有些收获的；另一方面又感到有些失落，南方的文学的精华，难道我已经读得七七八八？

后面还有：
19. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
20. THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER by Eudora Welty
(tie). SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
22. GO DOWN, MOSES by William Faulkner
(tie). GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell 已读
24. THE GOLDEN APPLES by Eudora Welty
25. CANE by Jean Toomer
(tie). THE KNOWN WORLD by Edward P. Jones
27. BLOOD MERIDIAN: OR THE EVENING REDNESS IN THE WEST by Cormac McCarthy
(tie). DELIVERANCE by James Dickey 已读
(tie). THE LAST GENTLEMAN by Walker Percy
(tie). A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest J. Gaines
31. BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison
(tie). THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER by William Styron
....

这个星期，每天早上八点多，收音机里都有一段 Faulkner 的讲话录音。昨天他讲关于 peace 的：

Q. Sir, do you have any solution for a man to find peace if he cannot write, as you?
A. Well, I don't think the writer finds peace. If he did, he would quit writing. Maybe man is incapable of peace. Maybe that is what differentiates man from a vegetable. Though maybe the vegetable don't even find peace. Maybe there's no such thing as peace, that it is a negative quality.

Q. I am speaking of peace in his own heart.
A. Yes, well, I'm inclined to think that the only peace man knows is--he says, Why good gracious, yesterday I was happy. That at the moment he's too busy. That maybe peace is only a condition in retrospect, when the subconscious has got rid of the gnats and the tacks and the broken glass in experience and has left only the peaceful pleasant things--that was peace. Maybe peace is not is, but was.

听到他的声音，真感到亲切。我总是想着他在小说 Absalom, Absalom! 中刻画的那个南部，grotesque, mysterious, beautiful, sad, depressed, full of longing, but forever lost.

Book vs. Movie: A Clockwork Orange

2009-11-01T23:30:00.001-08:00

Clockwork Orange 几年前试尝读过，读不下去，觉得太难了，好多字都看不懂。

租了电影来看，觉得电影的视觉艺术很棒，配乐也好。

今年年初把书又拿出来读了，终于读完了。才知道我不认识的字都是作者 Anthony Burgess 自己发明的，要根据语法和上下文来猜测。但因为很多是俄文的字根，我自然看得很困难。从网上找到一个“字典”，才看懂了。觉得作者真是天才。

然后又看了电影。Kubrick 当然是天才，视觉艺术的天才。

发现书和电影所要表达的东西非常不同。

故事大致是这样的（书和电影略有不同）。第一部：一个在生活在未来英国社会的青少年 Alex，有严重暴力倾向。他和朋友每天晚上出门，打砸抢奸，无恶不作。后来遭同伙出卖，在一次作案中被警察抓住，送进监狱。第二部：为了早日出狱，他要求接受 aversion therapy。几天之后，他“治愈”了，变得完全不能忍受任何暴力。第三部：出狱之后，他遭受同伙的报复，家人的抛弃，以前受害者的欺负，却因失去自卫能力，想自杀都不行。最后政府为了搞宣传，又把他治回原状。他又开始暴力的生活了。

可是，书比电影多出一章。这第21章使得两部作品的寓意有很大差异。

书的结尾是这样的：Alex 回到暴力的生活后，又过了一段时间，忽然感到暴力很无聊，意识到“that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction. Senseless violence is a prerogative of youth, which has much energy but little talent for the constructive.” 他就结束暴力生涯，结婚，生子，"and perhaps even create something... "做了一个正常的社会公民。

电影虽然是在英国拍的，Kubrick 却选择用了美国小说的版本，没有最后一章的内容。

我读书和看电影，最大的收获是读了作者 Burgess 写的前言，主要是关于最后一章的。据 Burgess 说，他的书在美国发表的时候，出版社让他把最后一章删掉：

My New York publisher believed that my 21st chapter was a sellout. It was veddy veddy British, don't you know. It was bland and it showed a Pelagian unwillingness to accept that a human being could be a model of unregenerable evil. The Americans, he said in effect, were tougher than British and could face up to reality. Soon they would be facing up to it in Vietnam. My book was Kennedyan and accepted the notion of moral progress. What was really wanted was a Nixonian book with no shred of optimism in it. Let us have evil prancing on the page and, up to the very last line, sneering in the face of all the inherited beliefs, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Holy Roller, about people being able to make themselves better. Such a book would be sensational, and so it is. But I do not think it is a fair picture of a human life.

I do not think so because, by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange--meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities....

印象最深的是作者的这段话：

The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human characters is se, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory. The American or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or world one is a novel.

最好笑的是，因为电影比书更出名，在作者把第21章加上后，很多读者／观众都来信询问。作者说，他的后半生大部分时间就是在 Xeroxing statements of intention and the frustration of intention，给读者回信，解释为什么书比电影多出一章来--while both Kubrick and my New York publisher coolly bask in the rewards of their misdemeanour. :)

Book: The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

2009-05-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Quote:

In this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for a an to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation. The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery. p.263

Movie/Book: Into the Wild

2008-11-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

5/24/08
昨晚看了电影 Into the Wild，才知道这个人，这家人的事。一边看，一边想，我们能从这个故事学到什么。这个孩子是不是教育失败？

首先，他完全没有按照父母的意愿生活，逃离家庭，不承认父母，心中没有一点对父母的感激。按草叶的准则，他是一个失败的人生。

可是，他独立自主，自力更生，虽身无分文，却过了两年快乐的流浪生活。用浮生和风子的准则，他快乐，喜欢自己选择的生活，是一个成功的人生。

他虽然没有给社会创造很多财富，却给遇到的人带来快乐。他给父母家人带来的是痛苦和悔恨，他的故事给我们外人带来思考和启发。从社会的角度来看，他的人生是有价值的。

最后，他不能按照他的意愿生存下去。他临死前意识到，happiness only real when shared，死之前想念家人，说明他自己选择的道路是不成功的，而且他也意识到了。那么，人生中短暂的快乐，不能决定人生的成功，可是，要多久的快乐才能算成功？十年二十年三十年？后半生？是不是在死的时候，才能对整个人生的成败下定论？再有，谁来下定论？作父母的，是要把子女培养成父母认为是成功的，还是子女自己认为是成功的，或是社会认为是成功的，才算成功？

这个问题越讨论越艰难。

另外，按七月所说，给孩子空间，如果孩子不需要父母，没有信号，父母就不要去打扰他，让孩子自然成长？可是，谁决定孩子需不需要父母？也许孩子的超级独立，是一种对父母需要的表现？电影中的男孩，如果父母能读到他给的信号，能创造一个交流的渠道，是否可以避免悲剧？

当然，电影 version中，最后这个男孩能得到大智慧，父母因为挫折而改变了自己的人生态度，在高一层次上，是否算是一种成功？不论道路多么艰辛曲折，在最后能够醒悟，能够与世界和解，能够认命，make peace with the world，一生也算可以算是完满的。

想到最后，还是觉得，人生道路有各种各样的，没有什么成功和失败，只有不同。每个人只能为了自己最终的内心安详而生活，只能为自己的幸福负责。自己喜欢怎么做，就怎么做吧。最终的心态是最重要的。子女的人生是他们的，他们也要自己找到健康的心态。做父母的，给子女的影响最大，所以首先要调整好自己的心态，以身作则，能帮就多帮一些。心要大，要开。智慧是快乐成功的唯一要素。

我每次想问题，想到最后，得到的都是一样的结论。怎么回事？:)

11/6/08
昨天我看了这本书。我觉得书比电影好。电影只是讲 Chris McCandless 的 misadventure，但书里写了不少其他人对 Alaska wilderness 的向往和追求，尤其作者年轻时有过类似的 Alaska 冒险的经历，读起来觉得很真切。

我也有 Alaska 情结。在美国读大学的时候，同学跟我说，要想赚钱，就趁暑假去 Alaska 打鱼，男生打鱼，女生在 cannery 工作，一个夏天可以挣五六千块钱呢。因为夏天日子长，每天要工作 10-12 个小时，但剩下时间都是自由的。我就特别向往，向往那种别样的生活。可惜大学我只过了一个暑假，上了好多课，没机会去。研究生的时候，我约了女友一起开车去 Alaska 玩一个月。临走那天她才说不想去了。后来我就更向往了，特别想开车去逛 3 个月。我不想坐 cruise，也许要等孩子长大一些，才能圆了我的阿拉斯加梦，但肯定跟年轻时的那种去冒险的感觉又不一样了。

因为是真事，是报告文学，所以才更令人感慨，感慨生命在青春时的脆弱。

Book: The Brethren by John Grisham

2008-11-06T21:03:00.000-08:00

前两天刚读了 The Brethren by John Grisham，小说的一个重要的 subplot 是讲美国总统选举的。书里说，谁的钱多，谁就能赢。读后，我对大选的激情更加淡薄。归根结底还是钱的问题。

CIA director wants to increase military budget, so he picks an unknown Arizona congressman to be a presidential candidate after NH primary, promises to provide unlimited campaign funding. He "creates" terrorist crisis to scare the people, and soon everyone turns to the new candidate. The money comes from defense companies, including "private" companies that nobody knows. The money is used for advertisement, for buying off politicians (to pay off their campaign debts), and such. Throughout the book, the CIA director keeps saying that the one who has more campaign money always wins. The writer John Grisham has worked in a presidential campaign before, so I assume he knows some inside stories.

TTC: 20th Century American Fiction

2008-10-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

20th-Century American Fiction
(32 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
by Arnold Weinstein

Hemingway. Fitzgerald. Faulkner. No first names are needed.
These giants of literature are immediately recognizable to anyone who loves to read fiction and even to many who don’t.

Now, thanks to this course from Brown University’s Professor Arnold Weinstein, you can develop fresh insight into these and eight other great American authors of the 20th century. Professor Weinstein sheds light not only on the sheer magnificence of these writers’ literary achievements but explores their uniquely American character as well. Despite their remarkable variety, each represents an outlook and a body of work that could only have emerged in the United States.

Freedom and Speech

The aim of this course is to analyze and appreciate some of the major works of fiction produced in this country over the past century, using as a focal point the idea of "freedom of speech." The focus on freedom of speech is appropriate for many reasons, particularly:
These texts often invoke the fundamental political freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and many of them take the liberty of articulating the painful ideological conflicts that have punctuated our modern history: war, racism, poverty, drugs, sexism, and the like.
"Freedom of speech" also spells out the key thesis to be presented in these readings: Language itself turns out to be not only "free" but a precious means of becoming free, of experiencing life beyond the constraints of the ordinary workaday world.
The overriding theme in American literature, as in American life, is that of freedom itself, whether expressed in a laissez-faire economy, in upward mobility, or simply in our belief that we can make ourselves and our lives into something beyond the origins and influences of our births, a theme sometimes called the American dream. No other society has ever professed such beliefs, and it is not surprising that our literature has much to tell us about the viability of these notions.
Our Ongoing War for Independence

Why would literature be a privileged record for this special American story about freedom? The answer: American fiction is something of a battleground in the "war of independence" that human beings—white or black or red or yellow, male or female—wage every day of their lives.

Our war consists of achieving a self, making or maintaining an identity, making our particular mark in the world we inhabit. This is a battle because the 20th century American scene is not particularly hospitable to self-making: great forces coerce our lives, forces that are at once economic, biological, political, racial, and ideological.

We are dogged by not only death and taxes but by the influence of family, of business, of society, of all those potent vectors that constitute the real map and landscape of our lives. This vexed and conflicted terrain does not resemble the smooth résumés that are our shorthand for what we have done, but it does correspond to our experiential awareness of what we go through, how we have changed from childhood to adulthood, what our work and friendships and marriages have been and what they have meant to us. Literature enables us to recover this territory—our territory. The texts presented in this course constitute an enlarged repertory of human resources, of the battle for freedom.

The Heroic Self in a Humbling Land

We begin by looking at the great texts and movements of the 19th century, especially our belief in heroic selfhood, and we begin to see and chart the kinds of forces that make up the moving stage we occupy.

Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio is among the most poignant descriptions of life at the beginning of the century, but the charm of this small-town narrative acquires a deeper hue when we see the amount of repression and inner violence that Anderson chronicles.

Hemingway’s In Our Time and Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night are both, in their own ways, about American loss of innocence; about how the Great War and the brutality of modern life permanently altered our belief systems. This theme is presented as physical trauma in Hemingway and as madness and decay in Fitzgerald.

Faulkner’s Light in August depicts the ravages of racism in the American South, but it seeks, magnificently, to pair its overt story of carnage and neurosis with another, more elusive fable of love, kinship, and redemption.

We turn to Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God for the first—and perhaps the best—account of growing up black and female in America, a story that is expressed in a kind of language and diction that moves breathlessly from the vernacular to the legendary.

Flannery O’Connor’s stories bring a different agenda to our course: the challenge of perceiving the contours of God, spirit, and grace in a seemingly materialist Southern landscape peopled with the lowest profile folks in American literature.

Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, once censored and then seen as merely a raunchy drug epic, will be studied as a dazzling and disturbing account of the body in culture, a body that is horribly open and defenseless against the takeovers that beset it.

War returns to our course in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, at once poignant and wacky, speaking to us of mass destruction and of extraterrestrials in the same voice, a voice that is hard to forget.

The course will close with a series of lectures on three of the most significant contemporary writers—writers whose works may not yet be familiar to you.

In his sprawling and audacious Public Burning, Robert Coover uses that most popular American code, entertainment, to present a manic account of the Rosenberg execution and the antics of one Richard Nixon.

Toni Morrison’s fascinating Sula is an experimental novel in which Morrison fashions a group of characters whose lives and values make rubble out of the conventions of humanistic culture, whether black or white.

Finally, Don DeLillo’s appealing, absurdist comedy of modern life, White Noise, depicts our encounter with the technological madhouse in which we live but which we have not quite gotten around to seeing.

Lifelines

These American fictions, seen together, tell a composite story about coping, about fashioning both a story and a life. The range of experiences and subcultures to be found here will dwarf the experience of any single reader, and that is how it should be. Much is dark in these stories, but the honesty and integrity of these writers adds pith and richness to our own lives and makes us realize that reading is as much a lifeline as it is entertainment or education.

Course Lecture Titles

1. American Fiction and the Individualist Creed
2. The American Self—Ghost in Disguise
3. What Produces "Nobody"?
4. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio—Writing as the Talking Cure
5. Winesburg—A New American Prose-Poetry
6. Hemingway—Journalist, Writer, Legend
7. Hemingway as Trauma Artist
8. Hemingway's Cunning Art
9. F. Scott Fitzgerald—Tender Is the Night—Fitzgerald's Second Act
10. Fitzgerald's Psychiatric Tale
11. Dick's Dying Fall—An American Story
12. Light in August—Midpoint of the Faulkner Career
13. Light in August—Determinism vs. Freedom
14. Light in August—Novel as Poem, or, Beyond Holocaust
15. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God—Canon Explosion
16. Their Eyes Were Watching God—From Romance to Myth
17. Flannery O'Connor—Realist of Distances
18. O'Connor—Taking the Measure of the Region
19. Williams Burroughs—Bad Boy of American Literature
20. Naked Lunch—The Body in Culture
21. Naked Lunch—Power and Exchange in the Viral World
22. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five—Apocalypse Now
23. Vonnegut's World—Tralfamadore or Trauma?
24. Robert Coover—Postmodern Fabulator
25. The Public Burning—Execution at Times Square
26. Robert Coover—Fiction as Fission
27. Toni Morrison's Sula—From Trauma to Freedom
28. Sula—New Black Woman
29. Don DeLillo—Decoder of American Frequencies
30. White Noise—Representing the Environment
31. DeLillo and American Dread
32. Conclusion—Nobody's Home

Book: Sister Carrie

2008-09-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy to be reading Sister Carrie instead of the Bone People. I read it with great intent, enjoying each word in each sentence. It sounds like music to me.

I read the first two chapters last year when I was nursing. I found it very difficult, and I could not get into the book. I was not in the mood to enjoy it. I felt sad, and I didn't know if I would ever enjoy a great book again. I am glad this book has given me another chance.

There are several books in the past that I could not get into. I will have to give them a second chance. Yes, One Hundred Years of Solitude needs 3 or 4 chances.

book: The Bone People by Keri Hulme

2008-09-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

I can't say I enjoyed the Bone People by Keri Hulme. While I was reading it the last two weeks, I was impatient with the book, and speed-read many pages. For one thing, I am not used to the language style. It is said to "follow the rhythms and accents of the Maori idiom". It is very difficult for me to follow. Also Hulme changes her narrative back and forth from third person to first person, and it is confusing, especially if I am speed reading. Most of the passages about Kerewin Holmes, which is over half of the book, read like a private diary. Since Kerewin Holmes sounds like Keri Hulme, and they have similar backgrounds (part Maori, part European, painter, drinker, asexual, etc.), I feel I am reading a badly written autobiography. I do not care about the protagonist, because she is self-absorbing and irritating. I care about Joe, but the book tells too little about him. I care about Simon, and in the book there is a promise of a mystery, but it is never resolved. There is no story in the book, only character studies, of only one character, which is the author, who is often drunk, depressed, or dreaming. I have learned something about the Maori people, but it is only through the eyes of Keri Hulme, whom I have a most difficult time to relate. I do not trust her at all.

The only part I can read normally is the part about Joe's wandering, and about Simon's recovering. Hulme uses normal English in those chapters, and I could understand. Then she switches back to Kerewin, and I am lost again. Unlike the other two characters, I don't understand how and why she is healed. In the end, I don't know what has happened. I am confused from beginning to end.

I got this book because it has won several book award, including the 1985 Booker Prize, an award for contemporary fiction writers from the British Commonwealth and Ireland. Past award winners include these two that I have read:

1989 - Kazuo Ishiguro - United Kingdom/Japan - The Remains of the Day - (I love it)
2002 - Yann Martel - Canada - Life of Pi - (I don't like)

Also Alice Walker recommends this book. Well, I don't.

Book: Seabiscuit

2008-07-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

I got Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit from the library for $0.50, and since it had top rating at amazon.com, I began reading it. When the movie came out a few years ago, I didn't see it in the theater. Everyone told me that it was a "guy's movie". I only saw part of it on a train (from San Francisco to Los Angeles), and thought it was all fictional.

But it is all real in history. Charles Howard. Tom Smith. Red Pollard. George Woolf. Seabiscuit.

This book is not about a racehorse. It is about a lost era, about those "dear, dead days".

After reading the book, I become fascinated with horse race, and I want to go to racecourses and see real horse racing. I have been to Churchill Downs, Santa Anita, and the Detroit Race Course, but I didn't know anything about horse race before, and I missed the real excitement. I have checked to see the racecourses near us. The Hollywood Park is in our area, and it was where Seabiscuit won the inaugural Hollywood Gold Cup in 1938. Santa Anita is like a home to Seabiscuit, and there is a statue of the horse and the jockey Iceman Woolf. So many stories of Seabiscuit happened there. I really want to go and see it again. When I told people that I wanted to see horse racing, they

Here's a list of all California horse racing venues from Wikipedia (there are more from other sites):

Santa Anita Park racecourse
Bay Meadows, San Mateo, California
Golden Gate Fields, Albany, California
Del Mar Racetrack, Del Mar, California
Fairplex, Pomona, California
Hollywood Park Racetrack, Inglewood, California
Los Alamitos, Los Alamitos, California
Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California

Hillenbrand did a great job digging up lost history, organizing the materials, and telling the life of Seabiscuit and those of everyone around him. Her language is colorful and vivid, and sometimes very sensational. For example:

His (Johnny Pollard) emotions were liquid; his anger was a wild rage, his pleasure jubilation, his humor biting, his sorrow and empathy a bottomless abyss. (p.51)

Below is an interesting "observation" of the depression era:

In the winter of 1937, America was in the seventh year of the most catastrophic decade in its history. The economy had come crashing down, and millions upon millions of people had been torn loose from their jobs, their savings, their homes. A nation that drew its audacity from the quintessentially American belief that success is open to anyone willing to work for it was disillusioned by seemingly intractable poverty. The most brash of peoples was seized by despair, fatalism, and fear. The sweeping devastation was giving rise to powerful new social forces. The first was a burgeoning industry of escapism. America was desperate to lose itself in anything that offered affirmation. The nation's corner theaters hosted 85 million people a week for 25-cent viewings of an endless array of cheery musicals and screwball comedies. On the radio, the idealized world of One Man's Family and the just and reassuring tales of The Lone Ranger were runaway hits. Downtrodden Americans gravitated strongly toward the Horatio Alger protagonist, the lowly bred Everyman who rises from anonymity and hopelessness. They looked for him in spectator sports, which were enjoying explosive growth. With the relegalization of wagering, no sport was growing faster than Thoroughbred racing.

Note the part about "cheery musicals and screwball comedies". See my movie review for the 1930s.

I've just signed up for a membership at The Daily Racing Form. I don't know what I am going to do with it....

关于 Bach/Brahms Chaconne 3

2008-07-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

我第一次正式听巴赫的恰空，是两年前，在一个教会举行的午间音乐会上。演奏者是 Timothy Fain，一个很帅的年轻小提琴家。为了写音乐会报告，我在网上查了不少关于恰空的资料，整理了一番，作为我对巴赫恰空最初的理性认识。这是我写的报告中关于恰空的（英文）：

The main piece is Bach Partita No.2 in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004). It was written in the period 1717-1723, dedicated to the memory of his first wife. The partita is composed of five parts, combining different folk traditions—Allemande (German), Courrant (French), Saraband (Spanish or Oriental), Gigue (French), and Chaconne (Spanish or Moorish). A common theme is shared among the first four parts. The 15-minute long Chaconne runs over the time of all other four parts together, overshadowing the remainder of the partita. It is considered a pinnacle in the solo violin repertoire, covering almost every aspect of violin playing known during Bach’s time, and it is among the most difficult pieces to play on any instrument. Different transcriptions of the piece were made by Busoni (piano), Brahms (piano left hand), Segovia (guitar), and Stokowski (orchestra), among others. It also represents the zenith of polyphonic writing for a non-keyboard instrument. Having listened to Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites many times, I had no doubt that Bach’s solo violin would be magnificent.

Fain was well prepared to tackle all the technical difficulties. At first his whole body moved a lot with the emotion of the piece, which was distracting to me because he was very tall. Half way through the piece, he became more absorbed in the music and his movement was reduced. In Chaconne, there were a lot of technical passages. He played with concentration and passion. It was especially exciting to watch him play the passage of 32nd-note arpeggio over all four strings. However, musically I got lost after a while. A few times I thought the music had reached the climax and was coming to an end, but Bach kept going and Fain kept going. After several false climaxes, I lost my concentration to listen. I did not realize the section was in the form of theme and variations. I think as a performer, one should pay good attention to the structure of the music, and be a guide to the audience and so they could understand where the music is going, help the audience hear how the composer wants the music to flow. Nonetheless, overall I greatly enjoyed this performance of Bach’s Violin Partita, for both Bach and Fain were full of surprises and excitement.

After the concert, I looked up the score of Chaconne (or Ciaccona) and read some analyses. It was actually composed of 64 “stunning” variation upon the “stark, open-ended” four measure theme in the beginning. The theme and its chord progression is on D, C#, Bb and A. The piece starts and ends in a D minor with a D major central section starting and ending in arpeggio. I listened to three recordings of this piece (by Arthur Grumiaux, Hilary Hahn, and Nathan Milstein) with the score. Full of triple, quadruple stops and arpeggio over four strings, it was truly a stunning piece, both technically and musically.

当时我听演奏的时候，听到一半我就跑神了。平时我听音乐都是这样的，除非手里有谱子，我是不会专心的把一个曲子从头听到尾的，即使是我自己弹奏的曲子，弹到一半我脑子就不知跑到那里去了，连我从未弹奏过的新曲子也如此。但是巴赫的恰空，时不时的带来新鲜的音乐，或是委婉，或是激昂，或是遥远，或是悲壮，总是召唤我回到音乐旁边。我发现我并不了解这首恰空的结构，不懂其写作格式和技巧，每个大段都有高潮，三次下来，我丢了方向。我还抱怨演奏者不能给我适当的指示。现在想来也是很好笑的。

演奏中，我印象最深的是前面 D minor 结束前的的那一大段32分音符的扒音，在小提琴的四根弦上，快速的来回穿梭。手指飞奔。我看着都紧张，手里捏着一把汗。这一段持续的时间很久，有8个变奏，大概两分钟。非常精彩。

我看钢琴谱的这一段，第二个变奏标的是 tranquillo，平静，第三个是 p e molto leggiero，轻及更加轻盈，好像是在孕育着后来的风暴。到后来才慢慢渐强起来。这些跨越度大、快速的32分音符，我练了很久，才能勉强把音都弹出、弹对，但轻盈这种力度却难以做到。紧接下来的是自由的、尽兴的感叹，感叹终于雨过天晴，D大调就要来到了。这一段成为我最喜欢练习的，因为不仅可以反复练手指、练技巧，体会和声微妙的变化，而且那种一气呵成的感觉真是太好了。

关于 Bach/Brahms Chaconne 2

2008-07-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

我看资料说，Chaconne 是一种 baroque 以前的变奏曲式，主题是 harmonic progression，和我们平时听惯的变奏曲以旋律为主题是不同的。我最先接触 Bach Chaconne 的时候，以为主题就是开始八个小节的那一大组和弦（在小提琴上是 broken chords）。这八小节又分成两短句，一问一答，象是在宣言。第二组的八小节，和弦变奏成 French Overture 那种 dotted rhythm，可以用 majestic 来形容。第三组的八小节，保持了 dotted 节奏，但音量突然减弱，好像是前面的回音。再下的四小节是简单的八分音符，虽然只是单音，但充满了紧张的力度，因为钢琴演奏上没有 vibrato，音弹下去就不能再变了，这一段反而特别难弹。后四小节变成16分音符，密度增加，仍要保持从容。

我就这样把 chaconne 分成了32段，每段8小节。

可是，中间有一些段落，并不是以八小节为单位的一问一答。有的是四小节一组，有的是12小节一组，有的类似的八小节是分在不同的单位中。比如在曲子的中间，第17单位的下半，chaconne 从 D小调变成了 D大调。从27段起，又回到 D小调。这种不工整的结构，又应该怎样解释？

很久以后，我看到一篇恰空的曲式分析，才恍然大悟。我一直把主题看错了。

主题就是四个音，D-C(#)-Bb-A。因为是小调，根据旋律要求，C 有时是 C#。每一小节一个音，主题的长度是四小节，这样整个曲子就是64个变奏。有的时候，巴赫把两句并在一起，成一问一答的形式，有时候又是单句，增加了一层变化。

关于巴赫写 chaconne，还有一段凄惨的故事。1720年，巴赫远道回来，到了家，才知道自己的发妻已经去世，丢下七个孩子。他悲愤之中，写了以 chaconne 为主的小提琴独奏主曲，来纪念妻子。也许因此，这首恰空才那么沉重，四分之三都是 D小调。

中间 D大调开始的时候，那几个低沉的音，好像远远传来的长号，带来另一个世界的亲人的消息。然后的大调，给人一点温暖，一点希望，阳光也在一点点渗进来，直到热血沸腾。然而。。。

我最喜欢的是后来转成 D 小调的那几个小节(m.208)。老师用的词是 lament。我曾经有一个月疯狂的爱上 lament 这个词，每天写信写文字，都必定要用这个词来造句。以至我后来一见到这个词，就感到心之憔悴，哀伤叹息不能自已。我觉得 lament 用在这一句音乐上，是再恰当不过了。每当音乐弹到这里，我就忽然心灰意冷。我把这几个小节反复弹了很多遍，沉浸在这泪流尽以后、从肺腑中唱出的哀歌中。

关于 Bach/Brahms Chaconne 1

2008-07-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

七月让我来讲讲音乐。我也一直想写点东西，但自从做了家庭主妇，整天忙这忙那的，没什么自己的时间写作，也没心情构思。前一阵，我也想写写巴赫。在这里我先写几个碎片。以后如果有时间，再整理。

====

How many ways can you write 4 notes?

巴赫在 Partita for Violin No.2 的乐章 Chaconne (also ciaccona) 里，把这 D-C-Bb-A 简单的四个音，密密实实的写了 64 次。

之后，勃拉姆斯把巴赫的小提琴独奏曲，从头到尾，认认真真的改写成钢琴的左手练习曲。

我因为去年右手受伤，只能练左手钢琴曲，其中就有这一首 Bach/Brahms 的曲子。很多人改写过巴赫的 Chaconne。我的钢琴老师说，相比之下，勃拉姆斯的左手练习曲是比较忠于小提琴曲的。我以为根据小提琴改写的单手的曲子，大多数都是单音，应该比双手的要容易。练了半年，越来越发现，这四个音的变奏曲，这十五分钟的音乐，从音乐的诠释和钢琴的技巧两方面看，都是我接触过最难的曲目了。我的七旬老朋友乔治是勃拉姆斯的粉丝。他听了我的抱怨，对我眨眨眼说，说，勃拉姆斯从来没写过一个简单的音，是吧？

Wikipedia 找来 Brahms 给 Clara Schumann 写的信中关于 Chaconne 的一段：
"On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

我的作曲老师是精通各种二十世纪后期的写作手法的现代作曲家。他最喜欢的曲目是巴赫的 Chaconne，因为其中的变化万千，奥秘无穷。他最喜欢的作曲家是勃拉姆斯。听说勃拉姆斯每天早上都要把 Chaconne 弹一遍，我老师唏嘘不已，悔恨自己不会弹钢琴（他的乐器是 double bass）。我知道了，就央求我的钢琴老师教我这一首，想把曲子学好了，弹给我的作曲老师听。

但是，我的力量是远远不够的。这首恰空(chaconne)，经两位大师之手，是一个 tour de force。我想用笔描述一下，都觉得渺小无力。看了马慧元对 Busoni 版的恰空的文字，我更自愧不如。

我远远的听着巴赫的音乐，弹着勃拉姆斯的曲子，读着马慧元的文字，过后，只有时间留几个空字在这里。

freerice

2008-04-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

>lucy wrote:
>http://www.freerice.com/index.php

04/14/08
22:51

VOCAB LEVEL: 26
YOUR BEST LEVEL: 26
捐了 520 粒大米。
明天再继续。

又捐了 2700 粒大米。
vocab level 26
best level 36
超过 26 极的字我都开始猜了。

这个游戏好玩，学了不少字。谢谢露西mm。

next 2 tries:

VOCAB LEVEL: 35
YOUR BEST LEVEL: 35
Your donation total is 60 grains of rice.

VOCAB LEVEL: 40
YOUR BEST LEVEL: 40
Your donation total is 80 grains of rice.

04/15/08
12:01

we should always start at level 1, zero grain of rice, and work our way up, see what level we get at, say, 3000 grains of rice.

i must stop donating rice now. i have an hour to do two weeks worth of homework. no pizza for me, but i will have rice before it gets too expensive. :)

04/17/08
23:07

我已经达到 leve 36 了，是从 level 1 开始一点点积攒上去的。

04/18/08
09:19

you can set your options in freerice. i have it as my "home" page, and let it remember my last level and the total rice count, so every time i open the browser, i keep donating rice and working on my levels.

04/18/08
14:43

最近几天的大米捐献上涨一倍左右，是不是我们几个在努力的结果呀？我已经捐了 10000+ 粒大米了。

04/24/08
21:52

我也觉得听发音很有帮助。有的字听过很多次（因为最近听了不少讲座），但没见过，所以听了发音就能猜到字的意思。光看词根有时是不行的，因为有的字很短。

我已经捐了 25,000+ 粒大米了，刚到40级就被打下来了。不过我觉得词库不大，做多了就有很多重复。应该把整个字典都拿出来测，根据所有测试者的正误率来调整级别。

04/25/08
15:25

I set the option to NOT repeat the ones I did wrong, so I am not using my short-term memory at all. Every time I open my browser, I get the freerice website, and I work at a few words before I move on to other things. My level is usually around 30-36, starting from the level I leave off the previous time. This way I get A LOT OF repeats, not from the same session (because I allow no repeat), but from previous sessions. And I have done over 25000 grains of rice, so I feel I have a good sense of the size of the 词库. Sometimes I use a different computer and start from default (like touche), so I get to see words from other levels.

If I keep reading and pay attention to what I read, in a couple of years I will know a lot more words.

Got 4 more Harry Potter books and recent reading habits

2008-04-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

I read the first two Harry Potter books and found them to be easy and fun. Then I ordered 4 more, so now I have 6 of 7. I'm surprised to see that the volumes are getting thicker.

I was going to read Sister Carrie before the other Harry Potters came. I read for two evenings, but could not get too far. I found the book great--the language poignant, the observations sharp, the commentary precise. Reading it is like reading any other great English classics. However, my mind is so scattered and so lazy these days that I cannot enjoy a great book like Sister Carrie. This year I have been reading easy-reading popular books like the Kite Runner, Lonesome Dove (great book), John Irving, and now Harry Potter. And I am "reading' a bunch of gardening books too.

Maybe I will finish all Harry Potters, and then get back to Sister Carrie. Being a mother leaves me little time and energy to enjoy serious books which I love. Sigh.

TTC: Tocqueville and the American Experiment

2008-04-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

Tocqueville and the American Experiment
by William R. Cook, State University of New York at Geneseo

How is it possible that perhaps the greatest book about U.S. democracy ever written was penned by a Frenchman visiting this country some 175 years ago? Why is it still relevant in today’s ever-changing political landscape? Join Professor William R. Cook for a spirited exploration of Alexis de Tocqueville and his unique observations of this young nation that resulted in the two volumes of Democracy in America.

Democracy and Our National Identity

Democracy is so much a part of our national identity as to be inseparable from it. It is all too easily taken for granted as we live our daily lives, debate our country’s issues, freely criticize our leaders, and cast our ballots.

But in today’s world, when we are also trying to understand how to make democracy a part of the national identity of other nations, an in-depth understanding of this remarkable political system is especially relevant.

What is American democracy, and why has it flourished? Is there something unique in our national character, in our social fabric and communities, that makes the United States especially fertile ground for the growth of democracy? Can American democracy be exported? Does it naturally fortify itself over time? Or do its benefits, ironically, work to undermine its strengths?

After more than two centuries of living with democracy, fundamental questions like these often go unasked.

Yet there was a time when the unique relationship between the American people and their government was still new, barely two generations old, and these questions were very much at the forefront of the age’s greatest minds.

One of those minds belonged to a 25-year-old French nobleman, a lawyer named Alexis de Tocqueville, who journeyed here in 1831, and whose written observations at that time left us a lasting and provocative look at U.S. democracy’s formative years.

Tocqueville took this journey with another young lawyer, Gustave de Beaumont, who had written a report on French prisons. Although the official purpose of the trip was to research innovations in the American penal system, the two of them—especially Tocqueville—had in mind a much broader use of the credentials provided them by their own government.

Tocqueville wanted to observe firsthand the successful political experiment that was evolving in the United States and take his findings home to France, which was itself trying to shape its own young democracy.

A Hero Claimed by Liberals and Conservatives

The remarkable book that resulted—Democracy in America—has been called both the best book ever written about democracy and the best book ever written about America.

Published in two parts, one in 1835 and the second in 1840, it reveals, in its 700 pages, insights about democracy and the American character that have led both liberals and conservatives alike to claim Tocqueville as their own, often by citing the very same passages, and often out of context.

And its prescience runs so deep that it includes Tocqueville’s prediction, more than a century ahead of the fact, of the eventual emergence of the United States and what was then pre-Soviet Russia as the world’s reigning superpowers.

In Tocqueville and the American Experiment, Professor Cook leads you on an engaging and energetic discussion on Tocqueville, his journey, his writing of Democracy in America and, most of all, his thoughts on the young nation he was observing. For Tocqueville, it seems, had opinions about almost everything he encountered in America, and not exclusively politics and "classical" issues such as the nature of the judiciary and the role of freedom of the press. He wrote of:
The meaning of family in a democracy
Race and the damage done by slavery
Women's crucial role
Religion as a moral guide
The dangers of turning religion to political ends.
Seeing Ourselves Through a Foreigner’s Observations

"Tocqueville," notes Professor Cook, "provides the brilliant observations of an outsider that still allow Americans to understand themselves better for having encountered his writings.

"Furthermore, in a time when America is encouraging nations around the world to adopt democratic values and is engaged in nation building, Tocqueville can be both a guide and a reminder of the cultural context in which democratic institutions can develop and flourish.

"Whatever we feel about particular American policies," he continues, "we as a nation are trying to build democracies in other places.

"To do that, we have to ask, what in America is transferable to other cultures and other histories, and what isn’t? What are the most fundamental things, and what are secondary and tertiary in importance? What kind of education is needed to create not just a democratic institution, but what Tocqueville himself calls the ‘habits of the heart,’ [the American characteristics that] make a democracy more than a form of government but a way of life?"

Freedom of the Press and Centralized Government

A primary example of Tocqueville’s changing opinions over the nine-year interval between his visit and the completion of Democracy in America concerns freedom of the press.

Describing those changes in the same friendly, conversational style that marks his presentation of the entire course, Professor Cook notes how Tocqueville was initially quite nervous about the unbridled freedom of the press he found in America, fearing that a dominant press might acquire too much power. But Tocqueville was used to the far more centralized press of France, with only a small number of major newspapers. It is fascinating to see how his views evolve as he learns more about the vibrant American press and how its many outlets serve to prevent the centralization of power.

Tocqueville constantly cautioned against the centralization of governmental administration. He believed that if Congress or a state legislature passes a bad law that is administered centrally, for example, the bad effects are felt everywhere. But if those laws are administered locally, there will always be places where the application will be less rigid and the impact of the bad laws thus less onerous. This would provide an opportunity for public demonstrations that would make changes in those laws more likely.

What Else Did Tocqueville Believe?

Tocqueville believed, for example, that the forces that held democracy together and made it work most efficiently bubbled up through society, rather than trickling down from government.

He thus saw serving on juries—especially juries in civil cases—as a crucial part of the education of the citizenry, a "school free of charge," to use Tocqueville’s own words.

"I think," Cook quotes Tocqueville, "that the practical intelligence and good political sense of the Americans must principally be attributed to a long use that they have made of the jury in civil matters."

Cook shows how Tocqueville saw much of American daily life as education in good citizenship, with both political and civil associations providing fertile training grounds.

In the case of political associations, participants would have an opportunity not only to advance causes they believed to be in their own self-interest, but to gain practical experience in learning what he called "self-interest well understood." In giving up their time and energy, and working with other people, citizens would learn how individual self-interest had to be placed within the context of the common good.

In the case of civil associations, Professor Cook uses the story of a cat rescue group in his own town of Geneseo to illustrate Tocqueville’s notion of how civil associations help make life better.

Concerns as Deep as His Admiration

But even as he saw and admired the vibrancy of citizen participation at the base of the American democracy, Tocqueville also saw things that deeply concerned him.

As a system dependent on the will of the majority, democracy needed always to be vigilant against the tyranny of that same majority, the danger that it could rule almost absolutely over the minority.

That danger wasn’t likely to come from government, for there were constitutional safeguards in place. Instead, Tocqueville saw the threat of majoritarianism in the speech that swirled around him, even going so far as to note that despite all of the opinion he heard being voiced, he had found less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion in America than any place he had been!

Though the circle of discussion in America is very broad, he said, its perimeter is clearly delineated. Those whose views fall outside of that circle, though their views are permitted, are cut off from power, with political careers closed to them. They can become the butt of jokes and, in the worst of cases, the victims of social persecution.

Tocqueville was also concerned about the long-range implications of what he called "equality of conditions," a term roughly equivalent to what today is referred to as equality of opportunity. For Tocqueville, equality of conditions was fundamental to democracy, giving "a certain direction to public spirit, a certain turn to the laws, new maxims to those who govern and particular habits to the government."

But in a society in which such a principle pertains, a society without built-in privilege, Tocqueville also saw a danger. He feared that people might well seek other ways to experience the feeling of being special, either by withdrawing into the family or by the selfish pursuit of material wealth.

Tocqueville even coined a term—individualism—to describe this threat, and urged renewed attention to maintaining vibrant local governments and political and civil associations that will constantly demonstrate the advantages of entering and participating in the activities of the public square.

A Book for Today

Tocqueville can be both a guide and a reminder of the cultural context in which democratic institutions can develop and flourish. His book can be seen both as an inspiration and a warning for Americans of the 21st century, providing insights and innovative ways to consider what we all too often take for granted in the United States.

Course Lecture Titles

1. An Overview of Democracy in America
2. Alexis de Tocqueville—A Brief Biography
3. The Journey to America
4. Equality of Conditions and Freedom
5. The Foundations of the American Experience
6. Does America Have a Mixed Constitution?
7. The American Constitution
8. The Judiciary and Lawyers in America
9. Democracy and Local Government
10. Freedom of Speech in Theory and Practice
11. Freedom of the Press
12. Political Parties
13. The Problem of the Tyranny of the Majority
14. Political Associations
15. Civil Associations
16. Blacks and Indians
17. Mores and Democracy
18. Christianity and Democracy
19. Education and Culture in Democracies
20. Individualism in America
21. The Desire for Wealth in America
22. The Democratic Family
23. Are Democracy and Excellence Compatible?
24. Tocqueville’s Unanswered Questions

Tocqueville and Political/Civil Associations in America

2008-04-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

I am listening to lectures about Tocqueville and his book Democracy in America, and I just finished the sections on Political Association and Civil Association. Then today at the beach I met a father whose wife is advocating for an initiate related to children's Chinese immersion program (or something like that). He thinks that I should join the group. It is exactly what I am learning from Tocqueville. How timely.

I looked up the couple's names online, and thought that we could have a lot in common. I would really like to get to know them. The wife is Chinese, a professor at my current school, and the husband is a English professor. They have two boys, 4 and 2. I e-mailed the wife, but only received a formal reply regarding the association. Maybe that's what Tocqueville is talking about (that people with diverse backgrounds come together for a single issue at hand).

so many orphans in the books

2008-04-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

All the books I read this year so far are about orphans.

The Kite Runner
Lonesome Dove (there's an orphan in the book)
The Secret Garden
The Cider House Rules
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

And now I am going to read Harry Potter 2.

I understand John Irving's obsession or insight about orphans. He never knows who his father is. All of his books I've read are somewhat related to single parent families. The Cider House Rules is about real orphans. He is probably about the age of Homer Wells's son Angel. Hmm, I wonder what he was imagining when he wrote the book.

knowledge always comes in paris or more

2008-03-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

I am reading John Irving's Cider House Rules. The first part is about orphans and orphanage. It reminds me of the various books and movies I have encountered lately about orphanage:

1. The Kite Runner (book), a orphanage in Afghanistan
2. The Italian (movie), an orphanage in Russia
3. Cider House Rules (book), an orphanage in Maine, US

Comparative study of the orphanage? I don't know. But after these encounters with orphans in arts, I want to help.

Oh, also when I was reading Lomesome Dove, there's a boy Newt who was brought up as an orphan although Captain Call was be his father, and I was surprised that for 17 years nobody could tell the resemblance between father and son. Then in Cider House Rules, Homer Wells and Candy had a illegitimate son then claiming the boy was adopted, and for 15 years or so nobody could tell the likeness between parents and son. These scenes really bother me.

====
I just finished TTC (The Teaching Company)'s lecture on Mr. Lincoln, and learned about his life and the civil war. Then the next lecture I listened to, by accident, is Abolitionism, Anti-Slavery and the Origins of the American Civil War. It's like reinforcement learning. Today I started a new course on Argumentation. The professor will give two historical arguments as examples throughout the course, and one of the arguments is the Lincoln-Douglas debate. How timely! A few days ago I had never heard of the famous debate.

====
When I was waiting in a long line today in school, I was reading Cider House Rules and was at the passage about Angel. When it was my turn to talk to the person behind the counter, I saw that his name tag said Angel. What chance!

====
One more... On Monday, my friend Allen Poe told me about a musician who plays a musical saw, and I laughed at the idea. On Sunday, Mike and I watched the movie Delicatessen, and the main character plays a musical saw. Wow!

TTC: American Religious History

2008-03-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

American Religious History (24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Patrick N. Allitt, Emory University

I love this course! Prof. Allitt is clear and just, and full of interesting stories. He traces the religious history of America alongside the history of the US. He himself is a English Catholic. Every time I study religions, I re-consider the possibility of converting to Catholic again.

Allitt's other lectures:
American Identity
Victorian Britain

==
Join historian Patrick N. Allitt in exploring the story of religious life in America from the first European contacts to the late 20th century.

Why does America, unlike virtually any other industrial nation, continue to show so much religious vitality?
Why are the varieties of religion found here so numerous and diverse?

Reading aloud from primary sources:
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech
A Civil War veteran's memory of how Catholic sisters cared for the wounded after the Battle of Shiloh
The heartfelt letter to Virginia's governor in which John Rolfe explains his spiritual motives for wishing to marry Pocahontas
An account of the religious diversity of New York City—in 1683
An Anglican cleric's impressions of revivalism in the Carolinas during the First Great Awakening of the 1740s.
Richly Detailed Personal Glimpses

Biographical sketches and anecdotes about dozens of brilliant, charismatic, or otherwise remarkable American religious figures, among them:

Puritan divine Cotton Mather
Mormon prophet Joseph Smith
Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy
The patriotic revivalist Billy Sunday, who during World War I said, "If you turn hell over, you'll find 'Made in Germany' stamped on the bottom!"

Course titles:
1. Major Features of American Religious History
2. The European Background
3. Natives and Newcomers
4. The Puritans
5. Colonial Religious Diversity
6. The Great Awakening
7. Religion and Revolution
8. The Second Great Awakening
9. Oneida and the Mormons
10. Catholicism
11. African-American Religion
12. The Civil War
13. Victorian Developments
14. Darwin and Other Dilemmas
15. Judaism in the 19th Century
16. Fundamentalism
17. War and Peace
18. Twentieth-Century Catholicism
19. The Affluent Society
20. The Civil Rights Movements
21. The Counterculture and Feminism
22. Asian Religions
23. Church and State
24. The Enduring Religious Sensibility

TTC: Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries

2008-03-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
by Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania

This is a very boring course. I don't like Prof Kros's NJ accent and voice. A lot of the times he sounds like if he is preaching. I ran through the 12 hours of lectures quickly. Maybe I am just bored of philosophy these days. I want to keep away from his other lectures:
Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition
Voltaire and the Triumph of the Enlightenment

TTC: Aeneid of Virgil

2008-03-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

Aeneid of Virgil (12 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
by Elizabeth Vandiver, Whitman College

I enjoyed this short lecture on Aeneid of Virgil greatly. Professor Vandiver is a good speaker. She made Virgil sound very interesting. I am also looking forward to studying other lectures on Classics with her:
Iliad of Homer
Odyssey of Homer
Classical Mythology
Greek Tragedy
Herodotus: The Father of History

When I was in Michigan, my friend Jeff, a HS Classics teacher recommended Aeneid to me, but the copy I bought was too worn so I left it in Ann Arbor when I moved to California. Now I can't wait to get a book and read it. I have always wanted to know more about the Romans. Maybe I will get into the Greeks too. I tried Homer several times before but I could not get very far. Now I really want to learn all about Homer and Classical Mythology.

==
From teach.12.com:

The Aeneid is the great national epic of ancient Rome, and one of the most important works of literature ever written. It was basic to the education of generations of Romans, and has stirred the imaginations of such writers and artists as St. Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Brueghel the Elder, Milton, Rubens, Tennyson, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot.

The Aeneid represents both Virgil's tribute to Homer and his attempt to re-imagine and surpass the Homeric model.

You join Aeneas on his long journey west from ruined Troy to the founding of a new nation in Italy, and see how he weaves a rich network of compelling human themes. His poem is an examination of leadership, a study of the conflict between duty and desire, a meditation on the relationship of the individual to society and of art to life, and a Roman's reflection on the dangers—and the allure—of Hellenistic culture.

The first lecture provides an introduction to Virgil's Latin epic and to the plan of the course, while the second lecture covers both the mythic and literary background with which Virgil was working. Here you find an insightful summary of the legends of the Trojan War and of Romulus and Remus as well as a discussion of what scholarship can tell us about the Aeneid 's literary antecedents. Lecture 3 provides you with a vital understanding of the historical context in which Virgil wrote, including accounts of his larger literary career, his relationship to the regime of Augustus, and his view of Roman history generally. In Lectures 4 through 12, Professor Vandiver discusses the poem itself with clarity, economy, and enthusiasm that you are sure to find illuminating and thoroughly engaging. Throughout it all, the figure of Aeneas is never far from center stage—as fighter and lover, father and son, refugee and ruler, wanderer and founder, spellbinding storyteller, and sword-wielding man of action.

1. Introduction
2. From Aeneas to Romulus
3. Rome, Augustus, and Virgil
4. The Opening of the Aeneid
5. From Troy to Carthage
6. Unhappy Dido
7. Funeral Games and a Journey to the Dead
8. Italy and the Future
9. Virgil's Iliad
10. The Inevitable Doom of Turnus
11. The Gods and Fate
12. The End of the Aeneid and Beyond

Book: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

2008-02-23T23:50:00.000-08:00

It took me almost a month to finish Larry McMurtry's epic masterpiece Lonesome Dove. I have not enjoyed a book this much since high school when I read Jin Yong, and I have read many a book. Lonesome Dove has everything--history, geography, action, romance, humor, dialogue, and stories after stories. I have learned so much about American west and cowboy culture than all the western movies I have seen.

The main characters are Gus (Augustus McCrea) and Call (Woodrow Call), two ex-Texas Rangers. After they stopped fighting the Indians and the Mexican outlaws, they settled in a small town Lonesome Dove in southern Texas, trading cattle and doing nothing much. Then one day their old comrade Jake Spoon showed up and told them about Montana. Bored of Texas life, they immediately gathered 3000 cattle from south of Mexican border and some cowboys, and started their epic journey across Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and reaching Montana. On their way they passed towns such as San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth (near Dallas), Dodge City, Ogallala, and Miles City. The cattle drive met with countless adversaries--rain storm, lightning, moccasin (water snakes), sand storm, quick sand, drought, grizzly bear, icy river, blizzard, Indian attack, to name a few. Some dead, some left, some joined, the cowboys and the people they met were all colorful.

The characters include a slow-wit and obedient cowboy from the original outfit, a black cowboy with superb tracking skills, a 17-year-old cowboy born of a whore and whose father was a mystery to be solved, a top hand cowboy in love with a whore he only bought once, a piano player with a whole in the stomach, a cook walking the whole way and could always find useful plants or animals to cook (and his three sons were killed by a Indian, and he killed his unfaithful wife), two Irishmen coming to the US to look for work, a young sheriff in Kansas chasing after his runaway wife from Kansas all the way to Nebraska, a incompetent deputy going on his first trip, a farmer women pressing men to marry her by all means, a teenager girl running barefoot faster than a horse and able to kill rabbits with stones, bandits, outlaws, bad Indians, hungry Indians, peaceful Indians, buffalo hunters, a whore getting married and pregnant only to runaway to look for her old lover, a buffalo hunter getting hung because he killed someone by accident, killers, horse thieves (stealing horses is a hang crime), settlers, a horse trader in a coma, a lady who lost three sons to the cold weather, two young girls growing up in the cold, a lone old man collecting buffalo bones, a father not admitting his son, rude army sergeants, young cowboys getting the first saloon experience, a Yale graduate becoming a cattleman, Mexicans, a saloon manager in love with the whore, a young whore surviving a brutal Indian abduction, two pigs walked the whole way with the herd, a Texas bull, horses with names and characters, ....

I would have given the book 10 stars (out of 5), but I found the part about Clara and the scenes in Nebraska weak compared to the stories of cowboys. There is even an error related to Clara's family history. Almost everything written about her is unsatisfying. It's a pity. I only give the book 5 stars.

The mini-series Lonesome Dove is supposed to be the greatest western movie ever made. I have seen some clips from YouTube. It's going to be different from the book. I hope it's good, because I can't wait to relive the lives of the brave men again.

gardening note

2008-02-20T21:35:00.000-08:00

Top 20 plants for sunny sites:

Allium "Globemaster"
Artemisia arborescens
Calamagrostis brachytricha (a grass)
Cistus "Greyswood Pink"
Cytisus "Boskoop Ruby"
Elaeagnus "Quicksilver"
Eremurus stenophyllus
Eschscholzia californica
Euphorbia characias "Lambrook Gold"
Kniphofia caulescnens
Lavendula stoechas
Nepeta "Six Hills Giant"
Nerine bowdenii
Nigella damasena (love-in-a-mist)
Ozothamnus rosmarinifolius "Silver Jubilee"
Perovskia "Blue Spire"
Phlomis italica
Stipa gigantea (a grass)
Tulipa saxatilis
Zauscheneria california "Dublin"

Weed: Couchgrass, Dandelion

Cracks: creeping mints and thymes

Cyclamen: under trees

Fruit, vegetables, herbs in pots: eggplants, lettuce, chilies, Swiss chard, French beans, runner beans, tomatoes; figs, blueberries, strawberries; rosemary, basil, thyme, invasive mint

Vegetables to grow:

asparagus
bush beans
beets
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
cauliflower
celery
chinese cabbage
sweet corn
cucumber
eggplant

garlic
你到附近的店里买大蒜，最好找一年的陈蒜（有的已经出现绿芽的最好），将蒜分成一瓣一瓣的，出芽那头向上，两行一垄栽下，一定要错落有致，就是两行的三瓣蒜呈品字形，以便将来生长互不影响

cilantro
香菜，则可以到中国店买种子种，注意：这些都不要埋得太深，等出来后可以培些土

leeks
lettuce
melons
onions
洋葱你可以到 Home Deport或者其他卖种子的美国店里买一瓣瓣的洋葱，然后像栽大蒜那样种将下去
peas

peppers
辣椒苗本身比较娇嫩，我一般到farmer's market买苗，然后栽上，考虑到现在的节气，育苗已经有些晚了，我建议你也如法炮制栽辣椒，以巴西和泰国辣椒较辣，问那些garden master, 他们都会告诉你

potatoes
sweet potatoes
radishes
spinach
pumpkin
tomatoes
turnips

新鲜的小葱(以韩国店或者农贸市场的最好，一定要根须完整的），挖一条沟将葱放入，土埋过葱白即可，如果有肥料埋可以上些

plant hardness: zone 10, 40-50F minimum temp

Books purchased today

2008-02-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

Got 3 paperbacks, 1 baby book (Brown Bear Brown Bear--board book version) and 5 National Geographic maps for $1.5 today from the library book sale. The paperbacks are:

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse (I guess I will try to collect and read all his books)

I was tempted to get two other Larry McMurtry books, but I decided to wait.

TTC: Buddhism

2008-02-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Buddhism
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Malcolm David Eckel, Boston University

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=687

If everything is constantly changing, then it is possible for everything to become new. If everything is an illusion, then there is no barrier to accomplishing anything.

Often a person’s first contact with Buddhism has come through reading Siddhartha by German author Herman Hesse, the novels of Jack Kerouac, or works of Beat Poets such as Gary Snyder. African American author Charles Johnson uses Buddhism to explore the change of consciousness that takes place when ex-slaves experienced freedom.

1. What is Buddhism?
2. India at the Time of the Buddha
3. The Doctrine of Reincarnation
4. The Story of the Buddha
5. All Is Suffering
6. The Path to Nirvana
7. The Buddhist Monastic Community
8. Buddhist Art and Architecture
9. Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia
10. Mahayana Buddhism and the Bodhisattva Ideal
11. Celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
12. Emptiness
13. Buddhist Philosophy
14. Buddhist Tantra
15. The Theory and Practice of the Mandala
16. The “First Diffusion of the Dharma” in Tibet
17. The Schools of Tibetan Buddhism
18. The Dalai Lama
19. The Origins of Chinese Buddhism
20. The Classical Period of Chinese Buddhism
21. The Origins of Japanese Buddhism
22. Honen, Shinran and Nichiren
23. Zen
24. Buddhism in America

Book: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

2008-01-24T22:42:00.000-08:00

Notable quotes from my reading of GEB:

Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved. p.19

The drive to eliminate paradoxes at any cost, especially when it requires the creation of highly artificial formalisms, puts too much stress on bland consistency, and too little on the quirky and bizarre, which make life and mathematics interesting. p.23

Essential abilities for intelligence are certainly:

The flexibility of intelligence comes from the enormous number of different rules, and levels of rules. p.27

The difference between the set of axioms and the set of theorems: the former always has a decision procedure, but the latter may not. p.41

The word "isomorphism" was defined as an information preserving transformation. p.49

The perception of an isomorphism between two known structures is a significant advance in knowledge--and I claim that it is such perceptions of isomorphism which create meanings in the minds of people. p.50

The difference between meaning in a formal system and in a language is this: in a language, when we have learned a meaning for a word, we then make new statements based on the meaning of the word. In a sense the meaning becomes active, since it brings into being a new rule for creating sentences.... On the other hand, in a formal system, the theorems are predefined, by the rules of production. We can choose "meanings" based on an isomorphism (if we can find one) between theorems and true statements. But this does not give us the license to go out and add new theorems to the established theorems.... In a formal system, the meaning must remain passive. p.52

When different aspects of the real world are isomorphic to each other, one single formal system can be isomorphic to both, and therefore can take on two passive meanings. This kind of double-valuedness of symbols and strings... will come back in deeper contexts and bring with it a great richness of ideas. p.53

Can all of reality be turned into a formal system? p.53

The digit-shunting laws for multiplication are based mostly on a few properties of addition and multiplication which are assumed to hold for all numbers. p.55

How could one count ideas? p.56

There is something clean and pure in the abstract notion of number, removed from counting beads, dialects, or clouds; and there ought to be a way of talking about numbers without always having the silliness of reality come in and intrude. p.56

[Euclid's] proof exemplifies an orderly thought process. Each statement is related to previous ones in an irresistible way. p.59

We deal with just two or three concepts, such as the word "all"--which, though themselves finite, embody an infinitude; and by using them, we sidestep the apparent problem that there are an infinite number of facts we want to prove. p.60

Whether the rules for symbol manipulation are really of equal power (as far as number theory is concerned) to our usual mental reasoning abilities--or, more generally, whether it is theoretically possible to attain the level of our thinking abilities, by using some formal system. p.60

What is "music"--a sequence of vibrations in the air, or a succession of emotional responses in a brain? It is both. p.85

It seems that Godel has unearthed a hitherto unknown, but deeply significant, difference between human reasoning and mechanical reasoning. This mysterious discrepancy in the power of living and nonliving systems is mirrored in the discrepancy between the notion of truth, and that of theoremhood... or at least that is a "romantic" way to view the situation. p.87

In Euclid's Elements, the stuff out of which proofs were constructed was human language--that elusive, tricky medium of communication with so many hidden pitfalls. p.88

The simultaneity which is so frequent in scientific discovery: When the time is ripe for certain things, these things appear in different places in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring (Farkas Bolyai). p.92

What is meant by consistency of a formal system (together with an interpretation): that every theorem, when interpreted, becomes a true statement. Inconsistency occurs when there is at least one false statement among the interpreted theorems. ... Internal consistency does not require all theorems to come out true, but merely that they come out compatible with one another. p.95

A system-plus-interpretation would be logically consistent just as long as no two of its theorems, when interpreted as statements, directly contradict each other; and mathematically consistent just as long as interpreted theorems o not violate mathematics; and physically consistent just as long as all its interpreted theorems are compatible with physical law; then comes biological consistency, and so on. p.96

Genie: Meta-wishes are my favorite kind of wish. p.111 ... You can never totally expand GOD. p.113 ... Since I am the lowest djinn of all, my notion of GOD is the most exalted one. I pity the higher djinns, who fancy themselves somehow closer to GOD. What blasphemy! p.114

Just as a fish's DNA is contained inside every tiny bit of the fish, so a creator's "signature" is contained inside every tiny section of his creation. We don't know what to call it but "style"--a vague and elusive word. p.148

"When is one thing not always the same?" The issue we are broaching is whether meaning can be said to be inherent in a message, or whether meaning is always manufactured by the interaction of a mind or a mechanism with a message. p.158

One view says that in order for DNA to have meaning, chemical context is necessary; the other view says that only intelligence is necessary to real the "intrinsic meaning" of a strand of DNA. p.162

Meaning is part of an object to the extent that it acts upon intelligence in a predictable way. p.165

Books themselves are aperiodic crystals contained inside neat geometrical forms. p.167

We might well feel tempted to call the meteorite "stupid". p.172

Bach vs. Cage: Intelligence loves patterns and balks at randomness. For most people, the randomness in Cage's music requires much explanation; and even after explanations, they may feel they are missing the message--whereas with much of Bach, words are superfluous. In that sense, Bach's music is more self-contained than Cage's music. p.175

This system--the Propositional Calculus--steps neatly from truth to truth, carefully avoiding all falsities. ... It is all done mechanically, thoughtlessly, rigidly, even stupidly. p.187

The key idea of the Propositional Calculus: it produces theorems which when semi-interpreted, are seen to be "universally true semisentences", by which is meant that no matter how you complete the interpretation, the final result will be a true statement. p.189

The propositional Calculus gives us a set of rules for producing statements which would be true in all conceivable worlds. That is why all of its theorems sound so simple-minded; it seems that they have absolutely no content! Looked at this way, the Propositional Calculus might seem to be a waste of time, since what it tells us is absolutely trivial. p.190

There still is a metatheory--a view from outside--even for a theory which can "think about itself" inside itself. p.194

A proof is something informal, or in other words a product of normal thought, written in a human language, for human consumption. A derivation is an artificial counterpart of a proof, and its purpose is to reach the same goal but via a logical structure whose methods are not only all explicit, but also very simple. p.195

The Handling of Contradictions: If you found a contradiction in your own thoughts, it's very unlikely that your whole mentality would break down. ... COntradiction is a major source of clarification and progress in all domains of life--and mathematics is no exception. ... Rather than weakening mathematics, the discovery and repair of a contradiction would strengthen it. ... More radial attempts abandon completely the quest for completeness or consistency, and try to mimic human reasoning with all its inconsistencies. ... If ever an incompleteness or an inconsistency is uncovered,one can be sure that it will be the fault of the larger system, and not of its subsystem which is the Propositional Calculus. p.197

Crab Canon p.199

The English translation of a formula with at least one free variable--an open formula--is called a predicate. p.208

To me, Zen is intellectual quicksand--anarchy, darkness, meaninglessness, chaos. It is tantalizing and infuriating. And yet it is humorous, refreshing, enticing. Zen has its own special kind of meaning, brightness, and clarity. ... Koans are supposed to be "triggers" which, though they do not contain enough information in themselves to impart enlightenment, may possibly be sufficient to unlock the mechanisms inside one's mind that lead to enlightenment. But in general, the zen attitude is that words and truth are incompatiable, or at lesat that no words can capture truth. p.246

Zen's Struggle Against Dualism: Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism. Dualism is the conceptual division of the world into categories. ... A major part of Zen is the fight against reliance on words. ... It is perhaps wrong to say that the enemy of enlightenment is logic; rather, it is dualistic, verbal thinking. In fact, it is even more basic than that: it is perception. As soon as you perceive an object, you draw a line between it and the rest of the world; you divide the world, artificially, into parts, and you thereby miss the Way. ... Words lead to some truth--some falsehood, perhaps, as well--but certainly not to all truth. p.252

Zen is holism, carried to its logical extreme. If holism claims that things can only be understood as wholes, not as sums of their parts, Zen goes one further, in maintaining that the world cannot be broken into parts at all. To divide the world into parts is to be deluded, and to miss enlightenment. ... An enlightened state is one where the borderlines between the self and the rest of the universe are dissolved. p.254

He can enter any world as if it were his own playground. p.259 *note*

Part I finished 3/14/01. Part II started summer 2005, and then again on 11/23/07.

To suggest ways of reconciling the software of mind with the hardware of brain is a main goal of this book. p.302

Are there intermediate-level weather phenomena which have so far escaped human perception, but which, if perceived, could give greater insight into why the weather is as it is? p.303

That is why people can have intuitive understandings of other people without necessarily understanding the quark model, the structure of nuclei, the nature of electron orbits, the chemical bond, the structure of proteins, the organelles in a cell, the methods of intercellular communication, the physiology of the various organs of the human body, or the complex interactions among organs. All that a person needs is a chunked model of how the highest level acts; and such models are very realistic and successful. p.306

A chunked model defines a "space" within which behavior is expected to fall, and specified probabilities of its falling in different parts of that space. p.306

Creatures which knew gases only as theoretical mathematical constructs would have to have an ability to synthesize new concepts, if they were to discover this law. p.308

Words and letters are PASSIVE, symbols and signals are ACTIVE. ... The reason is that the meaning which you attribute to any passive symbol, such as a word on a page, actually derives from the meaning which is carried by corresponding active symbols in your brain. So that the meaning of passive symbols can only be properly understood when it is related to the meaning of active symbols. p.325

The highest-level description seems to carry the most explanatory power, in that it gives you the most intuitive picture of the ant colony, although strangely enough, it leaves out seemingly the most important feature--the ants. p326

The intensionality of thought is connected to its flexibility; it gives us the ability to imagine hypothetical worlds, to amalgamate different descriptions or chop one description into separate pieces and so on. p.338

Fantasy and fact intermingle very closely in our minds, and this is because thinking involves the manufacture and manipulation of complex descriptions, which need in no way be tied down to real events or things. p.339

The successive stages of an object during its life history are its manifestations. p.351

The phenomena of consciousness and intelligence are indeed high-level in the same sense as most other complex phenomena of nature: they have their own high-level laws which depend on, yet are "liftable" out of, the lower levels. If, on the other hand, there is absolutely no way to realize symbol-triggering patterns without having all the hardware of neurons, this will imply that intelligence is a brain-bound phenomenon, and much more difficult to unravel than one which owes its existence to a hierarchy of laws on several different levels. p.359

Some sort of partial software isomorphism connecting the brains of people whose style of thinking is similar--in particular, a correspondence of (1) the repertoire of symbols, and (2) the triggering patterns of symbols. p.371

A non-native speaker will have picked up some words from dictionaries, novels, or classes--words which at some time may have been prevalent or preferable, but which are now far down in frequency. ... It is not the difference in native language, but the difference in culture (or subculture), that gives rise to this perceptual difference. p.377

When a thought recurs in someone's mind sufficiently often, it can get chunked into a single concept. p.377

"When I look at an article in Russian, I say, 'This is really written in English, but it has been coded in some strange symbols. I will now proceed to decode.'" Weaver's remark simply cannot be taken literally; it must rather be considered a provocative way of saying that there is an objectively describable meaning hidden in the symbols, or at least something pretty close to objective; therefore, there would be no reason to suppose a computer could not ferret it out, if sufficiently well programmed. p.380 (asw: also interesting discussion about "Different Styles of Translating Novels") ***

We all are bundles of contradictions, and we manage to hang together by bringing out only one side of ourselves at a given time. The selection cannot be predicted in advance, because the conditions which will force the selection are not known in advance. What the brain state can provide, if properly read, is a conditional description of the selection of routes. p.383

The symbols which represent new concepts are merely dormant symbols in each individual, waiting to be awakened. p.384

Where Is the Sense of Self? Our alternative to the soulist explanation--and a disconcerting one it is, too--is to stop at the symbol level and say, "This is it--this is what whenever there exist symbols in the system which obey triggering patterns somewhat like the ones described in the past several sections." Put so starkly, this may seem inadequate. How does it account for those sense of "I", the sense of self? p.385

Powerful subsystems came into being as a result of Escher's many years of training and submission to precisely the forces that molded his esthetic sensitivities. p.387 (asw: similar to the concept of "God"?)

Achilles: If some even number--for example, a trillion--failed to have the Tortoise property, it would be caused by an infinite number of separate pieces of information. It is funny to think of wrapping all that information up into one bundle, and calling it "The Achilles property" of 1 trillion. It is really a property of the number system as a WHOLE, not just of the number 1 trillion.
Tortoise: That is an interesting observation, but I maintain that it makes a good deal of sense to attach this fact to the number 1 trillion nevertheless. For purposes of illustration, consider the simpler statement "29 is prime". In fact, this statement really means that 2 times 2 is not 29, and 5 times 6 is not 29, and so forth. But you are perfectly happy to collect all such facts together, and attach them in a bundle to the number 29, saying merely, "29 is prime"? ... That's because an infinitude of facts are contained in your prior knowledge--they are embedded implicitly in the way you visualize things. You don't see an explicit infinity because it is captured implicitly inside the image you manipulate. p.398

A code presupposes a free choice among different, complementary aspects, each of which has equal claim to reality. Some of these aspects may be completely unknown to us now but they may reveal themselves to an observer with a different system of abstractions. How can we then still claim that we discover something out there in the objective real world? Does this not mean that we are merely creating things according to our own images and that reality is only within ourselves? p.409

Can every problem, like an orchard, be seen from such an angle that its secret is revealed? Or are there some problems in number theory which, no matter what angle they are seen from, remain mysteries? p.409

What Cantor wanted to show was that if a "directory" of real numbers were made, it would inevitably leave some real numbers out--so that actually, the notion of a complete directory of real numbers is a contradiction in terms. p.421

The essence of the diagonal method is the fact of using one integer in two different ways--or, one could say, using one integer on two different levels--thanks to which one can construct an item which is outside of some predetermined list. p.423

Chapter XIV On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems. (1) the deep discovery that there are strings of tNT which can be interpreted as speaking about other strings of TNT; TNT as a language is capable of "introspection", or self-scrutiny. This is what comes from Godel-numbering. (2) the property of self-scrutiny can be entirely concentrated into a single string; thus that string's sole focus of attention is itself. This "focusing trick" is traceable to the Cantor's diagonal method. p.438

The difference between expressing a property, and representing it... p.443

TNT's powers of introspection are great when it comes to expressing things, but fairly weak when it comes to proving them. p.450

To paraphrase the memorable words of Girolamo Saccheri, isn't what ~G says "repugnant to the nature of the natural numbers"? p.452

While each of them (new axioms) is "repugnant to the nature of previously known number systems", each of them also provides a deep and wonderful extension of the notion of whole numbers: rational numbers, negative numbers, irrational numbers, imaginary numbers. Such a possibility is what ~G is trying to get us to open our eyes to. p.452

Although theorems of TNT can rule out negative numbers, fractions, irrational numbers, and complex numbers, still there is no way to rule out infinitely large integers. p.454

The parallel with i--the square root of -1--still holds. Namely, recall that there is another number whose square is also minus one: -i. Now i and -i are not the same number. They just have a property in common. The only trouble is that it is the property which defines them! We have to choose one of them--it doesn't matter which one--and call it "i". In fact there's no way of telling them apart. So for all we know we could have been calling the wrong one "i" for all these centuries and it would have made no difference. p.454

There is one extremely curious and unexpected fact about supernaturals... this fact is reminiscent of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics. p.455

Nonstandard number theory is a disorienting thing when you first meet up with it. But then, non-Euclidean geometry is also a disorienting subject. In both instances, one is powerfully driven to ask, "But which one of these two rival theories is correct? Which is the truth?" In a certain sense, there is no answer to such a question. The reason that there is no answer to the question is that the two rival theories, although they employ the same terms, do not talk about the same concepts. p.456

This doesn't prove that 1 plus 1 equals 1; it just proves that our number-theoretical concept of "one" is not applicable in its full power to cloud-counting. p.457

Achilles: Every time you give one of my answers a NAME, it seems to signal the imminent shattering of my hopes that that answer will satisfy you. Why don't we just leave this Answer Schema nameless? p.464

The axiom schema is not powerful enough... ... G_omega was not clever enough to foresee its own embeddability inside number theory. p.468

Once a system is well-defined, or "boxed", it becomes vulnerable. ... It is the act of giving an explicit list--a "box" of reals--which causes the downfall. p.469

Beyond the critical point, the system suddenly attains the capacity for self-reference, and thereby dooms itself to incompleteness. p.470

About the structure of these "infinite ordinals": There is no recursively related notation-system which gives a name to every constructive ordinal. p.476

Any human being simply will reach the limits of his own ability to Godelize at some point. From there on out, formal systems of that complexity, though admittedly incomplete for the Godel reason, will have as much power as that human being. p.476

A Zen person is always trying to understand more deeply what he is, by stepping more and more out of what he sees himself to be, by breaking every rule and convention which he perceives himself to be chained by--needless to say, including those of Zen itself. Somewhere along this elusive path may come enlightenment, In any case, the hope is that by gradually deepening one's self-awareness, by gradually widening the scope of "the system", one will in the end come to a feeling of being at one with the entire universe. p.479 ***

G contain a description of its own Godel number, by means of the notions of "sub" and "arithmoquinifiation". p.497

Pointer phrases such as "this sentence" are interpreted according to context... p.498

This isomorphism that mirrors TNT inside the abstract realm of natural numbers can be likened to the quasi-isomorphism that mirrors the real world inside our brain, by means of symbols. p.502

An individual is never identical to either of its parents; why, then, is the act of making young called "self-reproduction"? The answer is that there is a coarse-grained isomorphism between parent and child; it is an isomorphism which preserves the information about species. Thus, what is reproduced is the class, rather than the instance. p.503

Every aspect of thinking can be viewed as a high-level description of a system which, on a low level, is governed by simple, even formal, rules. ... The only way to understand a complex system as a brain is by chunking it on higher and higher levels, and thereby losing some precision at each step. p.559

Hardy on Ramanujan's theorems: They must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them. p.563

Many educated people ... considered Ramanujan's intuitive powers to be evidence of a mystical insight into Truth, and the fact of his fallibility seemed, if anything, to strengthen, rather than weaken, such beliefs. p.564

Processes which carry out deductive reasoning can be programmed in essentially one single level, and are therefore skimmable, by definition. Imagery and analogical thought processes intrinsically require several layers of substrate and are therefore instrinsically non-skimmable. It is precisely at this same point that creativity starts to emerge--which would imply that creativity intrinsically depends upon certain kinds of "uninterpretable lower-level events. p.571 ***creativity***

Meaning can exist on two or more different levels of a symbol-handling system, and along with meaning, rightness and wrongness can exist on all those levels. p.575

All intelligences are just variations on a single theme: to create true intelligence, AI workers will just have to keep pushing to ever lower levels, closer and closer to brain mechanism, if they wish their machines to attain the capabilities which we have. p.579

What is so bad about reproducing the Epimenides paradox? Is it of any consequence? After all, we already have it in English, and the English language has not gone up in smoke. p.581

There is no way of expressing the notion of truth inside TNT. This makes truth a far more elusive property than theoremhood, for the latter is expressible. p.581 (cf first quote)

There is a strange duality about the meaning of a piece of music: on the one hand, it seems to be spread around, by virtue of its relation to many other things in the world--and yet, on the other hand, the meaning of a piece of music is obviously derived from the music itself, so it must be localized somewhere inside the music. ... the interpreter's role being to assemble it gradually. ... Musical pieces and pieces of text are partly triggers, and partly carriers of explicit meaning. p.583

Abandon the notion that a brain could ever provide a fully accurate representation for the notion of truth. The novelty of this resolution lies in its suggestion that a total modeling of truth is impossible for quite physical reason: namely, such a modeling would require physically incompatible events to occur in a brain. p.585

Steiner, who grew up trilingual, devotes several pages in After Babel to the intermingling of French, English, and German in the layers of his mind, and how his different languages afford different ports of access onto concepts. p.671

In music, in particular, John Cage has been very influential in bringing a Zen-like approach to sound. Many of his pieces convey a disdain for "use" of sounds--that is, using sounds to convey emotional states--and an exultation in "mentioning" sounds--that is, concocting arbitrary juxtapositions of sounds without regard to any previously formulated code by which a listener could decode them into a message. A typical example is "Imaginary Landscape no.4". I may not be doing Cage justice, but to me it seems that much of his work has been directed at bringing meaninglessness into music, and in some sense, at making that meaninglessness have meaning. Aleatoric music is a typical exploration in that direction. There are many other contemporary composers who are following Cage's lead, but few with as much originality. A piece by Anna Lockwood, called "Piano Burning", involves just that--with the strings stretched to maximum tightness, to make them snap as loudly as possible; in a piece by LaMonte Young, the noises are provided by shoving the piano all around the stage and through obstacles, like a battering ram. p.700

Imaginary Landscape no.4: This piece is a classic of aleatoric, or chance, music--music whose structure is chosen by various random processes, rather than by an attempt to convey a personal emotion. IN this case, twenty-four performers attach themselves to the twenty-four knobs on twelve radios. For the duration of the piece they twiddle their knobs in aleatoric ways so that each radio randomly gets louder and softer, switching stations all the while. The total sound produced is the piece of music. Cage's attitude is expressed in his own words: "to let sounds be themselves, rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expressions of human sentiments."

A large number of influences, which no one could hope to pin down completely, led to further explorations of the symbol-object dualism in art. There is no doubt that John Cage, with his interest in Zen, had a profound influence on art as well as on music. His friends Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg both explored the distinction between objects and symbols by using objects as symbols for themselves--or, to flip the coin, by using symbols as objects in themselves. All of this was perhaps intended to break down the notion that art is one step removed from reality--that art speaks in "code", for which the viewer must act as interpreter. The idea was to eliminate the step of interpretation and let the naked object simple be, period. ("Period"--a curious case of use-mention blur.) However, if this was the intention, it was a monumental flop, and perhaps had to be. p.703

What might such high-level concepts be? It has been proposed for eons, by various holistically or "soulistically" inclined scientists and humanists, that consciousness is a phenomennon that escapes explanation in terms of brain-components. p.708

"Emergent" phenomena would become explicable in terms of a relationship between different levels in mental systems. p.709

Movie: Koyaanisqatsi

2008-01-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

We saw the 1982 movie Koyaanisqatsi (Life Out of Balance) the other day on DVD. It is directed by Reggio with music by Philip Glass. There is no spoken word in the whole movie. The movie consists of stunning images of nature and of human life. The time-exposures of cloudscape and city life are the most astonishing. Unfortunately, Mike feels the movie has less impact nowadays than when it first came out, because our current media is filled with stunning images like the ones in the movie, and we are jaded as viewers. Also the computer graphics can produce many if not all of the photographical effects in the movie. Soon we will lose the ability to tell what is real and what is artificial. Then we will really achieve the life out of balance.

胡说美国总统大选

2008-01-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

今年忙，我又不关心政治了。我觉得 Obama 选不上。美国人象我这样不动脑子的人很多。我不是美国人，没发言权，但我在密西根住过四年，跟中西部中年中产阶级男的白人交往过，我知道美国选举是怎么回事了。八年前，我在报纸上看了 Bush 和 Gore 的照片，就知道 Gore 肯定选不上。这次也一样。我不看新闻，只看到几个候选人的照片。Obama 看起来是黑人，又年轻，年轻的黑人肯定选不上。Hillary 是女人，女人也选不上，何况他又是 Clinton 的太太，不喜欢 Clinton 的人更不会喜欢他太太。美国人看人只看表面，根本不会动脑筋听你说什么，听也听不懂，而且不喜欢认错。自从我读了 Micheal Moore 的 Stupid White Men 以后，我也基本同意他说的，民主党和共和党候选人都差不多，选出的总统换汤不换药。当然象 Bush 这样的汤还是太糟一些的。另外，前两年看小说 Middlesex，作者说美国人喜欢总统名字不超过两个音节的：

"Dukakis." A name with more than two vowels in it running for President! The last time that had happened was Eisenhower (who looked good on a tank). Generally speaking, Americans like their presidents to have no more than two vowels. Truman. Johnson. Nixon. Clinton. If they have more than two vowels (Reagan), they can have no more than two syllables. Even better is one syllable and one vowel: Bush. Had to do that twice. Why did Mario Cuomo decide against running for President? What conclusion did he come to as he withdrew to think the matter through? Unlike Michael Dukakis, who was from academic Massachusetts, Mario Cuomo was from New York and knew what was what. Cuomo knew he'd never win. Too liberal for the moment, certainly. But also: too many vowels.

八年前，我的爱人说 McCain 是好人，但他没过初选。听说这次他又出来选了，虽然年纪大一些，我还是希望他能胜出，因为我的爱人的年纪也很大了。

我胡说一气，但我相信美国很多选民也象我一样不懂乱来的。美国政选就是用来乱搞的。

Book: The Kite Runner

2008-01-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

今天我也看完了 Kite Runner。我本来也不看畅销书的，偶尔看过的几本，Memoirs of a Geisha, Life of Pi, The Red Tent, Da Vinci Code，看的时候来劲，看完了就觉得空虚。新年前在一个聚会上听人讲到 Kite Runner 作者的两本书，居然没听说过，来 cafe 一查，见到绿茶MM写过书评，觉得还是应该找来读读，就在网上买了一本，度假的时候看。结果也看上瘾了。一边看一边批评，还一边想赶快看完。

开始以为是自传体小说，因为书中有很多和主题故事无关的细节，而且觉得作者的英文和我的差不多，写法也类似。读到一半，到网上查看作者生平，发现生平和小说相差很多，就顿时觉得小说编的部分太做作，情节的机关太多，伏笔太明显。虽然故事情节挺戏剧化的，但是作者文笔不好，这种煽情的书只适合作畅销书和改编电影。另外很烦的就是，书中不停的用外文，然后不停的翻译。作者是个医生，书中还有过多的医学用语。这些外文和医学用语，虽然加强了所谓的真实感，实际上却打乱了故事的通畅性。反而，作者对风筝比赛的描写又太少了。我看到的是一个非常 ADD 的作者。正如绿茶mm所说，书中最有真实感的是作者对小时候的故乡情景的描写。

前两年看的一本 Middlesex，也算是畅销书，讲的是一个在密西根成长的双性人的经历，其中也有希腊移民的故事，不知是不是编的，但我就觉得有真实感。所以那本书得了 Pulitzer Prize，而 Kite Runner, Memoirs of a Geisha, Da Vinci Code 这类书拍了电影。

刚才到网上看了电影的预告，已经大致知道电影是怎样的了，不打算看了。

这算是2008年读的第一本书。

re: http://www.mayacafe.com/forum/topic1sp.php3?tkey=1182313955

musical and opera

2007-12-23T15:40:00.000-08:00

>xiaoman wrote:
>老尚,请给小曼扫盲,音乐剧和歌剧有什么区别呢?

主要的音乐上的分别是，歌剧从头到尾都是唱的。音乐剧一般在歌曲中间穿插有对话，有歌(songs)有舞。歌剧的音乐不叫歌。音乐剧是美国的产物，全名是 musical comedy，在别的国家有别的名字（只记得在英国好象叫 musical theatre）。歌剧是用嗓子唱的，音乐剧是用麦克风唱的。

音乐史老师说 Andrew Llyod Webber 没有创意，只是一个很好的编排者 (arranger)。我大学的时候迷他，可现在一点儿也不能听他了。

有一阵子我非常迷 Stephen Sondheim。现在也喜欢他。他的音乐和歌词很有味道。

很多音乐剧最后都搬上屏幕。另外，很多动画片后来也改变成音乐剧。九十年代出了不少这样的动画片。

Scriabin (notes)

2007-12-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

Alexander Nikolaievich scriabin was born in 1872 into a world shaped from the very outset to indulge and stimulate him. His mother, a concert pianist and former student of Leschetizky, died when he was just 15 months old. His father entered the consular service shortly afterwards and was sent to various posts in Crete and Turkey, leaving his baby in the care of his parents. His father was to marry again in 1880 but as Consul-General at Erzurum he was only allowed a mere four months' leave every 3 years to return home. So it was that little Alexander's childhood came under the protection of his grandmother (his grandfather, the aristocratic Colonel Alexander Scriabin died when the boy was 8) and his aunt Lyubov, two women who adored him fanatically.

Scriabin was 10 before any serious education, either musical or general, started. The young Sasha declared his wish to enter the Second Moscow Cadet Corps instead of civil school. This surprising request was probably prompted by the strong military background in the scriabin family (all his uncles were in the army). In 1882, the pale little boy enrolled at the Cadet Corps where, just as at home, he was pampered and indulged. One of his uncles was on the tutorial staff and instead of sharing quarters with the other cadets, he lived at his uncle's official residence. Academically he was consistently at the head of his class and in the summer of 1883 he finally received his first formal music lessons.

Georgy Konyus, a pupil of Paul Pabst, was a friend of the Scriabin ladies and although only 21 years old he began teaching Sasha the piano. Konyus later recalled his first impressions: "What a puny little boy! Pale, short, looking younger than his years... He learned things quickly but, probably owning to his weak physique, his playing was always ethereal and monotonous". Konyus gave the boy Cramer studies, some of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words and easy Chopin to study. Evidence of Scriabin's ready ability to learn can be seen in his earliest surviving composiiton, the Canon in D minor (1883). Already there is a languid, almost sensual quality to the music--a characteristic that would be developed further in the future. In the spring of 1884, however, the lessons came to an end. Sasha had contracted an illness which nearly killed him, and during his convalescence he wrote a Nocturne in A flat major (1884). Echoing the nocturnes of John Field, this early piece also shows the influence Chopin was to have on Scriabin. At one point the music clearly suggests Chopin's Etude Op 10 No 1, a piece that Sasha may indeed have been studying at the time. Scribain was by now, and for many years afterwards, in love with Chopin's music.

1884 was an important year for the young cadet. He realized what everyone else had probably always know, that a life in the army was not for him. There was no possibility of being allowed to leave the Cadet Corp prematurely, however, and he remained at the Cadet School until 1889. In the meantime he was helped by Sergei Taneyev who taught him the essentials of composition and advised him to study piano with Nikolai Zverev, the most fashionable teacher in Moscow. Autocratic, irritable, but also kind-hearted and generous, Zverev would allow 2 or 3 of his best students to live with him, feeding, clothing and teaching theme for nothing. Once again scriabin found himself in a privileged position. Although still living at the Cadet Corps and therefore unable to be part of his teacher's inner circle, he did become a favorite pupil. every Sunday evening, Zverev would entertain Moscow's leading intellectuals at his home. The young scriabin was regularly invited to entertain at these gatherings where he played not only difficult works such as Schumann's "Paganini" Studies but also his won compositions. At least 5 works from his period survived, 3 of them waltzes.

In January 1888 Scriabin entered the Moscow Conservatory. As in childhood and later at the Cadet Corps, Scriabin found himself at the center of considerable pampering. Taneyev, who had given Scriabin his first informal composition lessons 2 years earlier, was Director of the Conservatory and Scriabin continued to study counterpoint with him. His new piano teacher was Safonov, who was delighted with Scriabin's playing, declaring that "he made the instrument breathe". He was particularly impressed by his student's mastery of the sustaining pedal, and "Sasha-like pedalling" became a term of highest praise.

Considering Scriabin's long-standing "love affair" with Chopin's music, it is surprising that he should have written so few nocturnes.... Scriabin would write only one other nocturne, the second of his Two Pieces for Left Hand Op 9. Both works for left hand were written as a consequence of a nearly disastrous injury to his right hand. Having always been the darling of his teachers and relatives, Scriabin found himself by 1891 with stiff competition. His fellow students at the Moscow Conservatory included Rachmaninov, Josef Hofmann and Josef Lhevinne and due to over-practice of Balakirev's Islamey and Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan, Scriabin temporarily lost the full use of his right hand. Both the Prelude and the Nocturne are lovely works, and despite his setback Scriabin still seems intent on proving his ability as a pianist by turning the Nocturne in particular into a technical tour de force.

-- CD note from The Early Scriabin by Stephen Coombs

New Books

2007-12-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

book sale purchases

2007-12-03T20:17:00.000-08:00

I bought some books in the last few weeks at Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach Library Book Sale.

Manhattan Beach:
The Secret Garden by Frances Burnett
The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett
and a photography book, some baby books.

Hermosa Beach:
The Hours by Michael Cunningham ($0.50)

Hermosa Beach Friends of Library Book Sale:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Lonesome Dove by Larry McCurty
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
The Tenth Man by Graham Greene
The Stranger by Albert Camus
and four piano books, baby book (what to expect), history of the world (HG Wells), plus two giant volumes of finance books, all for only $4. Good deal!

Lonesome Dove is so far the most highly rated book I have. On amazon, it has 364 votes with average vote of 5 stars. Previously the best rated book was Endurance.

I am reading GEB. I don't know when I will finish it. Next I will read Lonesome Dove. It's on Dan's list.

Music: Scriabin Nocturne for Left Hand Op.9 No.2

2007-11-27T22:53:00.000-08:00

Notes: Scriabin Nocturne for Left Hand Op.9 No.2

Before the first note, get ready and hear the sound in the head. Start peacefully without rush, without agitation.

The fingers are strong. Keep the bridge.

The arm is free. Feel the weight of the arm. Drop the wrist to connect. Use slow motion.

More arm motion in broken chords. Slow descent. No attack. Bring arm over to connect.

Thumb in left hand is the top voice. More sound to thumb. Hear the resolutions.

Clean pedal use. Include all notes in a chord.

Start the middle section with a different energy. Begin mysteriously. Save the full force for later. Keep the pace. No stop. Take time to expand the sound.

The sound of the climax is big and mighty. Big gesture. Allow freedom of the arm. Lean toward the sound.

Cadenza should be one stroke without interruption. Keep pedal throughout. Use soft pedal in the beginning and phase out in the high register. Play legato, and use wrist to connect. This section is poetic and musical. Create texture and shift.

Ending broken chords should be slow. Listen carefully to sound quality. Think about the voice of a singer.

Scriabin is all about color, intimacy, and refinement of sound. Craft each sound.

Take breath with music.

Movie: Sicko

2007-11-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

Sicko is OK. Everyone likes the film because every American has problem with the health care system, while everyone else loves to see how bad American health care system really is. But overall it is not a good film. There is no clear outline to follow. The stories seems to be dumped together randomly. Michael Moore uses too many public stunts to illuminate the absurdity of the system and appeal to the emotion of the audience, thus losing some credibility as a documentary. It is a documentary only to the film maker's own research and exploration. Of the three Micheal Moore's movies I have seen, I like Bowling for Columbine the best. The Corporation is not bad. My friend told me that Roger & Me (1989) is his best. I have yet to see that one.

Book: How to Read a Book

2007-11-22T13:42:00.000-08:00

I bought the book How to Read a Book 8 years ago when I heard a English teacher friend telling a writer friend how everyone should be made to read this book. I had been trying to read this book since. I had a few false starts, and never got very far. Last month I had finally decided to put everything aside and read this book from beginning to end. It went very slowly. I could only read a few pages each night before getting too bored. But I was determined to work on it. Last night I finally finished it. I even read the appendix and took the reading tests.

While I was reading it, I kept saying to myself that it was the most boring book I had ever read. How do you write a book about how to read a book? How do you teach people to read a book in a book? You have to assume that the reader cannot read a book properly. Then you go step by step, slowly and patiently. You repeat yourself over and over again to make sure the reader does not miss any point. In addition, you want the book to be as good as the great books you teach the reader to read. The result is a perfect book which is tedious and dry.

The authors, Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren, are from the Institute for Philosophical Research, and I assume they are certain philosophers. they are editors of Annals of America, and Great Books of the Western World. The book is a second edition, published in 1972. The first edition was published in 1940. Some of the research methods described in the book is now outdated, since we have internet and search engines for research. I want to see a third edition to this book that include the current research technologies.

Nonetheless, there are a few things I find interesting and informative from the book.

1. This book talks about how to read not for entertainment, not for information, but for understanding, and describes the difference between the different reading goals. Only reading for understanding can help us grow.

2. Make the book your own by writing in the margins, the front and the back blank pages of the book, and underlining important passages.

3. Read the dust cover, the front matters, the table of contents, the index, before reading the book. But if the book is imaginative literature, do not read the commentary first. Go directly into the book, and try to understand the book on your own before reading any commentaries and reading guides.

4. In the appendix B there are several reading exercises and tests. The subjects are interesting in themselves--biographies of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Sir Isaac Newton (1612-1727), Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Charles Darwin (1809-1882), tables of contents of The Divine Comedy, The Origin of Species, and Passages from Aristotle's Politics and Rousseau's The Social Contract. I've learned something about these men and their works.

This following passage is insightful:

Perhaps we know more about the world than we used to, and insofar as knowledge is prerequisite to understanding, that is all to the good. But knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.

One of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements--all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics--to make it easy for him to "make up his own mind" with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back" the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. he has performed acceptably without having had to think. (p.4)

Some other passages of interest:

Because of the difference in method and subject matter, the philosopher usually finds it easier to teach students who have not been previously taught by his colleagues, whereas the scientist prefers the student whom his colleagues have already prepared. (p.74)

Remember Bacon's recommendation to the reader: "Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." (p.139)

The reader who supposes he should be totally deaf to all appeals might just as well not read practical books. (p.198)

Here's an except illustrating the dryness of the book (and also shows its date):

Suppose, for example, that you read an article about how to make a chocolate mousse. You like chocolate mousse, and so you agree with the authoer of the article that the end in view is good. You also accept the author's proposed means for attaining the end--his recipe. But you are a male reader who never goes into the kitchen, and so you do not make a mousse. does this invalidate our point?

It does not, although it does indicate an important distinction between types of practical books that should be mentioned. with regard to the ends proposed by the authors of such works, these are sometimes general or universal--applicable to all human beings--and sometimes applicable only to a certain portion of human beings. If the end is universal--as it is, for example, with this book, which maintains that all persons should read better, not just some--then the implication discussed in this section applies to every reader. If the end is selective, applying only to a certain class of human beings, then the reader must decide whether or not he belongs to that class. if he does, then the implication applies to him, and he is more or less obligated to act in the way s specified by the author. if he does not, then he may not be so obligated.

We say "may not be so obligated" because there is a strong possibility that the reader may be fooling himself, or misunderstanding his own motives, in deciding that he does not belong to the class to which the end is relevant. in the case of the reader of the article about chocolate mousse, he is probably, by his inaction, expressing his view that, although mousse is admittedly delicious, someone else--perhaps his wife--should be the one to make it. And in many cases, we concede the desirability of an end and the feasibility of the means, but in one way or another express our reluctance to perform the action ourselves. Let someone else do it, we say, more or less explicitly.

This, of course, is not primarily a reading problem but rather a psychological one. Nevertheless, the psychological fact has bearing on how effectively we read a practical book, and so we have discussed the matter here.

TTC: Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality

2007-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University

When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? This intriguing question is the scientific province of behavioral biology, a field that explores interactions among the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave—from the people we fall in love with, to the intensity of our spiritual lives, to the degree of our aggressive impulses. In short, it is the study of how our brains make us the individuals that we are.

Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, is an interdisciplinary approach to this fascinating subject. In 24 lectures, you will investigate how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors, some of them abnormal. You will see that little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work.

This course is a newly recorded and much-expanded update of Professor Robert Sapolsky's original Teaching Company course introduced in 1998, which was lauded as "extremely stimulating" by The American Biology Teacher.

A prominent neurobiologist, zoologist, and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, Professor Sapolsky is a spellbinding lecturer who is also very entertaining. In a feature story in The New York Times, he was compared to a cross between renowned primatologist Jane Goodall and a borscht belt comedian. An article in the alumni magazine at Stanford University, where he teaches, called him "a man who exudes adrenaline and has a reservoir of intensity deep enough to spin the turbines at Hoover Dam."

The course opens with an introductory lecture and then proceeds to Modules I and II, which start at the level of how a single neuron works. You build upward to examine how millions of neurons in a particular region of the brain operate. The focus is on the regions of the brain most pertinent to emotion and behavior.

Modules III, IV, and V explore how the brain and behavior are regulated. First, you cover how the brain regulates hormones and how hormones influence brain function and behavior. Next you examine how both the brain and behavior evolved, covering contemporary thinking about how natural selection has sculpted and optimized behavior and how that optimization is mediated by brain function. Then you focus on a bridge between evolution and the brain, investigating what genes at the molecular level have to do with brain function and how those genes have evolved.

Module VI examines ethology, which is the study of the behavior of animals in their natural habitats. The focus in these lectures is on how hormones, evolution, genes, and behavior are extremely sensitive to environment.

Finally, Module VII explores how the various approaches—neurobiology, neuroendocrinology, evolution, genetics, and ethology—help explain an actual set of behaviors, with a particular focus on aggression. The final lecture summarizes what is known about the biology of human behavior and probes the societal implications of having such knowledge.

As you work through this thought-provoking and engaging material, you will learn much about your own behavior, not to mention that of others. One particularly intriguing region of the brain relating to behavior is the frontal cortex, which plays a central role in decision-making, gratification postponement, and other important functions. The frontal cortex is the part of the brain that "makes you do the harder thing," whether it is concentrating on an unwelcome task, keeping anger under control, or telling a white lie about a spouse's new haircut. Consider these cases:

* What happens when there is essentially no frontal cortex?: Railroad worker Phineas Gage suffered a massive frontal cortical lesion in a serious accident in the 1840s. Overnight, he changed from a sober, conscientious worker to a profane, aggressive, socially inappropriate man who could never regularly work again. The loss of his frontal cortex meant he lost his emotional regulation; he had no means to do the "harder thing."
* What happens when the frontal cortex is "offline"?: During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the frontal cortex goes offline, which explains why dreams are often wild and unrepressed—why dreams are dreamlike. People don't dream about balancing a checkbook. They dream about dancing in musicals or floating in the air.
* What happens when the frontal cortex is immature?: One of the great myths is that the brain is completely wired up and matured at a very early stage. However, the frontal cortex is not fully functional until an individual is about a quarter-century old—a fact that explains a lot of fraternity behavior, notes Professor Sapolsky. With this in mind, it's worth asking if a 16-year-old violent criminal is not, by definition, organically impaired in frontal cortical function.

The myth of the fully wired, mature young brain is one of the often-heard pieces of misinformation that this course corrects. Other areas where Professor Sapolsky revises widely held beliefs include:

* "For the good of the species": The old notion of group selection has been proven wildly incorrect. This is the idea that animals behave "for the good of the species" and that behaviors are driven by ways to increase the likelihood of the species surviving and multiplying. Evolution is not about animals behaving for the good of the species but, rather, behaving to optimize the number of copies of their own genes to pass on to the next generation.
* The inevitability of social structures: Professor Sapolsky's own fieldwork in Africa has shown that an archetypal male-dominated, aggressive society of baboons can change radically to a tradition of low aggression within a single generation. "If these guys are freed from the central casting roles for them in the anthropology textbooks, we as a species have no excuse to say we have inevitable social structures," he says.

At the end of the course, Professor Sapolsky explores the implications of our emerging understanding of the origins of individual differences. How much do these insights threaten our own sense of self and individuality? Where do we draw the line between the essence of the person and the biological abnormalities? What counts as being ill? Who is biologically impaired, and who is just different? As more and more subtle abnormalities of neurobiology are understood, how much should we worry about the temptation to label people as "abnormal"? And what happens when we each have a few of these labels?

These and other questions should concern us all. But while Professor Sapolsky sees alarming trends, he also sees cause for hope. We needn't worry that we are on the verge of unmasking the secret behind everything we do, he says, since we can never explain everything; every answer opens up a dozen new questions. Furthermore, to explain something is not to destroy the capacity to be moved by it. "In the end," says Professor Sapolsky, "the purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it."

Course Lecture Titles
1. Biology and Behavior—An Introduction
2. The Basic Cells of the Nervous System
3. How Two Neurons Communicate
4. Learning and Synaptic Plasticity
5. The Dynamics of Interacting Neurons
6. The Limbic System
7. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
8. The Regulation of Hormones by the Brain
9. The Regulation of the Brain by Hormones
10. The Evolution of Behavior
11. The Evolution of Behavior—Some Examples
12. Cooperation, Competition, and Neuroeconomics
13. What Do Genes Do? Microevolution of Genes
14. What Do Genes Do? Macroevolution of Genes
15. Behavior Genetics
16. Behavior Genetics and Prenatal Environment
17. An Introduction to Ethology
18. Neuroethology
19. The Neurobiology of Aggression I
20. The Neurobiology of Aggression II
21. Hormones and Aggression
22. Early Experience and Aggression
23. Evolution, Aggression, and Cooperation
24. A Summary

TTC: Biological Anthropology: An Evolutionary Perspective

2007-10-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Biological Anthropology: An Evolutionary Perspective
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Barbara J. King, The College of William and Mary

When we consider ourselves, not as static beings fixed in time but as dynamic, ever-changing creatures, our viewpoint of human history becomes different and captivating.

The crucial element of "time depth" has revolutionized the very questions we ask about ourselves. "Who are we?" has turned into "What have we become? What are we becoming?"

What makes this viewpoint possible is the evolutionary perspective offered by biological anthropology through the study of the evolution, genetics, anatomy, and modern variation within the human species.

A Discipline of Far-Ranging Questions

* Are the great apes a unique break point from the past—and toward the human—because they can understand other beings' mental states?
* Did we destroy the Neandertals?
* Did modern Homo sapiens evolve entirely on the African continent, replacing other hominid forms as they fanned out into Asia and Europe? Or did they evolve simultaneously and in the same direction on all three continents?
* Did hunting and its requirements for cooperation and intelligence make us human?
* What is the role of our evolution in determining social hierarchy? gender roles? obesity? morning sickness in pregnancy?
* How is evolution active in human development today?

As Dr. King addresses these and other questions in this scientific story, you will come to see evolution as not simply a textbook theory but a vital force.

Understand the Forces that Continue to Shape Us

In this course, award-winning teacher and scholar Barbara J. King—a William and Mary University Professor of Teaching Excellence from 1999-2002—delves into the story of how, why, where, and when we became human.

These lectures will help you understand the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, our species.

"An evolutionary perspective on human behavior," notes Dr. King, "results in more than just knowledge about dates and sites—when and where specific evolutionary milestones likely occurred.

"It is also a window on the past and future of our species. An entirely new way of thinking comes into focus when we consider the human species within an evolutionary perspective."

Enjoy the Fruits of a Century of Scholarship

While covering these subjects in this 24-lecture series, Dr. King synthesizes the best that more than a century of scientific scholarship has to offer across a variety of disciplines.

Biological anthropologists study primate anatomy and behavior both to understand evolution and to learn more about our common ancestor.

Biological anthropologists are joined by molecular anthropologists to better understand hominids by studying fossils, ancient skeletal remains, and lifestyle information such as cave art and stone tools.

Case Studies that Clarify Evolution and Its Power

Dr. King begins by explaining key mechanisms through which evolution functions, citing famous and definitive case studies that demonstrate these forces.

In one such landmark study, for example, biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant returned to the Galapagos Islands more than 100 years after Darwin's first voyage to conduct research on island finches.

In 1977, a drought-induced scarcity of soft, edible seeds brought forth in the very next generation a population of finches with larger, stronger beaks capable of crushing larger, tougher seeds.

Extraordinarily, in 1985, heavy rains produced a surplus of softer seeds, and natural selection produced a succeeding generation of the smaller-beaked variety.

Evolution had occurred in two different directions within a decade. This "natural selection" is the theoretical tool of evolution, which helps us make sense of these facts.

Learn Why Evolution Remains Important to Us Today

Perhaps the greatest measure of this theory's power is its relevance to our lives today.

* Did you know that the gene which causes sickle cell anemia must be inherited from both parents to cause the disease but the disease does not occur when only a single gene is inherited?
* Or that the single gene, in fact, affords protection from malaria?
* Or that race, a category so securely ingrained in our consciousness, is practically meaningless in biological terms?
* Or how to evaluate the claim that a gene can be responsible for a certain personality trait?

Take a Glimpse Into Our Selected Primate Heritage

With an understanding of the basic mechanisms of evolutionary change in hand, the course looks at how our ancient primate ancestors adapted.

Consider the anatomical features we share with monkeys, great apes, and other primates. Our large brains, grasping hands, and forward-facing eyes allowing us to perceive depth are critical to the way we function in the world.

Yet the fossil record tells us that some 70 million years ago these distinctive primate features did not exist.

What caused the first primates to emerge from existing mammalian populations?

One proposed solution was that the appearance of insects living in the lower canopies of trees offered a plentiful food resource to those species adapted to procure it. Could depth perception and grasping ability have provided an advantage here, and hence been naturally selected?

This is the function of biological anthropology: confronting the facts, then suggesting and testing possibilities.

A Course as Much About the Present as the Past

With so much of evolutionary history taken up with the past, the insights gained in these lectures may tempt you to add questions of your own:

* Is human evolution still a force in today's world?
* Hasn't our modern, mobile culture rendered evolution irrelevant?

In fact, human evolution is a stronger force than ever, interacting with human culture in complex ways.

Issues such as obesity, AIDS, and genetics are all discussed. And you may well find these lectures opening your eyes to the extraordinary ways in which the biological power of natural selection is still at work in the world today.

1. What is Biological Anthropology?
2. How Evolution Works
3. The Debate Over Evolution
4. Matter Arising—New Species
5. Prosimians, Monkeys, and Apes
6. Monkey and Ape Social Behavior
7. The Mind of the Great Ape
8. Models for Human Ancestors?
9. Introducing the Hominids
10. Lucy and Company
11. Stones and Bones
12. Out of Africa
13. Who Were the Neandertals?
14. Did Hunting Make Us Human?
15. The Prehistory of Gender
16. Modern Human Anatomy and Behavior
17. On the Origins of Homo sapiens
18. Language
19. Do Human Races Exist?
20. Modern Human Variation
21. Body Fat, Diet, and Obesity
22. The Body and Mind Evolving
23. Tyranny of the Gene?
24. Evolution and Our Future

===
Note: This is the first female lecture I've studied.

Book: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

2007-10-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

Milan Kundera's Lightness of Being had great influence on me when I was in high school. The philosophy that regret is useless since one can never compare the consequences of different choices freed me from the certain difficulties of making decisions. Also the sex scenes in the book opened my eyes and served as a source of porno in those years. I saw part of the movie and that was terrible.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was written before the Lightness of Being. I could see some resemblance between the two books, mostly the sex relationships and sex scenes (the nakedness, affairs, group sex, etc.). I often wonder if those are the experiences of the author, and why he would put so much eroticism in his book.

The passage most fascinates me in this book is about music (in Part six, the Angles):

This is what my father told me when I was five: a key signature is a king's court in miniature. It is ruled by a king (the first step) and his two right-hand men (steps five and four). They have four other dignitaries at their command, each of whom has his own special relation to the king and his right-hand men. The court houses five additional tones as well, which are known as chromatic. They have important parts to play in other keys, but here they are simply guests.

Since each of the twelve notes has its own job, title, and function, any piece we hear is more than mere sound: it unfolds a certain action before us. Sometimes the events are terribly involved (as in Mahler or--even more--Bartok or Stravinsky): princes from other courts intervene, and before long there is no telling which court a tone belongs to and no assurance it isn't working undercover as a double or triple agent. But even then the most naive of listeners can figure out more or less what is going on. The most complex music is still a language.

That is what my father told me. What follows is all my own. One day a great man determined that after a thousand years the language of music had worn itself out and could do no more than rehash the same message. Abolishing the hierarchy of tones by revolutionary decree, he made them all equal and subjected them to a strict discipline; none was allowed to occur more often than any other in a piece, and therefore non could lay claim to its former feudal privileges. All courts were permanently abolished, and in their place arose a single empire, founded on equality and called the twelve-tone system.

Perhaps the sonorities were more interesting than they had been, but audiences accustomed to following the courtly intrigues of the keys for a millennium failed to make anything of them. In any case, the empire of the twelve-tone system soon disappeared. After Schonberg came Varese, and he abolished notes (the tones of the human voice and musical instruments) along with keys, replacing them with an extremely subtle play of sounds which, though fascinating, marks the beginning of the history of something other than music, something based on other principles and another language.

When in my Prague apartment Milan Hubl held forth on the possibility of the Czech nation disappearing into the Russian empire, we both knew that the idea, though legitimate, went beyond us and that we were speaking of the inconceivable. Even though man is mortal, he cannot conceive of the end of space or time, of history or a nation: he lives in an illusory infinity.

People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end and that behind all the joyous "onward and upward" slogans lurks the lascivious voice of death urging us to make haste.

(If the obsession with the world "onward" has become universal nowadays, isn't it largely because death now speaks to us at such close range?)

In the days when Arnold Schonberg founded his twelve-tone empire, music was richer than ever before and intoxicated with its freedom. No one ever dreamed the end was so near. No fatigue. No twilight. Schonberg was audacious as only youth can be. He was legitimately proud of having chosen the only road that led "onward". The history of music came to an end in a burst of daring and desire.

movie 1408

2007-10-02T23:53:00.000-07:00

Just saw the movie 1408 tonight. It was shot in Hermosa Beach. Then I remembered a couple of months ago on the Strand we saw someone shooting a movie and they said it would be direct to video movie. Must be this one. How creepy, considering how creepy this movie is. Stephen King is a great writer. Recently I read his 'salem's Lot. It was scary, but when I saw a few movie clips of the book, it took the horror out of the book. Maybe the first time is always the more scary. Or the printed words bring out more vivid imagination. Who knows. But I will have nightmare tonight.

TTC: Theories of Human Development

2007-09-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

Theories of Human Development
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 197

Taught by Malcolm W. Watson
Brandeis University
Ph.D., University of Denver

1. Introduction—The Value of Theories
2. The Early History of Child Study
3. Two Worldviews—Locke vs. Rousseau
4. Later History—Becoming Scientific
5. Freud's Psychodynamic Theory
6. How We Gain Contact with Reality—The Ego
7. Freud's Psycho-Sexual Stages
8. Erikson's Psycho-Social Theory
9. Erikson's Early Stages
10. Identity and Intimacy
11. Erikson's Later Stages—Adult Development
12. Bowlby and Ainsworth's Attachment Theory
13. How Nature Ensures That Attachment Will Occur
14. Development of Secure and Insecure Attachments
15. Early Attachments and Adult Relationships
16. Bandura's Social Learning Theory
17. Bandura's Self-Efficacy Theory
18. Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory
19. Piaget's Early Stages
20. Concrete Operations
21. Piaget's Last Stage
22. Vygotsky's Cognitive-Mediation Theory
23. Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
24. Conclusions—Our Nature and Development

Six Theories of How We Become Who We Are

The six major theories have had a pervasive impact on the way we, both scientists and the general public, see ourselves. They are:

Sigmund Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory. The lectures discuss this theory, the earliest of the six, including such concepts as the Oedipus Complex and Freud’s five stages of psycho-sexual development. Although now widely disputed, Freudian thinking is deeply imbedded in our culture and constantly influences our view of human nature.

Erik Erikson’s Psycho-Social Theory. This is the theory that gave rise to the term "identity crisis." Erikson was the first to propose that the "stages" of human development spanned our entire lives, not just childhood. His ideas heavily influenced the study of personality development, especially in adolescence and adulthood.

John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth’s Integrated Attachment Theory. This was the first theory to focus primarily on the formation of parent-child relationships. It explains the connection between relationships that occur early in our lives and those that happen later, including romantic ones. Attachment theory has generated thousands of scientific studies, and has led to changes in many childcare policies, such as those allowing parents to stay with their children in hospitals.

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. This theory modified traditional learning theory developed by such behaviorists as B. F. Skinner, which was based on stimulus-response relationships. It considered learning to be no different among infants, children, adults, or even animals. Bandura’s approach is influential in such areas as the effect of media violence on children, and the treatment of problem behaviors and disorders.

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory. Piaget’s influence created a revolution in human development theory. He proposed the existence of four major stages, or "periods," during which children and adolescents master the ability to use symbols and to reason in abstract ways. This has been the most influential of the six major theories. In the 1970s and 1980s, it completely dominated the study of child development.

Lev Vygotsky’s Cognitive-Mediation Theory. Alone among the major theorists, Vygotsky believed that learning came first, and caused development. He theorized that learning is a social process in which teachers, adults, and other children form supportive "scaffolding" on which each child can gradually master new skills. Vygotsky’s views have had a large impact on educators.

Early Theorists: Locke, Rousseau, and even Darwin

To give you the best understanding of these theories, this course also explores the general history of the study of child development. It touches on the work of other important researchers, such as John Watson of Johns Hopkins University, who developed behaviorism, and Arnold Gesell of Yale, from whose work sprang such well-worn phrases as "just going through a stage" and "the terrible twos."

Professor Watson also discusses the era of observational research on children, which marked the beginnings of child study as a true science. This period was pioneered by scientists who began publishing detailed accounts of the development of their own children. These early "baby biographers" included Alfred Binet, who first developed intelligence testing in France, and even Charles Darwin.

You may be struck not only by how much we have learned about child development, but also by how much our attitudes toward children have changed. Until the beginning of the 19th century, there was no interest in child study and, in fact, no concern for children. Such factors as poverty and high infant mortality created an atmosphere in which children were barely tolerated, or used for labor.

In Paris in 1750, 33 percent of all newborns were left in foundling homes or on doorsteps; most died. In England, boys and girls as young as four were often sent to work in mines.

You will see how attitudes toward children gradually improved, due mostly to the efforts of physicians and religious leaders. And you will appreciate the tremendous contribution that two renowned philosophers, John Locke (1632–1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), have made to the field of child development. Their ideas about children—whether they are inherently good or bad, or whether they actively shape their environments or passively react to stimuli—still form much of the basis of our modern theories.

The lessons of this course are not simply about learning, behavior, and relationships in youth, but at any age. Taken as a whole, they provide our best answers to the questions of human nature—how we learn, adapt, and become who we are at every stage in life.

Book: Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

2007-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished Primo Levi's memoir Survival in Auschwitz (If This is a Man). I was quite affected by the survival details described in the book. I imagine the condition of the survivors, and the fate of the unfortunate victims. I can't help finding footages of Auschwitz on YouTube to watch. The train. The arrival. The mothers. The children. The shoes. The hair. And the baby clothes. When Schindler's List first came out, a friend said that he would not go to twatch a movie so depressing. I could not believe him and would not understand him. Now I understand. I cannot bear to see or think about little children suffer.

I can imagine the hardship of the camp described in the book (there are other stories of poor living conditions), but I am most affected by the scene of the camp after the selection, the image of those who were "selected" after months of struggle to survive.

I look for information about Primo Levi. I want to know what happens to his friend Alberto (and found out that he didn't make it.) Then I learned about the the death march of the 60,000 inmates and the 15,000 survivors. I learned about the 1-2 millions "exit" from the chimney. The near 1000 Italians from Levi's train only 20 survived. The numbers speaks for themselves. I learned about Elie Wiesel's book "Night". I want to read it but I am not sure if I want to depress myself further.

I read Primo Levi's Periodic Table a few years ago upon a chemist's recommendation but was not too impressed. (I like Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dream more, if I can compare them.) For a while, I thought the Surival in Auschwitz book was written by Viktor Frankl (I got them mixed up because they are the only two Auschwitz survivors I knew of name).

Another Auschwitz related book I've read was Sophie's Choice, a novel. The most memorable line:

The query: At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?
And the answer: Where was man?

I wanted to ask if the survivors had to fight harder to survive, they can't be really nice, right? But I understand that under their condition, everyone must fight for his own survival. The survivals are the better adapted and the lucky ones. What is more important? Survival, or humanity? I hope I will never have to answer the question.

Another note. Sometimes I think maybe all survivor's stories are by their nature worthwhile to read. They are either heartbreaking, or celebrations of the human spirit. But some stories are better written than others. I love "In the Night of White Death", and "Into Thin Air" (so depressing). On the other hand, "Sole Survivor--Dennis Hale's story" of a Great Lake shipwreck survival story was bad, and "Last Voyage of the Karluk" was not interesting.

I am not going to read more about Auschwitz for now. The next book is Stephen King's 'salem's Lot. I guess It's not going to be relaxing for me for a while.

Book: Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) by Hermann Hesse

2007-08-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

I finished The Glass Bead Game today. It is not bad, not nearly as bad as I first thought it was. After Knecht reached the top, he made a speech to leave the Order, and went into the World. The ending was the only surprise in the whole book. I didn't pay much attention to the Knecht poems. The three Life's are very interesting. The styles are different from his usual style. The Rainmaker is a fable set in the pre-historical time, but Hesse is making things up from stories and fables he has heard from elsewhere. I like The Father Confessor the best. It is almost like Graham Greene! It's about two Catholic priests coping with lost of faith. Hesse says that the intellectuals are the only real sinners because knowledge is the original sin. The last story, The Indian Life, is a simple fable from the east about the reality of Maya. Perhaps Hesse wrote these three short stories for other purposes and collected them together and attributed them to Knecht. At Mayacafe, people are talking about Second Life. Hesse has created four alternative lives in one novel. The awakening experiences of these characters are clearly his own.

Passage 1: well-said about the reality of "awakening" experience.

I never thought of those awakenings as manifestations of a god or daimon or of some absolute truth. What gives these experiences their weight and persuasiveness is not their truth, their sublime origin, their divinity or anything of the sort, but their reality. They are tremendously real, somewhat the way a violent physical pain or a surprising natural event, a storm or earthquake, seem to us charged with an entirely different sort of reality, presence, inexorability, from ordinary times and conditions. The gust of wind that precedes a thunderstorm, sending us into the house and almost wrenching the front door away from our hand--or a band toothache which seems to concentrate all the tensions, sufferings, and conflicts of the world in our jaw--these are such realities. Later on we may start to question them or examine their significance, if that is our bent; but at the moment they happen they admit no doubts and are brimful of reality. My "awakening" has a similar kind of intensified reality for me. That is why I have given it this name; at such times I really feel as if I had lain asleep or half asleep for a long time, but am now awake and clearheaded and receptive in a way I never am ordinarily. In history, too, moments of tribulation or great upheavals have their element of convincing necessity; they create a sense of irresistible immediacy and tension. Whatever the consequence of such upheavals, be it beauty and clarity or savagery and darkness, whatever happens will bear the semblance of grandeur, necessity, and importance and will stand out as utterly different from everyday events. p.365

Passages 2, 3, 4

... I returned to life a silent, stupid, and dull person who soon regained physical strength but never recovered his pleasure in philosophizing... that was the end of my cleverness and theology. Since then I have been one of the simple souls. But I do not despise and do not like to bait those who know how to philosophize and mythologize and play those games I myself once indulged in. Just as I had to rest content with letting the incomprehensible relations and identities of Demiurge and Spirit-God, Creation and Redemption, remain unsolved riddles for me, so I must also rest content with the fact that I cannot convert philosophers into believers. That is not my province. p. 477

Worldly people are children. And saints. But we ascetics and seekers and eremites--we are not children and we are not innocent and cannot be set straight by moralizing, sermons. We are the real sinners, we who know and think, who have eaten the Tree of Knowledge, and we should not treat one another like children who are given a few blows of the rod and left to go their way again. After a confession and penance we do not run away back to the world where children celebrate feats and do business and now and then kill one another. We do not experience sin like a brief bad dream which can be thrown off by confession and sacrifice; we dwell in it. We are never innocent; we are always sinners; we dwell in sin and in the fire of conscience, and we know that we can never pay our great debt unless after our departure God looks mercifully upon us and reviews us into His grace. We are not involved in one or another misstep or crime, but always and forever in original sin itself. This is why each of us can only assure the other that he shares his knowledge and feels brotherly love; neither of us can cure the other by penances. p.478

Meditation and wisdom were good, were noble things, but apparently they throve only on the margin of life. If you swam in the stream of life and struggled with its waves, your acts and suffering had nothing to do with wisdom. They came about of their own accord, were fated, and had to be done and suffered. Even the gods did not live in eternal peace and eternal wisdom. They too experienced danger and fear, struggle and battle. p.510

TTC: Comedy through the Ages by Seth Lerer

2007-08-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

01- The Scope And Range Of Comedy
02- Some Critical Approaches To Comedy
03- Greek Comedy, Historical And Literary Contexts
04- Aristophene's 'the Frogs', The Comedy Of Acting
05- Roman Comedy, Themes, Traditions, Context
06- Plautus, Play, Performance And The Arts Of Theater
07- Language And The Body I
08- Language And The Body II: Rabelais, Carnival, and Renaissance Comedy
Rabelais is a great writer of the human body, and his humor often devolves to the representation of the body not only as the site of excess, expulsion, ingestion, and grotesquerie, but also as the site of social, political, and ethical criticism. The body is the body politic, the social body, but it is also at the heart of the great parody of Christ's body and the rituals of Christian faith that center on the ingestion of sacred food and drink. This lecture explores some of the central comic elements of Rabelais's Gargantua (1532), both in light of the historical trajectory of the course and in light of the critical writings of Mikhail Bakhtin and their implications for a theory of comedy.

09- Shakespearean Comedy I: Contexts, Overviews, Form
This lecture surveys the transitions from the classical and medieval comic traditions to those of the Renaissance, especially those that bear on Shakespeare's comic theater. It reflects on the central features of Renaissance courtly life, especially its public and performative nature. It then examines some of the key techniques and thematic concerns of Shakespeare's comedies, preparing us for the following lecture on his Taming of the Shrew.

10- Shakespearean Comedy II
This lecture looks in detail at The Taming of the Shrew as an example of Shakespearean comedy. It focuses on the play's relationships to the key themes of this course; its place in the comic tradition generally; and its specific features of plot, theme, image, and character that locate it in Shakespeare's distinctive transformation of that tradition.

11- Classical French Comedy, Moli�re And His Worlds
12- Moliere's Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comic play by Moliere, first performed before King Louis XIV in 1664. Many critics take it to be one of the major plays of Moliere and one of the major comic plays in the history of the theater. This lecture focuses on the large thematic and structural features of the play. It locates Tartuffe in the broader interests of the course, calls attention to some of its more notable episodes, and places it, in particular, in the traditions of New Comedy.

13- 18Th Century Comedy Of Words
This lecture surveys the intellectual and social histories of England in the 18th century to locate the new flowering of English comic theater in that period. It identifies key themes and techniques in preparation for the following lecture on Sheridan's The Rivals. The lecture also argues that foremost among those themes and techniques is the question of language itself: the meaning of words, their histories, their changing connotations, and their social function. The classic comic theater of the English eighteenth century--and of the entire tradition of English comedy from Sheridan through Oscar Wilde to Noel Coward--is a comedy of wordplay, and this lecture sets the intellectual stage for understanding that tradition.

14- Sheridan's The Rivals
Like Moliere's Tartuffe, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals has long been seen as one of the great comic plays in the tradition of the theater. Like Tartuffe, it satirizes the social pretensions of its day; like Tartuffe, it works through the New Comedy marriage plot, updating it for current audiences. And like Tartuffe, it bequeaths to the literary tradition a theatrical character who emblematizes a particular social condition. For just as Tartuffe himself becomes the emblem of religious pretense, so does Mrs. Malaprop become the emblem of linguistic pretense. This lecture works through the central themes, episodes, and characters in The Rivals to illustrate its centrality to the comic tradition.

15- Wilde & Coward, I: Comedies of Class, Aestheticism, and Camp
In this and the next two lectures, we will look closely at the work of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) and Noel Coward (1899-1973), two of the defining figures for English literary comedy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their most important plays--Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Coward's Blithe Spirit--both explicitly look back on the traditions we have ex[plored to this point and anticipate some developments in comic form in the later 20th century. This lecture surveys the life and work of both Wilde and Coward to frame the more detailed discussion of their plays. The lecture also points to some ways in which Wilde and Coward themselves became figures on a comic stage of their own making: a stage of public life and popular attention.

16- Wilde & Coward, II: The End of New Comedy
This lecture approaches The Importance of Being Earnest and Blithe Spirit together, discussing them thematically and structurally. The discussion is organized around some of the major thematic, historical, structural, generic, and literary issues of the course as a whole (thus reviewing the course's major foci in the course of reading the plays). In this and the following lecture, we see these two plays as something of the end of New Comedy or as the camp recalibration of the literary history of a genre.

17- Rituals & Rites In Modern Comedy
Throughout the history of comedy, certain public and private rituals determine relationships of humor, power, and character. Eating/drinking and reading/writing are two sets of such relationships that have governed comedy from its beginnings. This lecture reviews these relationships, with special emphasis on Wilde and Coward, to trace their transformations and the ways in which they characterize the "modern" in the comic tradition.

18- Camp, History, Criticism & Comic Texture
This lecture returns to hte work of Susan Sontag to explore the meaning of "camp" in the comic tradition. It reviews Sontag's claims and locates them in 20th century cultural thought, then applies them to a tradition of comic impersonation and performance running from Sheridan through Wilde and Coward. The lecture helps us understand how contemporary features of popular life are embedded in the earlier history of literary and theatrical comedy. It also helps us see how certain "low-culture" versions of comedy (for example, Monty Python) rely on the parodic engagement with this literary tradition.

19- Women In Comedy I
Is there a female comic imagination? This lecture and the next examine different ways of understanding the place of women in the comic tradition. One way is to locate the female character--the girl, the old woman, the lover, the wilfe, and so on--as the source of humor in plays, and fictions. The other is to locate the woman's authentic voice as author, comedienne, and commentator on the comic. This lecture reviews the materials in the course thus far to write what we might call a genealogy of girlhood in the comic tradition. The next lecture looks closely at one major work of comic fiction, Anita Loo's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, that may exemplify the ways in which women work within the tradition and challenge it from without.

20- Women In Comedy II

21- Beckett, Comedy & The Absurd
This lecture introduces the life and work of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), a central figure in the history of modern theater. Beckett is best known for his plays of the absurd condition of modern life, and although many of them seem bleak and pessimistic, they are truly comic in that they reveal the absurdities of the everyday and the humor inherent in language, gesture, and power. Beckett's Waiting for Godot will form the core of our approach to his comic vision and serve as the focus of the next lecture.

22- Waiting For Godot: The Landscapes of Comic Emptiness
Waiting for Godot represents the 20th century comedy of the absurd at its greatest. This lecture looks at Godot through the traditions of the comic theater as they have been developed in the course to locate Beckett in the history of comedy. By framing a reading of the play through Freud, through the structures of doubles or couples, and through the patterns of country and city, the lecture explores Beckett's play as the culmination of the course's argument.

23- Ethnicity & Humor: From Vaudeville to Philip Roth
Ethnicity has long played a role in the comic tradition. From the Greeks and Romans through the modern period, the social "other" has been defined as the butt of humor. This lecture reviews some of the traditions of ethnic humor and locates one modern responses to those traditions in the work of Philip Roth, especially his 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint. Roth's novel brings together the main themes of the course--language and identity, naming and power, the theory of the joke (especially Freud's), travel, eating and drinking, parents and children, sex and money, and so on--and, like Loos's gentlemen Prefer Blondes, offers a comic take on the comic tradition itself.

24- The Comic Legacy

Book: The Glass Bead Game

2007-08-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I keep reading Hesse. None of his characters is ever real. All just fantasy people. Everyone is stereotypical. This late work Glass Bead Game is even worse. The hero Joseph Knecht is prefect to a fault, like a robot. I can compare this novel to Chinese 武侠小说 martial arts fictions. The hero has a lowly and humbly beginning. He works hard and is discovered by a great master who becomes his mentor for years. He goes to a school for gifted to be trained by the best teachers. When he graduates, his mentor gives him private lessons in the mountain. He is sent to he top school of the elite system to continue his education. Then he has a remarkable competition with a brilliant and slightly older schoolmate. He is admired by everyone in the school. After graduation, he takes a long journey on foot to seek an oriental hermit master, learns from him (about I-Ching and Chinese philosophy), and gains respect from the master. He is sent by his Order to another Order which has a longer history and therefore more prestige on a mission which purpose is unknown to him. Because of his character and his skills, he strikes a friendship and eventually win over the most important person. Back to his Order, the annual Game (like 武林大会) is going on, and the old master is ill. The deputy master cannot do his job, and is driven away by the elite members. Our hero is then surprised to find out that he is the elected to be the next master, despite of his young age. First he wins over the other members. He finds teaching young pupil more challenging and influential than teaching elite members. This is the first half of the book.

Graham Greene's characters might not be real, but their struggles are real. Nothing about Hesse's characters is real. They don't think like people, they don't talk like people, they just make statements. It is so boring. But I still want to finish the book. :(

TTC: Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age

2007-08-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

I started this series 1.5 year ago when we were preparing for the Egypt trip. I stopped after the lectures concerning Alexander. This time when I picked it up again, I found it difficult to follow. It's probably because I am too unfamiliar with the history and the geography of the period, and most of the time I have no reference and cannot relate. I went through the course rather absent-mindedly, but my knowledge of the Hellenistic Age has already had a quantum leap forward.

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Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age
(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 327

Taught by Jeremy McInerney
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley

This series of lectures examines a crucial period in the history of the ancient world, the age ushered in by the extraordinary conquests of Alexander the Great.

In all the annals of the ancient world, few stories are more gripping than that of the Hellenistic Age. Between the conquests of Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome, Greek culture became the heart of a world-historical civilization whose intellectual, spiritual, and artistic influence endures to this day.

Caesar’s Shame

Julius Caesar lamented when he was in his early 30s that by his age Alexander had conquered the world, "and I have done nothing."

In just 10 years, this young prince from the small, hill kingdom of Macedon subdued the largest tract of the earth’s surface ever conquered by one individual. His vast empire—encompassing all or part of 23 present-day countries—stretched from Mount Olympus and the Sahara Desert to the frontiers of India and Central Asia.

In the opening lectures, we explore the enigma of Alexander, son of a brilliant father, yet always at odds with the man whom he succeeded. We trace his early campaigns against the Persians and follow him to Egypt, where he was acclaimed as the son of god.

We look at his career after this and find in him a blend of greatness and madness as he strove to replace the Persian empire of the Achaemenid dynasty with a new, mixed ruling class of Macedonians and Persians.

Alexander’s death in 323 BC ushered in a period of catastrophic change as ambitious warlords carved up Alexander’s realm into their own separate empires. It is said that as the 33-year-old Alexander lay dying in Babylon in 323 B.C., he was asked who would inherit his empire. "The strongest," he answered.

Their struggle created three kingdoms, ruled by a small group of Macedonian nobles, that spanned from the eastern Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush:

* Ptolemaic Egypt (323-31 B.C.), whose last ruler was Cleopatra
* Seleucid Syria (323-64 B.C.), whose attack on the Temple in Jerusalem in 166 B.C. led to the Maccabean revolt
* The Attalid Empire in Asia Minor (281-133 B.C.), which, while smaller than the other two, produced a cultural flourishing in its capital Pergamum that rivaled Alexandria in Egypt.

North Africa. In the Nile valley, the Ptolemies played the role of pharaohs and were treated by their subjects as gods. At the same time, however, their capital, Alexandria, was cut off from Egypt and run by Greek bureaucrats. Greek culture thrived here in the museum and library, and the Ptolemies were great patrons of the arts. The library itself boasted half a million books.

The Middle East. In the Seleucid empire, the rulers also built Greek cities, such as Antioch, but in older regions, including Mesopotamia, they too were ready to be worshipped as living gods. On the edges of the Hellenistic world, in places as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan, Greek cities grew up around trading posts and military settlements. Here, philosophy and literature from old Greece went hand in hand with gymnasiums and theaters to plant Greek culture far from the Mediterranean. By military and cultural conquest, then, much of central Asia was incorporated into the Greek world.

Despite the geographic extent of this civilization, we see that the heartland remained the eastern Mediterranean. It was here, in such new cities as Alexandria and Pergamum and such old ones as Athens, that Greek culture developed its distinctive Hellenistic appearance.

Hellenistic Culture

Philosophy. Philosophy became more academic, as different schools of philosophy emerged. Stoicism, epicureanism, and skepticism all looked for ways to teach people to avoid the emotional upheavals of life in an age of anxiety.

Art and Architecture. At the same time, art rejoiced in exploring the very same turmoil of the age. Hellenistic sculptors looked at the old, the young, the ugly, and the tortured instead of merely fashioning images of the perfect athlete. Differing sharply from the Classical art that precedes it, Hellenistic art is gargantuan, often "excessive," and nakedly emotional. It explores aspects of human experience previously outside the concerns of the Greeks.

Literature. Novelists also played with themes of the reversal of fortune in the lives of their characters, because such tumult was part of the experiences of so many people. Piracy, brigandage, physical hardship, and the supreme power of great kings were all realities of the age and left their marks on ordinary people.

Religion and Magic. As we see, these conditions helped spawn a vital interest in magic, spells, and incantations and in religions that offered people the promise of redemption and salvation. The cults of Isis, Serapis, and Cybele all grew in popularity throughout the Hellenistic world. This was the climate of the world in which Christianity was born.

Captured Greece? Captured Rome?

Although the Hellenistic Age would result in some of the greatest accomplishments in Greek culture, especially in the poetry of Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius, the political power of the age was overshadowed by the growth of Rome.

Hence, we conclude the lectures with a study of the growth of Roman power, its expansion into the eastern Mediterranean, and the inevitable clash of Greek and Roman civilizations. We see that Rome conquered, but Rome would be forever changed by the contact with Greek culture. In the words of the Roman poet Horace, "Captured Greece took captive her captor."

Course Lecture Titles
1. Greeks and Macedonians
2. Alexander the Divine?
3. The Blazing Star
4. Alexander—Myth and Reality
5. The Formation of the Kingdoms
6. Egypt Under the Early Ptolemies
7. Alexandria and the Library
8. The Seleucid Realm
9. Pergamum
10. Bactria, the Edge of the Hellenistic World
11. Sculpture
12. Poetry
13. The Greek Novel
14. Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics
15. Kingship and Legitimacy
16. Benefaction
17. The Maccabean Revolt, Part I
18. The Maccabean Revolt, Part II
19. Rulers and Saviors
20. Economic Growth and Social Unrest
21. The Mood of the Hellenistic Age
22. Hellenism and the Western Mediterranean
23. The Freedom of the Greeks
24. Pax Romana

Notes on art and realism

2007-08-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

前些天在毛姆小说 Of Human Bondage 读到的关于艺术与“写实”的一段话（他曾经在巴黎学美术）：

What has nature got to do with it? No one knows what's in nature and what isn't! The world sees nature through the eyes of the artist. Why, for centuries it saw horses jumping a fence with all their legs extended, and by Heaven, sir, they were extended. It saw shadows black until Monet discovered they were colored, and by Heaven, sir, they were black. If we choose to surround objects with a black line, the world will see the black line, and there will be a black line; and if we paint grass red and cows blue, it'll see them red and blue, and, by Heaven, they will be red and blue.

是不是说，艺术家看到的“现实”不同，表现“现实”的手法也不同。

另外，关于解剖艺术，Michelangelo 传记小说里也有一段，是达芬奇看了 Sistine Chapel 屋顶壁画后，对 Michelangelo 说的：

You have proved that the study of anatomy is extremely important and useful to the artist. But I also see a grave danger there. Of exaggeration. The painter, after he studies your vault, must take care not to become wooden through too strong an emphasis on bone, muscles and sinews; nor to become too enamored of naked figures which display all their feelings. Yours are close to perfection. But what of the painter who tries to go beyond you? If your use of anatomy makes the Sistine so good, then he must use even more anatomy in order to be better. You have brought anatomical painting to its outside limits. There is no margin for others to perfect. Consequently, they will distort. Observers will say, "It's Michelangelo's fault; without him we could have refined and improved anatomical painting for hundreds of years." Alas, you have started it, and you have ended it, on one ceiling.

“文化上的区别自然导致艺术风格上的不同”，所以不用褒此贬彼。

(I wrote this first in reply to Guanzhong's post on Mayacafe, but I never finished it.)

Book: The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

2007-08-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

I have read 6 books by Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha (1922) had great impact on me, and Demian (1919) was impressive. Then I kept reading. A Journey to the East (1932) was simple and straightforward. Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) was predictable. Knulp (1915) was short and not poetic. Steppenwolf (1927) was laborious and pretentious. Yet I kept reading . Now I am reading The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi, 1943), the one Hesse got Nobel Prize for.

I read the introduction by Theodore Ziolkowski. The Glass Bead Game is a late masterpiece of Hesse (like Monsignor Quixote is a late masterpiece of Graham Greene). It is very unlike is earlier work. According to Ziolkowski,

The Hesse cult in the United States has revolved primarily around such painfully humorless works as Demian and Siddhartha, in which readers have discovered an anticipation of their infatuation with Eastern mysticism, pacifism, the search for personal values, and revolt against the establishment. Those who have gone on to Steppenwolf have greeted it as a psychedelic orgy of sex, drugs, and jazz, but have conveniently overlooked the ironic attitude through which those superficial effects are put back into perspective by the author. It was partly as a reaction against such self-indulgent interpretations, which he encountered as much as forty years ago, that Hesse undertook The Glass Bead Game.

Perhaps I can now put the book in perspective with others. (I remember someone I met on the internet who grew up in the 60s who told me that he used to be a Hesse fan, and read Kerouac, too.)

The Glass Bead Game is much longer than the others. I am only 50 pages into the book (10% done). Hesse is describing a fantasy world where everyone is playing a philosophical, mathematical and musical game, and the education system is revolved around teaching pupils this game. I found the description very heavy (very German). I can't help thinking about the fantasy world created by Borges--much more mysterious and exciting. I don't know if I can learn something new from Hesse, but I can definitely learn something about Hesse from the reading. However, what he says about music is quite interesting. (Sometimes I wish I were born German.)

We shall cit here only a few passages from the chapter on music in lu Bu Wei's Spring and Autumn:

When the world is at peace, when all things are tranquil and all men obey their superiors in all their courses, then music can be perfected. When desires and passions do not turn into wrongful paths, music can be perfected. Perfect music has its cause. it arises from equilibrium. Equilibrium arises from righteousness, and righteousness arises from the meaning of the cosmos. Therefore one can speak about music only with a man who has perceived the meaning of the cosmos.

Music is founded on the harmony between heaven and earth, on the concord of obscurity and brightness.

Decaying states and men ripe for doom do not, of course, lack music either, but their music is not serene. Therefore, the more tempestuous the music, the more doleful are the people, the more imperiled the country, the more the sovereign declines. In this way the essence of music is lost.

What all sacred sovereigns have loved in music was its serenity. The tyrants Giae and Jou Sin made tempestuous music. They thought loud sounds beautiful and massed effects interesting. They strove for new and rare tonal effects, for notes which no ear had ever heard hitherto. They sought to surpass each other, and overstepped all bounds.

The case of the degeneration of the Chu state was its invention of magic music. Such music is indeed tempestuous enough, but in truth it has departed from the essence of music. Because it has departed from the essence of real music, this music is not serene. If music is not serene, the people grumble and life is deranged. All this arises from mistaking the nature of music and seeking only tempestuous tonal effects.

Therefore the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted. The music of a decaying state is sentimental and sad, and its government is imperiled.

Really???

Book: Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene

2007-07-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

Monsignor Quixote is probably the 12th Graham Greene novel I've read. It is among his latest work, published in 1982 (Orient Express, 1932; The Power and the Glory, 1940; The End of the Affair, 1951; The Comedian, 1966; The Human Factor, 1978). This book explores the same theme in all his books--faith and doubt, and more like a summary of his ideas. The story is about a monsignor and descendant of Don Quixote traveling in an old car Rocinante (like Don's horse) with an friend Sancho (a Communist and ex-Mayor) around Spain, having adventures like Don Quixote. The heart of the book is in the conversations between the Catholic priest and the Communists as they compared notes on a variety of issues, mainly about faith and doubt. The adventures are exciting (like his other espionage books), and parallel to Cervantes's Don Quixote, showing Greene a master of story teller.

I like Graham Greene because he is so human. He is always questioning his faith in God. I am reminded of The Power and the Glory where a priest is trying to escape from "justice" while confronting his own doubt, and the Heart of the Matter about a communist at work. However, in this book, the constant comparison between Catholic faith and Communist faith gets old after a while, but I understand that Greene is always deeply involved in the politics of his time too. (I just googled, and found that Greene once joined the Communist Party, so that explains a lot.)

"I am riddled by doubts. I am sure of nothing, not even of the existence of God, but doubt is not treachery as you Communists seem to think. Doubt is human. Oh, I want to believe that it is all true--and that want is the only certain thing I feel." p. 205

"It's only human to doubt, but to doubt is to lose the freedom of action. Doubting, one begins to waver between one action and another. It was not by doubting that Newton discovered the law of gravity or Marx the future of capitalism." p. 255

Next book will be Hermann Hesse again. I seem to read a lot of these two authors.

TTC: Italian Renaissance; Book: Sphere by Crichton

2007-07-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Today I finished TTC course Italian Renaissance by Kenneth Bartlett, and Sphere by Michael Crichton.

I wanted to learn about Italian Renaissance after reading about Michelangelo. The course consists 36 lectures of 30 minutes each. All lectures are intellectual, but some are more interesting than others. The parts about Florence and the Popes are more memorable, because I am familiar with the events around Michelangelo's life, and he lived a long time, almost the whole span of the Italian Renaissance. I've learned about Petrarch, Venice, Savonarola, Machiavelli... a lot of familiar names now begin to have context. Before when I went to Italy, I only wanted to search for the ruins of ancient Roman empire. Now I want to see the Renaissance. I want to see Venice, Rome, and especially Florence. Next I will listen to Great Artists of the Italian Renaissance. I have got some art books in preparation for this course.

I must learn more about Pico della Mirandola. Why did he converted to Savonarola's religion before he died? Is he really my teacher's teacher?

Sphere is the first Michael Crichton book I've read, although I have listened to his The Lost World on CD before. This book is almost the exact opposite of St Augustine's Confessions I just finished. Sphere is a sci-fi thriller, and it is exactly what it is. Although it is predictable in characters and narratives, the plots are still exciting and fresh. Next book on my list is another sci-fi: 2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. I've heard that it is very different from the movie. We will see.

Course Lecture Titles

1. The Study of the Italian Renaissance
2. The Renaissance—Changing Interpretations
3. Italy—The Cradle of the Renaissance
4. The Age of Dante—Guelfs and Ghibellines
5. Petrarch and the Foundations of Humanism
6. The Recovery of Antiquity
7. Florence—The Creation of the Republic
8. Florence and Civic Humanism
9. Florentine Culture and Society
10. Renaissance Education
11. The Medici Hegemony
12. The Florence of Lorenzo de’Medici
13. Venice—The Most Serene Republic
14. Renaissance Venice
15. The Signori—Renaissance Princes
16. Urbino
17. Castiglione and The Book of the Courtier
18. Women in Renaissance Italy
19. Neoplatonism
20. Milan Under the Visconti
21. Milan Under the Sforza
22. The Eternal City—Rome
23. The Rebuilding of Rome
24. The Renaissance Papacy
25. The Crisis—The French Invasion of 1494
26. Florence in Turmoil
27. Savonarola and the Republic
28. The Medici Restored
29. The Sack of Rome, 1527
30. Niccolò Machiavelli
31. Alessandro de’Medici
32. The Monarchy of Cosimo I
33. Guicciardini and The History of Italy
34. The Counter-Reformation
35. The End of the Renaissance in Italy
36. Echoes of the Renaissance

Book: Confessions by St Augustine

2007-07-09T23:31:00.000-07:00

我以前开的一大堆博客就是为了把自己的想的写下来，可是后来写得有些规模了，“扇子”也有了，就 self-important 起来，零零碎碎的不成文的东西都不敢贴上去。

自从宝宝来后这四个月，我利用喂奶的时间，读了一些以前由于各种原因一直避免看的书。有的太厚，有的太深，有的初看好象没什么意思（但又是 classics）：

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
The Agony and Ecstasy (biographical novel of Michelangelo) by Irving Stone
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

今天我终于“读”完 St. Augustine 的 Confessions。我用引号，是因为我读的很粗很粗。自04年我的 spiritual revelation 后，我听了 TTC 的 St Augustine 的讲座，就非常向往能读这本书的。我买了两个版本，一个是我在 Ann Arbor 的旧书店里买的 hard cover，Pusey 翻译的，另一个是网上买的 paperback，好象是标准译本 by Henry Chadwick。我翻到 Pusey copy 的时候，开头的段落特别吸引我，特别有气魄：

"Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be prasied; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee."

而 Chadwick 的开头段落很白话文：

"You are great, Lord, and highly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is immeasurable. Man, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you, a human being 'bearing his mortality with him', carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that you 'resist the proud'. Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

看来我还是喜欢古文，英文也如此。我还是读了 Chadwick 的翻译。读的时候，宝宝经常打断我，加重了我的ADD，很多篇章都没好好读，就过去了。有时候奥古斯丁也很罗嗦，反反复复阐述一个道理，看了半天也不知哪句看了哪句没看，也就翻过去了。开始的自传的部分因为是讲故事，所以还挺好看。最后四章，Memory, Time and Eternity, Platonic and Christian Creation, Finding the Church in Genesis I, 都是些哲学和教义。因为引用了大量的圣经片段，又到处充满了赞美上帝，检讨自己的句子，真正的 thesis 反而被打散了，象我这样不专心的，根本没法看下去。真是可惜，这样一本好书，被我糟蹋了。

Graham Greene 引用过 Augustine 的一些话，给我特别深的印象："St Augustine asked where time came from. He said it came out of the future which didn't exist yet, into the present that has no duration, and went into the past which had ceased to exist." 我在忏悔录里找到了。

七格写的奥古斯丁很好笑，也很到位：

015天立星双枪将奥古斯丁 Augustine （354~430年）

他是那种小时候聪明得过分结果走上邪道的人物，老爸死了以后没人管，就在外面和女人野合，把孩子都养下来了（但他还是有责任心的，没翻脸就把人踹了，而是带了她十年多）。不过还算好，某天他在花园里踱步时，突然神经短路，发生了幻听，效果堪比外星人在给他开专场说山东快板。这一刺激，使他忽然对自己荒淫无耻的生活看了个清清楚楚，从此便义无反顾地信了基督教。
奥古斯丁到底是读书人呢，皈依了基督教后，没事就想着怎么把哲学给收编到神学队伍里去，后来他想出个鬼主意，认为有的哲学家是不好的，但他们的哲学是好的，基督教应该把好的哲学拿来，把不好的哲学家扔回去。这策略听起来，很有盗版咱鲁迅伯伯 “拿来主义” 的味道。
比如，他把柏拉图的理念，生生打造成一颗夺目的神学太阳，这太阳的光芒红艳艳地照进人们的心房，把真理像光盘刻录一般刻在我们心上（DVRW现在降价很厉害，刻录成本还是可以接受的），然后我们自己再把刻录的内容整理归类，最后作为人类的知识包装好，拿到市场上去兜售。
奥古斯丁提出的最耐人寻味的观点是：只有瞬间的现在是存在的，其他什么过去啊将来啊，全是心灵从现在延伸出去的印象，这种说法和佛教的刹那生灭实在是太接近了，要不是他的说法上头有个上帝老儿，下头有个自我意识，他是很容易滑到佛教阵营里去的。

Augustine (after Constantine 280-337) is among the first Christian teachers. I believe that if other well-established religions were available to him back then, he might have convert to another. He probably did not believe in the Trinity doctrine, but using his inspiration from god he could explain everything well. He was using the language of the church to describe his own understanding of the Infinity.

Some quotes I noted down:

For I did not know that the soul needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth. IV.xv (25)

By the proud you [God] are not found, not even if their curiosity and skill number the stars and the sand, measure the constellations, and trace the paths of the stars. V.iii (3)

Who can lay hold on the heart and give it fixity, so that for some little moment it may be stable, and for a fraction of time may grasp the splendour of a constant eternity? Then it may compare eternity with temporal successiveness which never has any constancy, and will see there is no comparison possible. It will see that a long time is long only because constituted of many successive moments which cannot be simultaneously extended. In the eternal, nothing is transient, but the whole is present. But no time is wholly present. It will see that all past time is driven backwards by the future, and all future time is the consequent of the past, and all past and future are created and set on their course by that which is always present. Who will lay hold on the human heart to make it still, so that it can see how eternity, in which there is neither future nor past, stands still and dictates future and past times? XI.xi (13)

No doubt Augustine is very smart. He is a teacher of grammar and literature. From the footnotes, I notice that Augustine frequently used ideas from Plotinus. I have Enneads by Plotinus on by shelf for a few years. One day I will get around to read it.

He also agrees that many different interpretation of the same truth is possible. When he tries to explain the meaning of the Genesis (Augustine spends a lot of time explaining Genesis), he says,

If I myself were to be writing something at this supreme level of authority [i.e. the Bible] I would choose to write so that my words would sound out with whatever diverse truth in these matters each reader was able to grasp, rather than to give a quite explicit statement of a single true view of this question in such a way as to exclude other views." XII.xxxi (42)

In another word, writings are merely signs that point to the truth, and we must try to understand what the writings mean to say, but not what they say.

I can only organize my thoughts this much for this book. Too bad, really. I am not sure if I will pick up this book again in a later year. I am always fascinated with Catholicism, because I know it can cure my ADD. But I think I have already missed my chance of conversion.

Hmm, I have an idea. Next time when I read Augustine, I will remove all the religious praises and the confessions, and all the bible quotations. I think it will make a very interesting story followed by several great thesis. Why not? I can re-write Laozi, surely I can re-write Augustine.

Book: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

2007-06-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Ragtime is an original novel. It gives a snapshot of America at the beginning of 20th century. Many real historical figures have appearance: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Henry Ford, Sigmund Frued, Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, Carl Jung, J.P. Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit, Robert Peary, Harry Thaw, Brooker Washington, Stanford White, Emiliano Zapata, ....

Stories of three fictional families are told alongside the real historical events. One middle class family consists of Father, Mother, Younger Brother, Grandfather, and a boy. One black family consists of Coalhouse Walker, Sarah, and a baby boy. Another immigrant family consists of Tateh and a girl.

It is an ambitious time for America. Everything is just being invented. Everywhere is just being explored. Every ideas is just being tested. It is the time of Scott Joplin. It is the time of Ragtime.

She loved him but she wanted someone who would treat her badly and whom she could treat badly. She longed for a challenge to her wit, she longed to have her ambitions aroused once again. (p.100)

The boy's eyes saw only the tracks made by the skaters, traces quickly erased of moments past, journey taken. (p.135)

Thus did the artist point his life along the lines of flow of American energy. Workers would strike and die but in the streets of cities an entrepreneur could cook sweet potatoes in a bucket of hot coals and sell them for a penny or two. A smiling hurdy-gurdy man could fill his cup. Phil the Fiddler, undaunted by the snow, cut away the fingers of his gloves and played under the lighted windows of mansions. Frank the Cash Boy kept his eyes open for runaway horse carrying the daughter of a Wall Street broker. All across the continent merchants pressed the large round keys of their registers. The value of the duplicable event was everywhere perceived. Every town had its ice-cream soda fountain of Belgian marble. Painless Parker the Dentist everywhere offered to remove your toothache. At Highland Park, Michigan, the first Model T automobile built on a moving assembly line lurched down a ramp and came to rest in the grass under a clear sky. (p.153)

... whereas once, in his courtship, Father might have embodied the infinite possibilities of loving, he had aged and gone dull, made stupid, perhaps, by his travels and his work, so that more and more he only demonstrated his limits, that he had reached them, and that he would never move beyond them. (p.290)

Brilliant!

Book: The Agony and the Ecstasy

2007-06-05T21:30:00.001-07:00

The book I'm reading is Irving Stone's Biographical novel of Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy. Because Michelangelo left a body of letters and biographies in his time, the stories of his life is well-documented. I am getting so into his life that I got several books for further reading:

"The Renaissance Art Book : Discover Thirty Glorious Masterpieces by Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Botticelli"
Wenda O'Reilly; Paperback; $4.98

"Eyewitness Art: Renaissance"
Alison Cole; Hardcover; $3.79

"On the Dignity of Man: On Being and the One : Heptaplus"
Pico Della Mirandola; Paperback; $4.89

"Michelangelo (Art in Hand)"
Alexandra Gromlin; Paperback; $0.01

I have always wanted to read Pico Della Mirandola, and his book has been on my list for three years. I believe that he is my teacher's teacher. This book is not very high on my automatic reading queue, but one day I will get to it.

I am also listening to TTC's Italian Renaissance by Kenneth Barlett. What he says about Petrarch is illuminating, but most of his lecture is hard to follow because his tone is rather flat, especially when he talks about the social and political background of the Italian Renaissance time.

I plan to watch the movie Agony and Ecstasy (1965). It got a few oscar nominations.

About Petrarch--when I heard about his life and his ideas, I identified myself with him somehow. More on Petrarch later when I have time.

Book: Absalom, Absalom!

2007-05-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

Finished William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! It is a very difficult read. Everything about this book is difficult. The period is during and after American Civil War; the location is in the deep South; the plots are complicated; the characters are complex; the writing technique is stream of consciousness; the narrative is disconnected; the sentences are long; many words are unfamiliar.... I had to read a few "plot summaries" to have some ideas of what I was reading most of the time. Many passages I only glanced through. I didn't expect to gain any satisfaction after reading the book, because I didn't think I would understand anything. But I was wrong. Today when I reached the end of the book, suddenly many things came together, things that I did not understand earlier, and things that had not been explained to me in book summaries. I went back to read the beginning of the book. I am beginning to understand why it is a masterpiece.

The human drama is so tragic. Sutpen, believing in only courage and shrewdness, ignoring humanity, tried over and over again to create his dynasty, yet failed. His children, Charles Bon, Clytie Henry, Judith, and Milly's daughter, are domed to tragic end even before they were born. Yet, Sutpen is a man of his time. He is made by the pre-war deep South society. It is a book about human nature, about human nature in a trouble time and place.

I tried to read this book a few times earlier, but I was scared away by the first long sentence. I remember trying to read a Chinese translation of Sound and the Fury many years ago, and I couldn't understand a thing. Faulkner is difficult. I still have two other Faulkner's books on my shelf. I don't know when and why I would make myself read those ones. Marquez also had a book that I could not finish, with long long long sentences.

The next book I will read is completely opposite to Absalom, Absalom! It is Irving Stone's biographical novel of Michelangello--The Agony and the Ecstasy. The time period, the location, the "plots", the characters, the narrative method, and other elements of fictions would be so different. It's fun to keep reading books of different styles.

Book: Of Human Bondage

2007-05-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

In the true painters, writers, musicians there was a power which drove them to such complete absorption in their work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life to art. Succumbing to an influence they never realized, they were merely dupes of the instinct that possessed them, and life slipped through their fingers unlived.

Beauty is put into things by painters and poets. They create beauty. In themselves there is nothing to choose between the Campanile of Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beautiful things grow rich with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations. That is why old things are more beautiful than modern. The Ode to a Grecian Urn is more lovely now than when it was written, because for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart take comfort in its lines.

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me; I've got out of the book all that's any use to me, and I can't get anything more if I read it a dozen times. One's like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are certain things that have a peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one by one; and at last the flower is there.

Religion is a matter of temperament; you will believe anything if you have the religious turn of mind, and if you haven't it doesn't matter what beliefs were instilled into you, you will grow out of them. Perhaps religion is the best school of morality. It is like one of those drugs you gentlemen use in medicine which carries another in solution: it is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the other to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with religion; you lose the religion and the morality stays behind. A man is more likely to be a god man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert Spencer. p 480

Here was something better than the realism which he had adored; but certainly it was not the bloodless idealism which stepped aside from life in weakness; it was too strong; it was virile; it accepted life in all its vivacity, ugliness and beauty, squalor and heroism; it was realism still, but it was realism carried to some higher pitch, in which facts were transformed by the more vivid light in which they were seen.... He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands. p 486

Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment... There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or notborn, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence.... His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness.

As the weaver elaborated his patterns for no end but the pleasure of his aesthetic sense, so might a man live his life, or if one was forced to believe that his actions were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life, that it made a pattern. There was as little need to do this as there was use. It was merely something he did for his own pleasure. Out of the manifold events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a design, regular, elaborate, complicated, or beautiful; and though it might be no more than an illusion that he had the power of selection, though it might be no more than a fantastic legerdemain in which appearances were interwoven with moonbeams, that did not matter. In the vast warp of life (a river arising from no spring and flowing endlessly to no sea), with the background to his fancies that there was no meaning and that nothing was important, a man might get a personal satisfaction in selecting the various strands that worked out the pattern. There was one pattern, the most obvious, perfect, and beautiful, in which a man was born, grew to manhood, married, produced children, toiled for his bread, and died; but there were others, intricate and wonderful, in which happiness did not enter and in which success was not attempted; and in them might be discovered a more troubling grace. Some lives, the blind indifference of chance cut off while the design was still imperfect; and then the solace was comfortable that it did not matter; other lives, offered a pattern which was difficult to follow: the point of view had to be shifted and old standards had to be altered before one could understand that such a life was its own justification. In throwing over the desire for happiness he was casting aside the last of his illusions. His life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realized that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now would be more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of art, and it would be none the less beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be.

Books: Karamazov, Stegner, Maugham

2007-04-20T22:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to baby for giving me the chance to read long books. Finished Brothers Karamazov (939 pages) and Angle of Repose (511 pages) in a few weeks, and working on Of Human Bondage (610 pages). More on the other two books later.

There are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in england you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse.

-- Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham

Karamazov is "better" than Crime and Punishment, because it has more characters and address more universal theme. Dostoevsky is very readable. Wallace Stegner is more scholarly. Angle of Repose is an epic story of the making of American West through the life of one woman, or the story of a woman in the background of American pioneer era, plus a parallel story of the present (1970) which reflects, contrasts, and informs the story in the past. Very cleverly constructed. I was not impressed by Maugham's Razor's Edge, but I hope Of Human Bondage is a better work.

Glad to have time to read, but regret to not have time to write.

My lineage of piano teachers

2007-02-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

My lineage of piano teachers...

Sarkis Baltaian

John Perry

Cecile Genhart (1899-1983)

Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)

Music: Chopin Etude

2007-01-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

I am going to play the Chopin Etude on stage now. I found this description on the internet:

No.1 "Aeolian Harp" - with its murmuring arpeggios and pastoral melody - has been known variously as "The Shepherd Boy" and "The Aeolian Harp," with authentic stories to support each.

Chopin told a pupil, "imagine a little shepherd who takes refuge in a peaceful grotto from an approaching storm. In the distance rushes the wind and the rain, while the shepherd gently plays a melody on his flute."

Schumann, who heard Chopin play the piece, wrote, "imagine that an Aeolian harp possessed all the musical scales and that the hand of an artist were to cause them to intermingle in all sorts of fantastic embellishments, yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental tone and a soft continuously singing upper voice, and you will get an Idea of Chopin's playing. When the etude was ended, we felt as though we had seen a radiant picture in a dream which, half awake, we ached to recall."

music: piano studies

2007-01-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Last week in my piano lesson, Sarkis was pleased with the progress I made of the Chopin's Etude. He suggested me to perform this piece during the upcoming student recital hour, which is this Thursday. I did spent a lot of time the week before practicing this etude, because it was so difficult and I felt I could never have enough technical skills to achieve the artistic expression I want. After a lot of practice, I finally got over the first stage and could actually enjoy my own playing. It was the same thing with the Mozart sonata. For a long time I just couldn't "get it". Then one week suddenly I began to enjoy playing it. The next stage is to fine tune the details.

Unfortunately I don't have much time to practice the Schumann. It is also because I am still in the first stage and I don't "get it". I wish I could concentrate on learning it, because I am so lucky to have a good teacher.

I am not ready for Thursday's recital. Last time with the Mozart I had a lot of time to fine tune, but this time I don't even have time to study my own playing.

We are moving on to the next Chopin's Etude, No.7, and also Ravel's Sonatine (I bought a Dover score from Old Town Music in Pasadena, for it claims to be a reprint from the Durand edition Sarkis recommends). I want to have all the time in the world to learn these pieces, and the Prokofiev Temptation.

TTC: The Concerto by Robert Greenberg

2007-01-13T00:44:00.000-08:00

The Concerto
(24 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture) Course No. 7270
by Robert Greenberg

Ready for thrills? A concerto is exciting in ways that no other instrumental music can match. Where a symphony enthralls us with themes that are contrasted, varied, transformed, and developed, a concerto adds the extra dimension of human drama—the exhilaration of a soloist or group of soloists ringing forth against the mass of the orchestra.

Little wonder, then, that the concerto grew out of the same musical setting in 17th-century Italy that gave birth to opera. And like opera, the concerto is a vehicle for the depiction of every human emotion and relationship imaginable, from the gentlest and most tender to the most violent and confrontational, and everything in between.

The concerto is also an extreme sport for soloists, representing musical life lived at the edge, as instruments and the musicians who play them are pushed to the very limit of what is possible by composers exploring the extremes of instrumental virtuosity.

Best of all, the concerto repertoire is huge! The genre was invented long before the symphony. As a result, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli, and Telemann composed hundreds of concerti, but among them not a single symphony. Mozart's great concerti far outnumber his great symphonies; Beethoven wrote almost as many concerti as symphonies; and Brahms composed equal numbers of both. During the 18th and 19th centuries, at least as many concerti were composed as symphonies. And during the 20th century, in terms of sheer quantity, the concerto was by far the single most important genre of orchestral music.

Thrills, drama, emotion, virtuosity, and a vast repertoire—what more could a music lover ask?

300 Years of Concerti

Professor Greenberg gives a guided tour of the concerto from its conception as a child of Renaissance ideals, through its maturation in the Classical age, its metamorphosis in the Romantic era, and its radical transformation in the 20th century. The course closes with a look into the future at concerto composers who are now in mid-career and poised to carry this vibrant musical tradition well into the 21st century.

These lectures are musically rich, including selections from nearly 100 concerti representing more than 60 composers—from Gabrieli to Gershwin, from Schumann to Shostakovich.

Along with the bedrock of the repertoire, represented by Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, Bartok, and many others, you will be introduced to superb concerti by Hummel, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Moszkowski, Paderewski, Ginastera, and other less-familiar masters.

The many pieces you will explore in depth include:

* Mozart's Concerto for Flute in G Major, K. 313: For one who claimed to detest the flute, Wolfgang Mozart composed some of the most gorgeous music ever written for the instrument.
* Haydn's Concerto for Trumpet in E-flat Major: Often heard on today's concert stage, this stirring piece was nearly lost forever. It was only found in 1929—120 years after Joseph Haydn's death.
* Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major, op. 58: Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto is one of his greatest works in the genre—filled with compositional, pianistic, and expressive innovations that changed the course of Western music.
* Chopin's Piano Concerto no. 2 in F Minor, op. 21: Disdaining large-scale form, Frederic Chopin strove for achingly beautiful themes and an amazing harmonic palette. The spectacular third movement of this piece is a Polish mazurka gone wild.
* Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 16: The most beloved and recognizable concerto to early 20th century audiences was not by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Brahms; it was this piece by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.
* Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 35: In Professor Greenberg's estimation, this concerto is Peter Tchaikovsky's single greatest work and one of the greatest concerti of the 19th century.

Other highlights of the course include virtually an entire lecture devoted to Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto no. 2 in B-flat Major, op. 83; and another lecture focusing on Antonin Dvorak's Concerto for Cello in B Minor, op. 104, "the greatest cello concerto ever written," says Greenberg. You also explore some notoriously esoteric and difficult 20th-century composers, including Arnold Schoenberg and Elliott Carter, learning how their music is much more accessible than it appears.

Concerto Play-by-Play

Greenberg has put together a fascinating itinerary that will surprise, delight, and instruct you, introducing you to new realms of music and also teaching you how to appreciate familiar pieces in new ways.

And, as always, his musical analysis is a vivid play-by-play, mixing technical information (which he always explains) with a connoisseur's appreciation for the grand effect, the crucial detail, and the telling anecdote that help bring a piece of music to life. For example:

* Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048: "One could argue quite persuasively that rather than feature no soloist at all, Brandenburg 3 demands that virtually every player become a soloist."
* Mozart's Concerto for Piano no. 21 in C Major, K. 467: "Mozart creates for the piano a persona that is a rakish bon vivant that stands in contrast to the orchestra's grandeur. The piano is 'escorted' on stage, Dean Martin-like, by what I imagine to be three lovely ladies: a sultry redhead, portrayed by a solo oboe; a husky-voiced brunette, portrayed by a solo bassoon; and a ravishing blonde, portrayed by a solo flute."
* Bartok's Piano Concerto no. 2: "Bartok's music is precisely what all 21st century music should aspire to be: personal, powerful, and brilliantly crafted; music that somehow manages to reconcile diverse aspects of our global environment into a whole greater than its parts. Bartok is, truly, a composer for our time."
* Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto in D Major: "Strauss's Oboe Concerto is a masterwork of elegance, melodic grace, and concision, though it begins with a passage that strikes fear and dread in the heart of every oboist. To play the passage, an oboist has to use a technique called circular breathing, during which she must exhale air held in the cheeks while simultaneously inhaling through the nose."

A Thrill in Every Sense

Greenberg observes that the same qualities of drama and conflict that make concerti exciting experiences for the audience also create the prospect for real-life conflict among the musicians. "The performance of a concerto is ripe with potential for interpersonal conflict that goes beyond the usual conductor versus orchestra warfare," he notes. "By adding an outsider—a featured soloist—to the mix, we are witness to an exponential increase in the likelihood for interpersonal rivalry, resentment, envy, and sabotage." Professor Greenberg gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse at several incidents that illustrate the fragile egos and turf wars that seem to be an inevitable part of the business of making great music.

But great music it is—a thrill in every sense. The concerto is a genuinely theatric construct. Beyond its pitches, rhythms, and forms, it is about the aspirations of the individual—each of us, as we venture forth and make our way in a sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly, but always challenging environment.

1. The Voice in the Wilderness
2. The Baroque Italian Concerto
3. Baroque Masters
4. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti
5. Mozart, Part 1
6. Mozart, Part 2
7. Classical Masters
8. Beethoven
9. The Romantic Concerto
10. Hummel and Chopin
11. Mendelssohn and Schumann
12. Romantic Masters
13. Tchaikovsky
14. Brahms and the Symphonic Concerto
15. Dvorak
16. Rachmaninoff
17. The Russian Concerto, Part 1
18. The Russian Concerto, Part 2
19. The Concerto in France
20. Bartok
21. Schönberg, Berg and the 12-Tone Method
22. Twentieth-Century Masters
23. Elliott Carter
24. Servants to the Cause and Guilty Pleasures

misc. on movies

2007-01-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

The last few movies we watched were all fantasy-like: Donnie Darko, Bourne Supremacy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth. The first are old movies, all have something to do with the mind. The last two are new movies just coming out, and all have something to do with pregnancy and childbirth, one set in the future and one in the past. We paid a lot of attention to the childbirth process. Bitrh is still a miracle of life.

This year I plan to watch movies from the 1950s. When I have time, I will write a summary of the 40s movies (I haven't finished the ones I want to watch, but I must move on.)

In Tucson, we visited the Old Tucson Studio where they shot many western films. I thought I have seen a lot of the old western films, but when I looked at the list of the films shot there, I realized there were many more that I haven't even heard of. Maybe I will watch a few of the top listed westerns and see if I can recognize the Old Tucson.

Dostoyevsky and Borges

2006-12-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Borges's Non-fictions.

I'm 128 pages into Dostoyevsky now. His characters all seems one-dimensional and stereotyped. The novel is full of dialogs and conversations. People say things that is consistent with their characters, but somehow the book, the dialogs are still very interesting to read! I don't know why. That shows the work of a master.

From the very beginning, Dostoyevsky said that Alexey is his hero. I saw an adapted play earlier this year and the Alexey was badly acted, so I did not like Alexey even before starting the book. Alexey seems to be the most one-dimensional and plain character--the good, the holy, the saint person who always does the good. I am constantly fighting against my prejudice to like him. This will be a challenge.

In Book 1, I like all the passages about the elder. He is the good, the holy, the saint one, but his understanding and love for humanity is penetrating and insightful. Then It is Dostoyevsky who is understanding and insightful.

I am starting on Borges again because Ronsheim mentioned him in his lecture. Borges might be my role model--one who is interested in many subjects and writes short essays. He is a man of knowledge and confidence. I want to learn more about him.

Ronsheim

2006-12-14T00:42:00.000-08:00

Before John Cage, the composers had to be responsible for the sound. You have to be responsible for your art.

Tonal music has nothing to say after Wagner. Mahler is too self-conscious.

French music--objective, cold, commitment to perception & sensation, just be & not becoming (no need to resolve)

English has only one genius. It is the written word.

German--think well, compose well...

Italian--no moral, all aesthetic, empathy

Ravel vs. Debussy, **square phrase, more classical, less imaginative, great orchestrator

Book: Brothers Karamazov

2006-12-13T19:12:00.000-08:00

Monday night I couldn't sleep. I decided to start reading Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. It is 940 pages long, translated by Constance Garnett, published by Modern Library. One chapter at a time.

As a general rule, people, even he wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too. -- Chapter 1

John Ronsheim's music lectures

2006-12-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

A rare chance I found recordings of John Ronsheim's classes on contemporary muisc, each 2-4 hours long, and a total of almost 70 hours. what a wealth of music knowledge and passion! I have listened to three lectures so far--

Brief history of music from c. 1000-1859. Works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt and Wagner exhibiting the breakdown of the tonal system. Analysis of Mozart K. 465, Adagio (Introduction).

Schoenberg’s last “atonal” work. Late Scriabin. Debussy piano music and late sonatas. Ravel piano music and orchestrated versions. Neoclassicism: Prokofiev. Spanish nationalism: De Falla. Debussy’s Spanish “Iberia.” Stravinsky, Satie. Janacek. Kodaly and Bartok. Analysis of Wozzeck.

Berg’s Wozzeck. Schoenberg’s first twelve-tone pieces, opp. 23-26. Hindemith. Analysis of Schoenberg.

Ronsheim was a professor at a liberal art college, Antioch College, in Ohio. His is opinionated and passionated about contemporary music. I am learning a lot from him.

We listened to the introduction of Mozart's dissonant string quartet, and analyzed how Mozart was playing with tonality, so to create moments of chaos, of not knowing where home (key) is. Otherwise, classical music is most predictable.

Then came along Beethoven, who wanted to be revolutionary, to be different. In his symphonies, Beethoven prolonged the period before coming back to the home key. He avoided cadence as much as possible. In my theory review class, we also analyzed Beethoven's violin concerto, and looked at how he avoided cadence time and time again.

Ronsheim briefly discussed Schubert, Chopin and Liszt, showing how they also tried to stay away from a clear tonal center. Liszt's B minor sonata was only B minor in the title. My recent studies gave me new perspectives to all the familiar composers and their works. I have better appreciation of their work.

Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel were also analyzed. Scriabin went around and around and never confirmed in any key. Debussy and Ravel were pure color, pure sonority, pure beauty of sound. They could compose Spanish music better than any Spanish composers.

They he slashed Prokofiev. Ouch! Prokofiev is neo-classicist, whom Ronsheim despised. He said everyone should always be creative, look forward, and write for the future. Prokofiev is a fan of Haydn, and he used four-measure phrases, which is boring. He has a point--Prokofiev's music is "easy listening" compared to other contemporary music.

He went in length in discussing Wagner. He became excessively emotional when he was telling us what was going on in the music. In the famous Tristan prelude, he showed us how the avoidance of cadence created longing. To me, his teaching is more effective than that of Robert Greenberg, Bernstein, and my other teachers, because he was one with the music. We also listened to the end of Tristan, and finally I could understand how this "going on and on" led us to more and more built-up of emotions, and when the final cadence came, how love and life had transformed.

What to do after Wagner, who wrote 4-hour long music with only one single cadence? Mahler admired Wagner, but he could not outdone Wagner. He was in the purest sense an idealist, and confused. There's more lecture about Mahler I have yet to listen to.

Ronsheim admired Schoenberg, and his courage to do what he has to do--abandoning tonality altogether. He also admired Berg. I found these lectures when I was looking for information on Wozzeck.

In the lectures, he talked about some literary figures. He is a true classicist--he had read so much and understood so much. H talked about how Kafka was a confused writer who did not know who he was, and wrote about the chaos in his life. Then he talked about Borges, how he knew exactly who he was. I also like Borges, because he is beyond himself, and can never go back to be himself. I feel the same.

I am looking forward to listening to the whole series of lectures. I am revising my Flute theme and variations, and try to create something less predictable, less boring, but more imaginative, and more enduring.

The principal of music in Baroque era is still applicable:

The intention of music is not only to please the ear, but to express sentiment, strike the imagination, affect the mind, and command the passions.

the intention of music, Geminiano

2006-12-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

The intention of music is not only to please the ear, but to express sentiment, strike the imagination, affect the mind, and command the passions. -- Geminiano

Mozart was the delight of my youth, the desperation of my mature years, and the consolation in my old age. -- Rossini

Piano lesson report

2006-11-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

Today my piano teacher was pleased with my playing of the Mozart Sonata.

I was half an hour late for my lesson, and had only time to play the Mozart. I did not practice much the whole week, so I was secretly glad to avoid the humiliation of the Chopin and Schumann. For different reasons, Chopin and Schumann was very difficult for me. I could never get all the notes right in Chopin. And for Schumann, I simply do not know how to play beautifully with my arms.

Mozart is a different story. I have been listening to lectures about Mozart, about classical era music, and about Mozart's chamber music for the last few weeks. I have gained better understanding of Mozart and his music. Even though I only played a few times during the last two weeks after my recital, I was able to get the music more deeply in my blood. When I played today, I felt very comfortable and confident musically most of the time, although I still got wrong notes and missed some technical parts. Sarkis was happy with my progress. He said I was better than some of the piano majors, and I should consider being a piano major. That was a great compliment. My mother also said to me

很高兴聽到你的弹琴录音，弹得很不錯，我覺得你弹琴比以前從容，节奏也稳定，音樂流暢大氣，很有樂感，可能是电腦音响关系，音色變化不够，副部太响，跑句起伏可大些，每個音都应該歌唱，弹莫扎特作品聲音要精致，不可粗重。

Maybe Chopin and Schumann also need more time to sink into me after I get through all the technical parts.

For Mozart, Sarkis recommends Richard Goode to me. I've just looked him up on the internet and here is his profile: Richard Goode.

Next week after my individual lesson, we will have a master class for everyone, and then the week after is the jury. Sarkis could probably help me get a key to the grand piano practice room.

Ravel's Sonatine is on my list. Yesterday in another class (Contemporary Techniques), Peter played the first few measures of it. He is learning it, and said it's very difficult. Even he says so. He used to be a very good pianist.

Cavafy 卡瓦菲斯：伟大的现代诗人

2006-11-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

不懂诗的我，去年在亚历山大的时候，也特地去 Cavafy 旧址(现在是 Cavafy Cavafy Museum) 看了一眼。这些作家诗人都是相连的。最初是从 Henry Miller 的希腊游记认识了 Lawrence Durrell；从 Durrell 的 Alexanderia Quartet，认识了 Cavafy。在亚历山大，寻找 Durrell 笔下花天酒地的城市，也去寻找诗人 Cavafy。

去的时候是傍晚，博物馆已经关门。他的家在离繁华大街不远的小巷一角，黑乎乎的，静幽幽的，没有门牌，不知是不是走错了。借着门口一盏小黄灯的微弱灯光，仔细研究墙上的阿拉伯文小牌子，觉得应该就是了。看着黑洞洞的大门，不知里面更是怎样的破旧，幻想着 Cavafy 是怎样的一个诗人，被 Durrell 称为 Poet of the City (of Alexandria)。

转了一圈回来，七月MM在玛雅咖啡给我介绍卡瓦菲斯。

Music: multiplication in 12-tone technique (Wiikipedia)

2006-11-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

Multiplication

The mathematical operations of multiplication has been used in other ways for twelve-tone technique, and music set theory.

Pitch class multiplication modulo 12

When dealing with pitch class sets, multiplication modulo 12 is a common operation. Dealing with all twelve tones, or a tone row, there are only a few numbers which one may multiply a row by and still end up with a set of twelve distinct tones. Taking the prime or unaltered form as P₀, multiplication is indicated by $M x$ , $x$ being the multiplicator:

M
1	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
5	5	10	3	8	1	6	11	4	9	2	7
7	7	2	9	4	11	6	1	8	3	10	5
11	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Only M₁, M₅, M₇, and M₁₁ give a one to one mapping (a complete set of 12 unique tones). This is because each of these numbers is relatively prime to 12. Also interesting is that the chromatic scale is mapped to the circle of fourths with M₅, or fifths with M₇, and more generally under M₇ all even numbers stay the same while odd numbers are transposed by a tritone. This kind of multiplication is frequently combined with a transposition operation. It was first described in print in Eimert 1950, and has been used by the composers Milton Babbitt, Robert Morris, and Charles Wuorinen.

Pitch multiplication

Pierre Boulez (1971) described an operation he called pitch multiplication, which is somewhat akin to the Cartesian product of pitch class sets. Given two sets, the result of pitch multiplication will be the set of sums (modulo 12) of all possible pairings of elements between the original two sets. Its definition:

For example, if multiplying a C major chord ${0,4,7}$ with a dyad containing C,D ${0,2}$ , the result is:

In this example, a set of 3 pitches multiplied with a set of 2 pitches gives a new set of 3 × 2 pitches. Given the limited space of modulo 12 arithmetic, when using this procedure very often duplicate tones are produced, which are generally omitted. This technique was used most famously in Boulez's 1955 masterpiece Le marteau sans maître, as well as in his Third Piano Sonata, Pli selon pli, Eclat (and Eclat multiples), Figures-Doubles-Prisms, Domaines, and Cummings ist der Dichter, as well as the withdrawn choral work, Oubli signal lapidé (1952) (Koblyakov 1990; Heinemann 1993 and 1998).

Music: characters of classical style

2006-11-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

Classical Style (Greenberg)

1. Clarity and beauty of line, i.e. melody
2. Balance and purity of form, i.e. clear phrase structure and carefully wrought musical form
3. Expressive restraint and good taste, purity of conception and expression

Mozart: "I am a opera composer who writes piano concerto for a living and chamber music for friends."

These are good lessons to pay attention to.

TTC: Liszt--His Life and Music

2006-11-13T23:12:00.000-08:00

I've been learning about the great masters of music. After Shostakovich, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumanns, I've just learned more about Liszt, his life and music from Professor Greenberg. Before this lecture, I had very different conception of Liszt.

I played two of his piano pieces when I was in high school. One was Liebestraum, very romantic with a lot of swelling emotions. The other, a concert etude, was full of cross-hand arpeggios, and my mother told me it would be a great piece to show off because it looked much more difficult than it really was. I used to like Liszt Piano Concerto because it was passionate and swelling. When I first learned about program music, I got some Liszt's music on CD because of the familiar titles. After that, every time I read about Liszt, it was always something less than favorable. From his personality, to his personal life, and his artistic talent, he was often depicted as a playboy, a show man, a celebrity, but without substance.

The 8 lectures changed my view of Liszt. From the childhood, he showed a great talent in piano playing. He grew up with piano, is probably the first great pianist, if not the greatest pianist ever lived. His parents moved to Vienna in order to let Liszt study piano with Czerny, the student of Beethoven. (By the way, my mother's teacher's teacher is supposed to be Liszt's student.) Czerny taught Liszt for free for about a year, and Liszt's parents had to take him on tour because they ran out of money in Vienna. Liszt had only one official piano teacher and less than two years of formal music training. He saw a performance of Paganini and decided to be the Paganini of the piano. He practiced many hours a day, and wrote piano pieces only himself could play. He toured everywhere in Europe for a decade. He then settled in Weimar, and composed large scale works. He wrote many piano transcriptions of orchestral and opera works by other composers. He invented symphonic poems. In later years, he wrote religious music.

As a composer, he was always trying new things, and was considered the first modernist. Many of his pieces did not turn out well, but he believed to write and publish everything on his mind. (In Greenberg's opinion, only Bach and Mozart can write everything without editorial work.) In my history class, Liszt was the first one to use 12-tone in his music. He invented solo recital, and master class.

Liszt's personal life was not as bad as I first thought. He was with a married countess for some years and fathered three children. After that, he met his soul mate, Princess Carolyn and lived together for 12 years as a couple. She could not get a divorce from the church for many years. On the eve of their planned marriage, they received the news that the divorce could not be granted, and she broke down and broke off. Liszt never married. His second daughter, Cosima, first married his student, then ran away with Richard Wagner, eventually married him. Liszt was unhappy about the match. When Wagner was little known and being politically prosecuted, only Liszt promoted Wagner's music relentlessly.

Liszt was a generous man. He donated a lot of money to charity and noble causes. His Hungarian people loved and adored him. I imagine Liszt as a man, a master, a hero, with a big heart.

He died in Wagner's town during a Wagner festival, and was buried there. Greenberg declared Liszt's life a life well-lived. Yes, a life filled with love, with music, with friends, with honor, with god, indeed is a life well-lived.

I will take a break from biography now. I don't want to study Brahms right after Liszt. I am going back to Mozart's chamber music, and learn some compositional techniques. Maybe I will try to write a string quartet later this term.

====
Great Masters: Liszt--His Life and Music
(8 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Robert Greenberg

Course Lecture Titles

1. Le Concert, C'est Moi—The Concert is Me
2. A Born Pianist
3. Revelation
4. Transcendence
5. Weimar
6. The Music at Weimar
7. Rome
8. A Life Well Lived

Musically, Liszt (1811—1886) is one of the most written about but least understood composers of the 19th century. As for his life, perhaps a good place to begin is with Felix Mendelssohn's observation that Liszt's character was "a continual alternation between scandal and apotheosis."

"Liszto-mania!" or A Portrait of the Artist as Hero

More than anyone before him--more than Beethoven, Byron, even the preternatural Paganini--it was Liszt who created one of the most enduring archetypes of the Romantic era: that of the artist "who walks with God and brings down fire from heaven in order to kindle the hearts of humankind."

We learn why it made sense to so many at the time, and why it drove others, Brahms and his friend Clara Schumann among them, up the proverbial wall.

Liszt was without a doubt the greatest pianist of his time, and may well be the greatest of all time. Traveling arduously all over Europe on mail coaches, playing whatever instrument was available in whatever hall he could find, he stunned even the most jaded critics and listeners everywhere he went with his sheer virtuosity and almost unbelievable musical gifts.

Two Sides of a Virtuoso

Liszt was an innovative composer both for his own instrument and on an orchestral scale, a visionary about the future of art, a big-hearted developer of young talent who frequently taught for no pay, and a sincere lover of gypsy freedom as well as Franciscan faith and charity.

Liszt also had many sides to his personal life. He was a lover of adulation and women, sleeping with everyone from countesses and princesses to wild-eyed young groupies; a well-meaning but absent and rather indifferent father to three out-of-wedlock children; and a Hungarian patriot who spent most of his time in Paris, Germany, and Rome.

Additionally, Liszt was a self-conscious artiste, damaging his own reputation by insisting on publishing just about every piece of music that came from his pen and a proud meritocrat from peasant stock who nonetheless had a weakness for what struck some observers as pseudo-aristocratic posturing.

The Gypsy Franciscan

On stage--he was the first pianist ever to play a solo concert--he was a shameless showoff. But he had the talent to display, and this attention-loving side of Liszt was inseparable from his apotheosis as a veritable deity of the keyboard who could sight-read even the most difficult and illegible score with the pages turned upside down--all the while playing the piece flawlessly and commenting on it as he played! Liszt would hardly have reached "legend" status if his chosen instrument had been the oboe.

As Liszt himself said of his zest for living, "In life one must decide whether to conjugate the verb to have or the verb to be."

For all his reputation (much of it very well earned indeed) as a lady-killer, a high-society bon vivant, and something of a 19th-century rock star, Liszt was also a man of warm, heartfelt Catholic piety and moving personal generosity.

He held many benefit concerts--among his causes were building a monument to Beethoven and flood relief in Hungary--and the stories of his acts of kindness are legion.

Liszt: A Brief Biography

Liszt was born into a musical family in 1811. His father, Adam, recognized his musical gifts when Franz was about 5 and gave him piano lessons. The family moved to Vienna when Franz was 11 to continue his musical education. In a subsequent tour of Europe, nobles, stunned by the prodigy's abilities, offered letters of introduction to the next stop on the tour.

Finally, the Liszt family landed in Paris, where Franz performed almost non-stop. The aristocrats of the city loved Franz, and he absorbed their language, culture, and sophistication. During these years, Liszt wrote his Etudes en douze exercices, which he would rewrite as the Grand Etudes in 1838 and as the Transcendental Etudes in 1851.

After his father died in 1827 and a nervous breakdown over the ending of a love affair, he stopped practicing the piano and did not write any music. For three years, he was depressed, ill, and apathetic. Finally, the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris blasted Liszt out of his lethargy and reignited his creative energies.

After the revolution, Liszt became a popular figure at Parisian salons and met Nicolo Paganini and Hector Berlioz, two men who would help shape his vision of himself as a composer and pianist.

In 1847, Liszt met Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who would become his soulmate and mistress. Liszt took up conducting and composing for the orchestra in Weimar, ultimately turning out his "symphonic poems" and Faust and Dante symphonies.

After flirting with the priesthood following the deaths of two children, Liszt's final years were filled with music, traveling, honors, and a few disappointments. He divided his living arrangements among Rome; Weimar, where he taught extensively; and Budapest, where he was honored as a national hero. He died of a heart attack on July 31, 1886.

"A Talented Humbug"?

Some critics, then and now, have felt that Liszt, while incomparable at the keyboard, was derivative and seriously uneven as a composer. The conductor Hermann Levi even called him "a talented humbug."

What is the truth about Liszt as a composer? Does he belong in the first flight with Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart? How should his avant-garde risk-taking—his invention of the "symphonic poem," for instance—affect his reputation?

And how should Liszt's truly extraordinary performance innovations affect our answer?

Works by Liszt Excerpted in These Lectures:

Etude in Twelve Exercises, No. 10 in F Minor (1826)
Grande Fantasie de Bravoure sur La Clochette, variations (1832)
Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor (1851)
Totentanz (1849, revised 1853-1859)
Sonata in B Minor for Piano (1853)
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major (1849, revised 1861)
Faust Symphony (1854)
Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (1860)
Christus (1866)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 19 in D Minor (1885)
Transcendental Etude No. 8, Wilde Jagd ( Wild Chase ) (1838/1851)
Variation on a Theme by Diabelli, (1822)
Arrangement of "Scaffold March" from Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique (1833)
Divertissement on the Cavatina " I tuoi frequenti palpiti " from Pacini's La Niobe (1833)
Six Grand Etudes After Paganini No. 5, "The Chase" (1838/1851)
Six Grand Etudes After Paganini, No. 3, "La Campanella" (1838/1851)
Funerailles (1849)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major (1849, revised 1856)
Franciscan Legend No. 1 from St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds from Franciscan Legend (1863)

Music: current piano repertoire

2006-11-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

New repertoire for piano:

(1) Bach- Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (choose any)
(2) Ravel- Sonatine in F Sharp Minor
(3) Prokofiev- Suggestion Diabolique, Op 4, No 4

Yesterday I watched a video on youtube of the Suggestion Diabolique by Prokofiev. It is devilishly difficult.

Our plan is to finish Mozart Sonata K310 next year (all three movements), Chopin "Harp" Etude Op.12-1, and Schumann's Kinderszenen. I began to enjoy Mozart after many hours of practice. Chopin is still too difficult for me technically. As for Schumann, I am not sensitive enough to play him--my fingers and my feelings are still too rough. I don't know if I will ever get to play Schumann well.

My main challenge of piano playing is lack of concentration. I try to learn two things: be mindful, and have clear intention. These are also good ways to follow in life.

Become a Mozart's fan

2006-11-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Wye Jamison Allanbrook: dreamlike, ... with no limit or consequence, innocent of shame, and heedless of the world.

Maynard Solomon on the beauty of Mozart's music

Such beauty conveys a sense of discovery, revealing that which we have not previously seen, and the element of surprise as accompanied by a leap in understanding, an expansion of sensibility. The "oh!" in our reaction to this kind of beauty is the "oh!" of wonder, the discovery of something beyond what we thought existed. The intake of breath says we have taken into ourselves something extraordinary which we are loathed to let go until silence has restored us to the ordinary world. It is a beauty that rises from the remaking of the rules, rather than exemplifying them, informing us of things that have never been named, for these beauties express the nameless feelings, those that are illusive, fused, ambivalent, fantastic.

Charles Rosen on the erotic power of Mozart's music

Perhaps no composer uses the seductive physical power of music with the intensity and range of Mozart. What is most extraordinary about Mozart’s style is the [] combination of physical delight, a sensuous play of sonority, and an indulgence in the most luscious harmonic sequences with purity and economy of line and form that render the seduction all more the efficient.

Applegate describes an immersion in Mozart's music "like witnessing the innocence of a young child who sees the world in that innocence but leaves you with a profound impression. There's a complete absence of cynicism. Mozart is never the jaded adult."

CSULA Student Recital Hour (Mozart KV 310)

2006-11-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

California State University, Los Angeles
Department of Music
Student Recital Hour
November 9, 2006, 3:20pm Music Hall

Program
Schubert (1797-1828) Fruhlingsglaube; Auf dem wasser zu singen. Naomi Peterson, soprano; Shannon Tran, piano
Mozart (1756-1791) Piano Sonata K310 in A minor, Allegro maestro. Ah-San Wong, piano
Donaudy (1879-1925) Quando ti rivedro.... Alyssa Gioscia, soprano; Ja Koo, piano
Sondheim (b. 1930) Johanna, from Sweeney Todd. Miguel Montalva, tenor; Ja Koo, piano
Debussy (1862-1918) Clair de Lune, Andante tres expressif. George K. Won, piano
Purcell (1659-1695) Sweeter Than Roses. Erika Sandoval, soprano; Twylar Meyer, piano
Puccini (1858-1924) O mio babbino caro, from Gianni Schicchi. Meghan Boswell Carungcong, soprano; Twyla Meyer, piano
Tajma Beverly, Wolf, from Looking for Tarzan, Act II, Tajma Beverly, jazz voice and piano

I haven't performed solo in a recital for many years. I signed up for the student recital hour at school.I had been to one such recital before, and I had an idea of the expected quality of performance. CSULA is not U Mich, and the recital hour gives students a chance to perform in front of an audience. Still, I was very nervous about it and did not want to make a fool of myself.

I started to learn the first movement of Mozart's A minor sonata two years ago, and this term I worked hard on it with my teacher Sarkis Baltaian. Only the last two weeks when I could listen to myself on a recorder, did I begin to enjoy practicing and improving. I never thought I could play Mozart well, because my fingers are usually messy and inaccurate, prone to wrong notes, unevenness, unsteady rhythm... everything that is not Mozartian. (Same with Beethoven--I lack his anger, his revolutionary will, his resolution.) Because of this piece, I listened to the biography of Mozart, and learned something about his personality and style.

Classical music is all about good taste, elegance, contrast and balance. Mozart believes piano music should be fluid, not angular like Beethoven. Although written during the period his mother was ill or died, this sonata was not so much about anger; although filled with dissonance, and darker (as in a minor key), it was still elegant and bright in sections.

The first theme is stately, majestic, and dignified, with interludes of quiet escape. The transition ends in an orchestral sounding cadence. The second theme comes from nowhere, is elegant, and fluid, like little pearls of light. The development section is full of dissonance and dramatic contrast, yet Mozart is never harsh or sudden. Everything is in good pace, good taste, and composure. In the coda section, the sudden interruption of diminished chords is the only striking sound in the whole movement, and this makes the final cadence effective and satisfying.

I wrote down on a piece of paper several keywords about Mozart: "elegance, balance, fluid, drama, good taste", to help me concentrate on the quality of Mozartian sound. However, when I was on stage, I lost my composure early, and did not have enough time to reflect on the Mozart quality. The action of the Yamaha grand piano was much stiffer than my Kawai upright at home. I missed some notes during the first theme, but soon I was able to get used to the action. Later I was pleasantly surprised that the keys were relatively even and the range of sounds was so much greater than my upright. I felt I could be more expressive with the grand piano on stage. However, I was still nervous, and I sped up more and more (although later when I heard a recording of my performance the tempo was not that fast). My face was all flushed and I was sweating. I kept going, and did not give up, hoping I could get better toward the end. I was glad to keep doing my best throughout. When I finished, I heard very enthusiastic applause and even some loud cheers. The audience seemed to like my performance! I was thrilled.

Backstage, Meyer told me she enjoyed my performance, and liked the drama. I did not think of drama when I was playing. I was only trying to be elegant and balanced. Maybe she was right. And my teacher and Greenberg did tell me the key to Mozart is his operas. I will have to learn more about Mozart's operas.

Overall it was not as bad as it could have been. Although technically I could only retain 60% of the skill I practiced, I might have made up in the style and air I presented. I remember several years ago when I was playing chamber music at Caltech, although technically I was not prepared, my friend George told me that I looked like a real musician while others were like students. I did not believe him. But maybe he had a good point. As my understanding of music keeps growing, I will become closer and closer to an instrument of music, and perhaps one day I will be part of music.

Movie: The Departed (vs. Infernal Affairs)

2006-11-10T00:40:00.000-08:00

We went to see The Departed tonight. It was a disappointment. The Hong Kong version (无间道) was much more complex, more compact, more symmetric, more psychologically intense than just plain violence, more hi-tech, and overall more artistic than the US remake. I thought they would at least put something new in the US version, but they had taken a lot of the sophistication out, and added unnecessary violence. The characters in the US version are so one-dimensional. As to the ending.... do Hollywood audience really need the closure?

>WOA wrote:
阿姗，恕我直言，这个问题上你自己需要反省。

首先我推荐的时候，声明该片是限制级，也就是看过《无间道》的人要自我限制。

其次，全地球人民都喜闻乐见好莱坞的突破――尽管是借来的突破――《Departed》光是票房就肯定两倍于投资，今后的DVD就是净赚，所以这是当之无愧的时代主旋律。

我庆幸自己顺了一回主流，但你的边缘倾向有愈行愈远之势，边缘无边，回头是岸，切记啊，切记。

最近怎么老被批判呀。难道我成了咖啡的边缘人？:( 一直以为自己入了主流呢。

就是因为想入主流，才去看香港的警匪片无间道。以前哪肯去看港产片呢。觉得还不错。这次又是为了入流，跑去看 Departed。美国的犯罪片也看了很多（IMDb top 50 除了 Kill Bill 外都看过了），近些年越来越大同小异了。本来以为 Departed 能利用香港电影的故事，加上好莱坞的特技效果，会如何令人震惊的。想不到，故事完全照抄也抄不全，故事简单化，人物平面化，特技也就是些在别的电影里都常见的暴力。另外，香港的黑社会的故事搬到波士顿也不合适。在香港，警察是唯一的执法机构，结构操作相对简单，所以电影中人物之间的关系也相对简单明了；在美国，有多种执法机构，多种黑帮组织，电影的人物交待不清楚，如果不是已经知道故事，一定会很迷惑。也许这样，Departed 的情节和人物才相对简单一些。

不过，近几年我离好莱坞越来越远了。以前我是一心要打入好莱坞圈子的，认识不少在 "the industry" 里外的人，也狂补了几乎所有好莱坞片子。后来觉得已经基本入了流，而且比很多主流还主流，成了主流精英，就忽然不在乎了。现在看电影的机会少，更是希望能够精选。毕竟，好莱坞影片大同小异，每年看几部，在社交场合能用到，就够了。我不看电视，所以好莱坞大片是一定要赶时髦去看的。

另外，批判 Departed 的多是香港人和先看过《无间道》的人。这样讲来，我才算是主流呢。:)

音乐与建筑

2006-11-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

今天上课学习奏鸣曲式，研究了几首莫扎特奏鸣曲的和声结构，真正体会了音乐与建筑之间的共性。一个作曲家就是一个建筑师，每一个音符都是建筑的一砖一瓦，或是坚固的栋梁，或是精小的装饰，既要牢固，又要美观，还体现了社会面貌和艺术家的个性。能够经受历史时间与文化考验的，一定是那些用石头建成的美丽的音乐。莫扎特的音乐就是这样。

这两天我疯了，从网上下载了莫扎特全集180张CD，把新硬盘占得满满的。180张CD，要听多久呢。不管了。我下决心要做一次莫扎特的粉丝。

Reference:
音乐与建筑
美丽的石头----建筑是凝固的音乐
音乐是流动的建筑，建筑是凝固的音乐

TTC: The Schumanns--their lives and music

2006-11-08T01:06:00.000-08:00

"If you want to play Schumann, you must know the literature, especially E.T.A. Hoffman. If you want to play Mozart, you must know his operas. For Schubert, it's his songs; for Beethoven, it's his symphonies," my piano teacher Sarkis told me today.

I finished the biographies of Robert and Clara Schumann by Robert Greenberg today. Schumann lived a relatively short and productive musical life. Robert Schumann, the husband of the great pianist Clara Schumann, a father of eight, a music critic, friend of Mendelssohn, discoverer of Schubert, and mentor of Brahms, he is a true Romantic poet. He combines literature and music into one. With his fascinating imagination and sensitivity, he created many masterpieces representative of the Romantic period. I am learning his Kinderszenen ("Scenes From Childhood") Op.15, written in 1838 when he was 28. There is boundless richness in the harmony. One cannot be over sensitive to play these little pieces of jewels.

He died of madness and syphilis. Poor, poor soul. And poor Clara. I didn't know she was such a famous pianist. And there was Brahms. I can't bear to learn about Brahms, after Liszt.

Great Masters: The Schumanns—Their Lives and Music
(8 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
by Robert Greenberg

1. Isn't it Romantic!
2. A Pianist in Leipzig
3. Clara
4. Carnaval
5. Marriage and Songs
6. The Symphonic Year
7. Illness Takes Hold
8. Madness

In this course we meet the Schumanns--brilliant, gifted, troubled, and unique in the history of music.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and his wife Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896) have earned a distinct place in the annals of Western music. As a couple with a two-career marriage--he as a pioneering critic and composer, she as one of the leading concert pianists of Europe--they were highly exceptional in their own time though they seem very contemporary in ours.

Great Critic, Great Composer—Coupled with a Great Pianist

Robert Schumann is unique by virtue of being the only great composer who was also a great critic. His contributions to the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), the periodical he founded in 1834, made him far better known originally as a writer than composer. It also gave him a platform from which he could champion the Romantic ideas that informed his own works and recognize the geniuses of his time, including Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Franz Liszt.

The Zeitschrift would go down in history as one of the most important periodicals in the musical 19th century. Robert was its leading voice for 10 years, until depression and ill health led him to sell it in 1844. When he returned to print again nine years later it was a memorable occasion, for he broke his long silence to hail the gifts of a brilliant but thus far unknown young composer from Hamburg named Johannes Brahms.

This essay proved a mixed blessing for Brahms, but it clearly showed the quality of Robert's critical judgment. It came at the beginning of a close friendship between Brahms and the Schumann family. This friendship endured through the difficult years when Clara had to concertize continually to support her children after Robert's death.

Clara, the only woman who is a subject of the Great Masters series, was one of the most famous pianists and acclaimed touring musicians in Europe at a time when women of her class were rarely encouraged to pursue careers outside the home.

She was also a composer of no small talent, though her family commitments and touring schedule kept her from developing her compositional gifts as fully as she might have. The songs that she did compose with Robert's encouragement show great promise, however.

An Extraordinary Marriage

Clara was the only daughter of Friedrich Wieck, a tyrannical yet innovative piano teacher. His methods may have caused the crippling hand injury that ended Robert's own dreams of becoming a piano virtuoso and caused him to turn decisively toward writing and composing as his way of making an impact on the art of his time.

Clara first met her future husband when he was 18 and she was only 9. The two fell in love when Robert was 25 and she was 16--five years after her public-performance debut on the stage of the Gewandhaus in her native Leipzig.

After a dramatic, intrigue-filled courtship that included smuggled letters, secret meetings, and a lawsuit brought by Clara against her outraged father, the couple would marry when Robert was 30 and Clara was a day short of her 21st birthday.

Their alliance would result in eight children and was a loving one, though not without its tensions--Clara had been raised to be a star on the concert stage, not a conventional wife and mother, and Robert did not always find it comfortable to be the husband of a woman whose fame and earning power exceeded his own, or to endure the slights he sometimes received while making the concert rounds with her.

And Clara was not only the main breadwinner of a growing family, but the wife of an emotionally unstable man who alternated between manic bouts of awesome creativity (he once wrote an entire symphony in four days) and terrifying fits of depression, exacerbating the worsening effects of the syphilis that would eventually kill him.

Triumph Amid Adversity

Despite his illness and instability, Robert Schumann triumphed over adversity by leaving behind a magnificent legacy of compositions and insights into music.

He began as a writer of exquisite, often literature-inspired works for piano or piano and voice such as Papillons (1831), Carnaval (1835), Arabesque (1839), and Frauenliebe und Leben (1840). He succeeded, with Clara's indispensable encouragement, in combining his taste for "program music" with the strict compositional technique and abstract content required to write chamber and orchestral music--the kind of "stand-alone" works that critics call "absolute music."

Thus Robert was able, in the wonderful "symphonic year" of 1841, to step out from beneath the long shadow cast by Beethoven's symphonies and make his own mark in this form with his First Symphony in B-flat Major, to be followed by three more by 1851.

In the second half of 1842, Robert turned his energies to chamber music and produced three string quartets as well as a piano quartet and piano quintet, all of which remain among the most enduring works in the chamber repertoire.

Music was, for the Romantic 19th century, truly the ultimate art form, and Robert Schumann, according to Professor Greenberg, represents its Romantic quintessence.

"Of all the early Romantic composers, it is Robert Schumann even more than Hector Berlioz whose music stands as the quintessence of the Romantic ideal—an art that combines music and literary storytelling in pursuit of the fullest possible degree of expression. It tended to strike contemporaries (including, in this case, even Schumann's own wife, Clara) with its originality, its personal character, and its willingness to test aesthetic limits."

Among the musical selections in this course are excerpts from the following works:

Robert Schumann's Works

* Papillons (Butterflies), op. 2 (1831)
* Carnaval, op. 9 (1835)
* Symphony no. 1 in B-flat Major (Spring), op. 38 (1841)
* Piano Quintet in E-flat, op. 44 (1842)
* Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri), oratorio (1843)
* Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54 (1845)
* Concert Piece for Four Horns and Orchestra, op. 86 (1849)
* Symphony no. 3 in E-flat Major, op. 97, Rhenish (1850)
* An Anna, song (1828)
* Symphony in G Minor, WoO 29, Zwickau (1832)
* Kreisleriana, op. 16 (1838)
* Arabesque, op. 18 (1839)
* Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman's Love and Life), op. 42 (1840)
* Symphony no. 2 in C Major, op. 61 (1846)
* Theme in E-flat Major. (1854)

Clara Schumann's Works

* Walzer (1834)
* Soirées Musicales, op. 6 (1836)
* Am Strand (Musing on the Roaring Ocean) (1840).

TTC: How to Listen to and Understand Great Music

2006-11-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

I have finished the 36 hours of 48 lectures on "music". I feel accomplished. It is a non-standard survey of 2000 years of western music by Professor Greenberg. I have enjoyed this series greatly, and I recommend it to all who are interested in music. Greenberg puts composers and their music in the historical and social context, and the composers and their critics, their audience all come alive. This systematic study of the history of music fills many gaps in my understanding of music composition of different periods and styles. I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn music from Greenberg, and I'm looking forward for more of his great lectures.

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
Hear and understand an entire language of unmatched beauty, genius, and power.
(48 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Robert Greenberg
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley

Why Is Concert Music So Powerful?

How can concert music—once it is understood—so move our lives? Greenberg explains in his introductory lecture: "Music—the most abstract and sublime of all the arts—is capable of transmitting an unbelievable amount of expressive, historical, and even philosophical information to us, provided that our antennas are up and pointed in the right direction. A little education goes a long way to vitalizing and rendering relevant a body of music that many feel is beyond their grasp."

And why should an understanding of concert music be worthwhile anyway? A few reasons:

The skills one brings to listening to music—imagination; abstract, nonconcrete thinking; intuition; and instinctive reaction and trusting those instincts—have gone uncultivated in our educational system and culture for too long.
Music, as a universal, nonverbal language, allows us to tap into the social, cultural, and aesthetic traditions of different cultures and historical eras. We become more aware of our shared humanity and the wisdom and vision of others.
Music allows us to transcend our own world and partake in utterly different realities.
Last, but certainly not least, good music is fun to listen to, relatively inexpensive—we can do it by ourselves or with others—and there are any number of ways to expand our knowledge and appreciation of the art.

Grammar: Greenberg gives an outstanding grasp of musical forms, techniques, and terms—the grammatical elements that make you fluent in the language of music. These are not dull concepts. Greenberg alerts us to the need for them:

"Music, like any pseudoscience, requires an adjectival palette by which we can isolate events that without proper terms we might not even be able to notice. It's an interesting question to what degree language allows us to perceive things that are not language-associated. I'm a strong believer that if you've got the right word to identify something, you can perceive it. I think my favorite pseudoscience when it comes to this kind of thing is wine-tasting, where one has to come up with an adjectival palette that is almost a cartoon unto itself. But silly as these phrases may be—'Oh, this has a hint of young tobacco, and old oak fragrant with raspberries'—silly as these terms are, they allow us to draw distinctions without which we may not be able to draw at all. So we will create a useful vocabulary."

Rich Context: Greenberg teaches the powerful influence of social context on musical creation. Bestselling author James Collins, writing in Inc. magazine, explains: "The Greenberg series combines a history of Western civilization with a history of great music from ancient Greece to the 20th century. Greenberg's 48 lectures come alive with passion and knowledge. The course illustrates the interplay between societal change and innovation and offers a unique perspective on the acceleration of change wrought by the 20th century."

Greenberg's lectures show how musical creativity has provided a vibrant means of expression for grand spiritual, intellectual, political, social, and economic forces throughout the history of our civilization.

Whether it's the profound influence of Lutheran spirituality on Bach or the effect of the French Revolution on Beethoven (to give just two examples), you'll see how such forces have swirled through the lives of music's creators and listeners in various historical epochs. You'll also grasp how these forces have stimulated the creation of musical masterpieces that are both transcendent works of art and compositions deeply rooted in their respective eras, telling us something central about the human condition in each one.

The Composers: The course examines the contributions of nearly every major composer. But one of Greenberg's aims is to make their music accessible, and, for this, we must accept that every one of them was human and no more. (He observes at one point that an English translation of the name Giuseppe Verdi would be simply "Joe Green.") You will remember their music, and you will never forget the composers who are brought to life throughout the lectures. Consider Greenberg's introduction to Berlioz:

Hector Berlioz begins writing the Symphonie Fantastique in 1829 and he completes it in 1830, the same year he graduates from the conservatory, so he's only 27 years old and is still learning his craft at this time.

The Symphonie Fantastique is an experimental artwork if there ever was one. It is an absolutely avant-garde piece of music. It attempts to unite the four great loves of Berlioz's life, as he felt them then and as they continued to be throughout his life. Those four great loves, in no particular order, are: first, Shakespeare's plays and Shakespeare's sense of drama; second: Beethoven's symphonies, which Berlioz worshipped; third: opera, which Berlioz lived for; and we must not forget the fourth great love of Berlioz's life: himself. It's a very autobiographical work. Again, we have to understand that autobiography is very typical of the self-involvement and expressive self-indulgence of the 19th- and indeed, the 20th-century artist.

Titles

1. Introduction
2. Sources—The Ancient World and the Early Church
3. The Middle Ages—Darkness, Change, and Diversity
4. Introduction to the Renaissance
5. The Renaissance Mass—Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, and the Counter-Reformation
6. Secular Music in the Late Renaissance and the Search for Expression—The Madrigal
7. Introduction to the Baroque
8. Style Features of Baroque Music and a Brief Tutorial on Pitch, Motive, Melody, and Texture
9. The Rise of German Nationalism in Music
10. Fugue
11. Baroque Opera, Part 1
12. Baroque Opera, Part 2
13. Baroque Sacred Music, Part 1—The Oratorio
14. Baroque Sacred Music, Part 2—The Lutheran Church Cantata
15. Baroque Instrumental Forms, Part 1—Passacaglia
16. Baroque Instrumental Forms, Part 2—Ritornello Form and the Baroque Concerto
17. The Enlightenment and an Introduction to the Classical Era
18. The Viennese Classical Style, Homophony, and the Cadence
19. Classical-Era Form—Theme and Variations
20. Classical-Era Form—Minuet and Trio I-Baroque Antecedents
21. Classical-Era Form—Minuet and Trio II
22. Classical-Era Form—Rondo
23. Classical-Era Form—Sonata-Allegro Form I, Part 1
24. Classical-Era Form—Sonata-Allegro Form I, Part 2
25. Classical-Era Form—Sonata-Allegro Form II
26. Classical-Era Orchestral Genres—The Symphony—Music for Every Person
27. Classical-Era Orchestral Genres—The Solo Concerto
28. Classical-Era Opera—The Development of Opera Buffa
29. Classical-Era Opera—Mozart and the Operatic Ensemble
30. The French Revolution and an Introduction to Beethoven
31. Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, Part 1
32. Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, Part 2
33. Introduction to Romanticism
34. Formal Challenges and Solutions in Early Romantic Music—Miniatures—Lieder and Chopin
35. Formal Challenges and Solutions in Early Romantic Music—The Program Symphony—Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Part 1
36. Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Part 2
37. Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera—Bel Canto Opera
38. Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera—Giuseppe Verdi
39. Nineteenth-Century German Opera—Nationalism and Experimentation
40. Nineteenth-Century German Opera—Richard Wagner
41. The Concert Overture, Part 1
42. The Concert Overture, Part 2
43. Romantic Nationalism—Post-1848 Musical Nationalism
44. Russian Nationalism
45. The Early Twentieth Century and the Modernist Movement—An Introduction
46. Early Twentieth-Century Modernism—The Search for a New Musical Language—Debussy
47. Early Twentieth-Century Modernism—The Search for a New Musical Language—Stravinsky
48. Early Twentieth-Century Modernism—The Search for a New Musical Language—Schönberg

A few poems about the moon

2006-11-02T02:23:00.000-08:00

月下独酌　
　　李白

花间一壶酒，独酌无相亲。
举杯邀明月，对影成三人。
月既不解饮，影徒随我身。
暂伴月将影，行乐须及春。
我歌月徘徊，我舞影零乱。
醒时同交欢，醉后各分散。
永结无情游，相期邈云汉。

Among the flowers from a pot of wine
I drink alone beneath the bright moonshine.
I raise my cup to invite the moon, who blends
Her light with my shadow and we're three friends.
The moon does not know how to drink her share;
In vain my shadow follows me here and there.
Together with them for the time I stay
And make merry before spring's spend away.
I sing the moon to linger with my song;
My shadow disperses as I dance along.
Sober, we three remain cheerful and gay;
Drunken, we part and each goes his way.
Our friendship will outshine all earthly love;
Next time we'll meet beyond the stars above.

花丛中，一壶酒，
明月底下我独饮。
举起杯子邀月亮，
月光影子做酒友。
在一起，我驻留，
开心度过好个春。
我唱月亮随歌舞。
我舞影子乱糟糟。
酒醒时分欢又乐，
酒醉之际各自归。
友谊长过人间爱，
下次再会星星外。

唉，中文太差，不会押韵，译不出好诗。

宿建德江
（唐）孟浩然

移舟泊烟渚，
日暮客愁新。
野旷天低树，
江清月近人。

http://image2.sina.com.cn/kid/2004-09-07/U307P205T1D2698F102DT20040907100659.swf

A little boat docks by the islet in the fog,
After the sunset, the traveler renews his homesickness.
Beyond the open field, the sky drops lower than the trees,
The moon, reflecting on the river, comes closer to me.

马致远
[越调]天净沙秋思

枯藤老树昏鸦，
小桥流水人家，
古道西风瘦马。
夕阳西下，
断肠人在天涯。

小学年代，少年老成，特别喜欢这首诗，练毛笔字练很久。这里重逢，倍感亲切！把照片找出来，让大家笑一笑吧。:)

这篇字太难看了，瘦巴巴的，一点不够力道。少年宫的书法老师先写出来，我照猫画虎，描的痕迹太重。不记得什么体了，白学了好几年。:)

可是，现在不喜欢这类的诗了，干巴巴凄凉凉的。一见到愁字我就犯愁。可能真是变老了，开始喜欢青春，喜欢“阳光”，喜欢笑容。

不过，还是小的时候把老年先过了的好，年长的时候，剩下的都是青春。:)

都太伤感了。我弄个高兴点儿的来。这个是古代的。

陈风•月出

月出皎兮，佼人僚兮，舒窈纠兮，劳心悄兮。
月出皓兮，佼人懰兮，舒忧受兮，劳心慅兮。
月出照兮，佼人燎兮，舒夭绍兮，劳心惨兮。

>lspk wrote:
>月色撩人，劳心惨兮。怎么高兴？
>“懰”字该怎么翻译？^_^

好，先译成中文。懰，音刘，妩媚。余冠英译云：

　　　　月儿出来亮晶晶啊，照着美人多么俊啊，
　　　　安闲的步儿苗条的影啊，我的心儿不安宁啊。
　　　　月儿出来白皓皓啊，照着美人多么俏啊。
　　　　安闲的步儿灵活的腰啊，我的心儿突突地跳啊。
　　　　月儿高挂像灯盏啊，美人儿身上银光满啊。
　　　　腰身柔软脚步儿闲啊，我的心上浪涛翻啊。

我觉得这个还算是高兴吧，至少不象前面的那么绝望。

Written in French, translated to German by Otto Erich Hartleben, Belgian poet Albert Giraud's poems "Pierrot Lunaire" was set to music by Arnold Schoenberg, and became one of the most influential music ever written in the history of western music (refer to BBB's post in http://www.mayacafe.com/forum/topic1.php3?tkey=1118479488, this piece is #26.)

Today I was listening to the first song, and found the poem very suitable, although a bit late, for our little moon/drinking translation game here. :)

http://trumpet.sdsu.edu/m345/mp3/%20moondrunk.mp3

The format is 13 lines, lines 7 and 8 are the same as lines 1 and 2, and the last line is the same as the first line. Here is a translation of the poem in English. Do we need a Chinese translation?

Moondrunk

The wine we drink through the eyes
The moon pours down at night in waves,
And a flood tide overflows
The silent horizon.

Longings beyond number, gruesome sweet frissons,
Swim through the flood.
The wine we drink through the eyes
The moon pours down at night in waves.

The poet, slave to devotion,
Drunk on the sacred liquor,
Enraptured, turns his face to Heaven
And staggering sucks and slurps
The wine we drink through the eyes.

==
Mondestrunken

Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder,
Und eine Springflut überschwemmt
Den stillen Horizont.

Gelüste, schauerlich und süß,
Durchschwimmen ohne Zahl die Fluten!
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder.

Der Dichter, den die Andacht treibt,
Berauscht sich an dem heilgen Tranke,
Gen Himmel wendet er verzückt
Das Haupt und taumelnd saugt und schlürft er
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt.

==
mayacafe.com

Music: recent discussions with BBB

2006-11-02T00:14:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts of my recent study of the music history.

German operas are very different from Italian operas. Mozart is said to be the first German opera composer. He simply loves the theaters. Compared to the composers you mentioned--Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms--Mozart is much more cosmopolitan. I wonder if that has something to do with his love of theater. Also, during Beethoven's era, the revolutionary spirit encourages the composers to write music more suited for the middle class (not the aristocrats). Opera is still a upper class enjoyment because of the high cost of production.

The modern German opera tradition starts with Weber's Der Freischutz, and then developed by Wagner. Subjects of German operas are different from that of Italian operas. German operas are more philosophical and more of the mind, while Italian operas are very human, and more of the heart.

Too bad we know little of Russian operas. Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Tchaikovsky all wrote some great operas. They are very different from Italian and German operas.

==
I have been listening to The Teaching Company's music courses the last few months. The lecture is Robert Greenberg. His lectures are extremely informative, interesting, and insightful. I highly recommend them to you. I have listened to the biographies of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Shostakovich (I listened to him two years ago). I am going in order now. Next I will learn about the Schumanns, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler. Tonight I am finishing up the 48-lecture series of "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music", which is basically a music history plus analysis course. I can't tell you how much I have learned from him.

I took a History class last quarter at the university, from Beethoven to present period. I went through Grout again (the second to the newest edition). This quarter I am taking a graduate theory review class (which covers two years of undergraduate theory), and a contemporary technique (theory). Are you taking any classes? I find the theory classes very useful. A good teacher can clarify a lot of confusions in my own reading. With a book, the dialog is only one direction. With a teacher, there is a two-way dialog, and I'm not only learning what I think I need to learn, but also what I should learn.

Anyway, in the Greenberg lectures, he talks about Russian operas and Russian music. Tchaikovsky is not a Russian composer, because he was trained in the German music tradition. The real Russian composers started with Glinka, and the Mighty Five. The Five had no formal music training, so they created truly Russian music. Later Rimsky-Korsakov went to teach at the conservatory, and bridged the gap between Russian style and German tradition. His students included Glazunov (teacher of Shostakovich), Prokofiev, and Stravinsky. Of course, except for Glazunov, these students all wrote great Russian operas. (This paragraph is my "lecture note" from yesterday, haha!) In an opera, how to combine music with the language is very important. In short, Russian operas cannot simply be an imitation of German or Italian style, because of the difference in the language.

When I have time, I will share with you more of what I've learned and understood in the last few months.

关于歌剧艺术价值的讨论

BBB wrote:

我觉得很多概念是和时代相联的。歌剧没有艺术性或歌剧比器乐艺术性低这样的思想，可能是18世纪和之前的。那时音乐的传播媒介是总谱，要听音乐得去现场。一般人很少能听一两次就能明白器乐作品，相比之下，听(看)歌剧就容易多了，因为有舞台表演。所以，那时的歌剧，其实有点类似当时的流行音乐，为大众的。另一个极端是室内乐，为沙龙的，小众的。

巴赫没有写歌剧，基本上是因为他的职位在教堂所限，不容许。其实他写了很多声乐作品。几部“受难曲”，无异于几部大歌剧。

19世纪时，贝多芬，舒伯特，舒曼花了很大功夫写歌剧。贝多芬好歹留下一部杰作，舒伯特基本上是无功而返，虽然有那么一两部近年引起人们注意，舒曼对歌剧太看重，不愿写成当时流行的意大利歌剧，所以没有写成大作，虽然也有一部有些名气。勃拉姆斯没有歌剧，不是瞧不起歌剧，而是他的一贯创作态度，使他不敢染指，正如他对交响曲。

歌剧曲目，是良莠不齐，或者说是有很多作品的艺术价值还没有得到应有的发现，因为演出花费大。所以我认为，要谈歌剧的艺术价值，得看是谁的。如果你认为莫扎特的音乐艺术价值低，那当然莫扎特的歌剧也在劫难逃。但这样的看法，没有力量的，也是很难找了。而公认的是相反，莫扎特的歌剧代表了他的艺术价值。

对意大利歌剧，本人浅见，威尔第，无论从哪方面讲，他都是19世纪一流作曲家，这可以在任何一本音乐史书上得到验证。我本人也基本上只听威尔第的意大利歌剧。道理很简单，听了他的歌剧，其它意大利歌剧基本上没有价值再听。19世纪歌剧，是威尔第和瓦格纳的世界。

其实对其它音乐体裁，也基本上如此。器乐作品中，二三流作曲家的为人遗忘的，“没有艺术价值”的各类器乐作品作品，相对来说，比被认为如“塞尔维亚理发师”这样“没有艺术价值”的歌剧的，大概要多得多。

到了20世纪，一部歌剧的诞生，基本上是音乐界的一件大事。写得如何不说，能写出来，能上演，这本身就是一件大事。所以，20世纪名家的作品，是歌剧，基本上都是名作，从R斯特劳斯到亚当斯的作品，都是如此。

==
真是很高兴在这里见到老网友乐友阿姗。

关于德国歌剧和意大利歌剧mind-heart差别的说法很有意思，也有些同感。事实上19世纪德国德国其它音乐家和其它类型的音乐作品，一般来说都更富于理性,相对其它同时期浪漫派作曲家和作品更浓的情感色彩。可以说马勒是个例外。以也可以认为马勒不完全是属于德奥传统。

如果要全面说歌剧的话，歌剧还有一大系：法国歌剧。细说起来，就长了。明年初是蒙特威尔第的《奥菲欧》上演400周年。这部歌剧不是第一部歌剧，但是是第一部流传下来至今仍然在上演的歌剧杰作。这四百年里出现的歌剧作品难以计数，要想全面深入了解是很难的。时间金钱有限，不可贪全，我自己的目标是比较深入地了解不同时期和风格的主要代表作，约一百部左右。

我近几年很少听19世纪的俄罗斯。主要是觉得作品可发掘的，让人思考东西很少。你提到的那几位作曲家的歌剧，穆索尔斯基的《古都诺夫》是很独特的。其他人的作品，多半都有模仿学习的痕迹。缺少独特的东西，对歌剧这样的大创作，如我这样的一般爱乐者，很容易就找到更好的代替作品了。

我对音乐史很感兴趣。我以为真正喜欢一门学科或艺术，是该全面深入了解它的历史的。全面深入的目的，是认识精华和找到自己的偏爱。欢迎常来指点。

Movie: Little Children

2006-10-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to Santa Monica to see "Little Children". It's about the lives of several people living in the suburb. Sarah, educated in English Literature, is a housewife with a daughter. Brat, a househusband who is trying to pass the bar exam for the third year, is taking care of a son. They meet in the neighborhood, and start to having an affair. Brat joins Larry and a group of cops to play weekly football. Larry is an ex-cop who cannot control his anger. Larry stalks a child sex offender Ronnie who is on parol and eventually caused the death of Ronnie's mother. Ronnie is a deeply trouble man who wants to be good. We also met Sarah's husband Richard, Brat's wife Kathy, Ronnie's mother, and some women. Everyone in the film has problems, and is behaving like a child in some way. The script is tight, and the performance is solid. My only problem with the movie is the character Brat, who I cannot sympathize with. I have difficulty understanding Sarah's obsession with him. Maybe Sarah is acting like Madame Bovary, a character she discusses in depth with several women in the movie. It's not the sex or love that Sarah is seeking. She is struggling to find alternatives to her unhappy life. I believe that in the end she grows up and finds one alternative in the role of a mother.

Last week we saw "The Queen", and I found it a thoughtful film. It helps me understand people of different upbringings and values.

We almost went to see "The Departed", but I wanted something more substantial. I love the Hong Kong trilogy, Infernal Affairs, and that makes me more reluctuant to see "The Departed".

Top Rated "1940s" Movies

2006-10-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

IMDb Top Rated "1940s" Titles (35/50)
Rank Rating Title Votes
1. 8.8 Casablanca (1942) 88,053
2. 8.6 Citizen Kane (1941) 78,780
3. 8.5 It's a Waonderful Life (1946) 53,207
4. 8.5 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) 14,439
5. 8.5 The Third Man (1949) 25,329
6. 8.4 Double Indemnity (1944) 16,201
7. 8.4 The Maltese Falcon (1941) 25,994
8. 8.4 Rebecca (1940) 15,992
9. 8.4 Brief Encounter (1945) 4,483
10. 8.4 Belle et la bête, La (1946) 3,769
11. 8.3 Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) 5,328
12. 8.3 The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) 2,804
13. 8.3 The Big Sleep (1946) 13,757
14. 8.3 Notorious (1946) 14,703
15. 8.3 Out of the Past (1947) 4,143
16. 8.3 The Great Dictator (1940) 15,163
17. 8.2 Great Expectations (1946) 3,267
18. 8.2 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) 1,758
19. 8.2 The Lost Weekend (1945) 4,236
20. 8.2 Vredens dag (1943) 1,203
21. 8.2 Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 8,567
22. 8.2 Ladri di biciclette (1948) 10,699
23. 8.1 Roma, città aperta (1945) 2,703
24. 8.1 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) 8,333
25. 8.1 Ivan Groznyy I (1944) 1,233
26. 8.1 The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 10,719
27. 8.1 To Have and Have Not (1944) 5,761
28. 8.0 The Lady Eve (1941) 3,091
29. 8.0 The Philadelphia Story (1940) 14,128
30. 8.0 White Heat (1949) 4,478
31. 8.0 The Red Shoes (1948) 3,162
32. 8.0 Sergeant York (1941) 3,114
33. 8.0 The Heiress (1949) 1,828
34. 8.0 Black Narcissus (1947) 2,763
35. 8.0 Nora inu (1949) 1,985
36. 8.0 Dead of Night (1945) 1,332
37. 8.0 The Set-Up (1949) 1,102
38. 8.0 Miracle on 34th Street (1947) 7,059
39. 8.0 Laura (1944) 6,734
40. 8.0 His Girl Friday (1940) 9,509
41. 8.0 Key Largo (1948) 7,612
42. 8.0 Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) 15,116
43. 7.9 Rope (1948) 11,525
44. 7.9 The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) 4,497
45. 7.9 My Darling Clementine (1946) 3,474
46. 7.9 Oliver Twist (1948) 2,335
47. 7.9 How Green Was My Valley (1941) 3,633
48. 7.9 Red River (1948) 5,412
49. 7.9 Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) 1,117
50. 7.9 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) 1,198

Academy Awards: (10/10)
1950 All the King's Men (1949)
1949 Hamlet (1948)
1948 Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
1947 Best Years of Our Lives, The (1946)
1946 Lost Weekend, The (1945)
1945 Going My Way (1944)
1944 Casablanca (1942)
1943 Mrs. Miniver (1942)
1942 How Green Was My Valley (1941)
1941 Rebecca (1940)

AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies: (12/12)
1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)
2. CASABLANCA (1942)
11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)

Mozart Sonata in A minor K.310 (Paris)

2006-10-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

It is always dangerous to associate biographical detail with a work of art - discussing intentions and inspirations is an uncertain thing at best. However, scholars have dated Mozart's Sonata in A minor, K. 310 to the early summer of 1778 and it is impossible to neglect the fact that the composer was at that time visiting Paris and tending to his ailing mother. She would die there on July 3. Mozart was 22 years old and the years in Vienna still lay ahead.

Out of Mozart's more than 600 completed works a mere 30 or so were written in a minor key; only one other piano sonata was written in the minor. Perhaps it is not overreaching, then, to suggest that the almost orchestral tragedy that the sonorities of this sonata conjures is closely tied to the young man's frame of mind.

The Sonata opens in turgid dark terrain. Even when the music edges into the major there is an uneasy tension throughout. Conflict and dissonance are always nearby. The second movement, Andante cantabile con espressione, in a consoling F major, offers a respite, but the final movement, again in A minor, rushes to its conclusion in bleakness. In the face of the conventions of a time that expected an ultimate happy ending, Mozart hurtles past a few glimpses of optimism headlong into despair, the reverberations of which will be heard later in Beethoven and even in Chopin. In a letter to his father informing him of his mother's death, Mozart wrote: "I have indeed suffered and wept enough - but what did it avail?"

The famous pianist Artur Schnabel famously said of Mozart's sonatas that they are too easy for children and too difficult for artists. Of course, there is nothing easy about music that is so spare that it exposes instantly any digital or emotional deficiencies in the performer. -- Grant Hiroshima (09/06)

K. 310 (1778, Paris) -- This famous sonata, one of only two that Mozart wrote in a minor key, was composed in Paris either right before or right after Mozart's mother's death in July, 1778. It is one of Mozart's few compositions that invites comparisons between his life and his music. The sonata is dominated by a despairing chromaticism, particularly in the development of the first movement and the astounding middle section of the slow movement. In the latter, the insistent repeated note triplets, the unnaturally large leaps, and the glaring dissonance of the reiterated 2nds, combine to create a kind of terror not witnessed in any of the preceding sonatas, or, indeed, in any of those to come. Mozart's father, Leopold. even pleaded with Mozart to desist from using such "harmonic progressions, which the majority of people cannot fathom." The third movement combines glimpses of heaven and hell in much the same way as the second movement--the bulk of the movement is an agitated and troubled presto in A minor, interrupted briefly, but unforgettably, by 32 bars in A major, which could provide solace to the most inconsolate among us. -- Catherine Kautsky

The A-minor sonata is a troubling, almost bitter, highly emotional work that looks toward Schubert and Beethoven. The first movement, Allegro maestoso, played without its repeats, is rhythmically nervous and unsettled; Goode makes much of the recurring low chords played against the falsely jolly-jaunty right hand. Although Mozart seems at first relaxed in the Andante cantabile con espressione, the movement takes an unexpectedly dark, edgy turn that Goode underlines. The sonata's finale, Presto, defines "anxious." In fact, neither outer movement ever stops: each has a breathless quality caught ideally by Goode without ever seeming rushed or too weighty; he plays them briskly, with stunning accuracy, and just the right brittleness. -- Robert Levine

The Allegro maestoso is one of Mozart's most Beethoven-like works; at least, in the sense of its unbridled intensity. The Andante cantabile con espressione is an early evening stroll past hauntingly familiar grounds. The concluding Presto must have also presented quite a powerful model for the young Beethoven to shoot at. (There's a superstition that Mozart's inspiration here was his mother's corpse (in the next room); but one could hardly imagine anyone concentrating this well with one's mother's corpse in the next room.) -- S.D. Rodrian

Notes on TTC music lectures

2006-10-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

Four major classical period instrumental forms and styles:

Theme and Variation: this is the simplest style, in which there is no departure and no return; it is like watching a fashion show at home.
Trio and Minuet: ABA form; there is contrast between the sections, and we return to home section after a short departure.
Rondo: ABACA form; there is only one theme; contrasts between the transitional passages and the theme creates tension and resolution.
Sonata-Allegro: originated in opera; two themes, first introduced, then interact in conflicts, in the end both transformed. This is the most dramatic form of the classical instrumental styles.

Recent thoughts on music studies

2006-10-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

Recent random thoughts on music.

1. Finished three Great Musicians lectures--Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Haydn was a well-balanced individual, and his generosity and humor reflected in his music; Mozart lived in the shadow of his childhood and his father all his life, and he used his talents to create beautiful music. Beethoven was an impossible human being, and lived in self-denial. He worked hard to learn his craft, and his music was revolutionary, like his personality. Yet he had an unhappy life and brought unhappiness to people around him. I should learn from them the importance of hard work, and of an open mind.

2. I am listening to How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 48 lectures of 45 minutes each, by the same Robert Greenberg. I am learning so much more music history this series than history books and classes (although I enjoyed Dr. Stein's class greatly). Greenberg is very passionate about his subject, and he likes to gossip, which brings out the context of the materials we are learning. We are at early Baroque now. I need to review my Grout and Einstein books, and perhaps complete the workbooks, to finalize the learning.

3. Classes I'm taking this term:

MUS 345B Piano (2) Sarkis Baltaian
MUS 428 New Music Ensemble (1) John Kennedy
MUS 465 Contemporary Technique (4) John Kennedy
MUS 479 Music Theory Review (4) Chris Roze
MUS 499 Undergraduate Directed Study: Composition (2) John Kennedy

I sampled three other classes: History and Literature of Opera, Research Techniques in Music, and Music History Review. I like Baltaian, Kennedy and Roze, because they are experienced and enthusiastic, and the classmates, if any, are fun to study with. It's good to have more theory. It seems Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all had extensive theory studies when they were young.

4. I missed my first piano lesson because I did not account for traffic. Then the first composition tutorial was cancelled (along with a contemporary technique quiz). I got 99.9 on my first Theory quiz yesterday. I hope I can stay on top of my theory studies. I need to really learn the modes.

5. Composition projects: I am thinking about writing a theme and variation. I will try sectional variations, which is easier. I want to learn how to express the same thematic material in many different ways. Some ideas: piano theme and 6 variations based on Beethoven or Mozart's model, and I have a copy of Rimsky-Korsakov's variation based on "BACH". Brahms and Rachmaninoff both wrote famous piano variations. Flute theme and 6 variations, model on Bach's chaconne, but much simpler. Or flute and piano, theme and variations. I don't know how to choose a theme. For flute solo, I want to choose one from my flute book, and start from there.

Book: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

2006-10-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

When I first started Steppenwolf, I was drawn to the accuracy of the description of a bored bourgeois. Then suddenly I became impatient at the long passages of character studies. The problem with Hermann Hesse's stories is that the plots only serves the purpose of the moral, and the moral is usually too obvious and strong. I felt I knew what the moral of the Steppenwolf story would be, so I could not stand the slow moving plots and the long-drawn psychological descriptions, especially the "book" of Steppenwolf within the book. I put the book down for a couple of months, and then picked it up again recently.

The second time was better. Harry met Hermine, and learned to dance. Dancing in public is something I am fearful of. Harry experienced the joy of being in a mass of happy people. When everyone is having a good, the happiness of individual also increases. I know of this but I still don't like to be at a popular concert or a dance hall. I have never truly learned to lose myself and be part of the mass.

I don't like the magic theater story in the book, although I know Hesse was only trying to make a point. The moral of the novel seems to be: learn to be humorous before one can finally die. This is a lesson Frank used to tell me. Humor is the last lesson in life. I will buy this, but I am not clear how Hesse arrived at this point. He merely talked about the ridiculous Mozart. I am not sure if Mozart is even relevant in this lesson. Perhaps anyone will do. But why not Beethoven, who is more in need of humor?

The following passage is worth recording:

It is what I call eternity. The pious call it the kingdom of God. I say to myself: all we who ask too much and have a dimension too many could not contrive to live at all if there were not another air to breathe outside the air of this world, if there were not eternity at the back of time; and this is the kingdom of truth. The music of Mozart belongs there and the poetry of great poets. The saints, too, belong there, who have worked wonders and suffered martyrdom and given a great example to men. But the image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity just as much, even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity. In eternity there is no posterity.

The pious, after all know most about this. That is why they set up the saints and what they call the communion of the saints. The saints, these are the true men, the younger brothers of the Savior. We are with them all our lives long in every good deed, in every brave thought, in every love. The communion of the saints, in earlier times it was set by painters in a golden heaven, shining, beautiful and full of peace, and it is nothing else but eternity. It is the kingdom on the other side of time and appearances. It is there we belong. There is our home. It is that which our heart strives for. And for that reason, Steppenwolf, we long for death. There you will find your Goethe again and Novel's and Mozart, and I my saints, Christopher, Philip of Neri and all. There are many saints who at first were sinners. Even sin can be a way to saintliness, sin and vice. We have to stumble through so much dirt and humbug before we reach home. And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness.

Opening Night at Walt Disney Concert Hall

2006-09-29T01:37:00.000-07:00

We went to Walt Disney Concert Hall to attend the Gala performance for fund raisers and LA Philharmonic patrons. We were lucky enough to get two free tickets from my composition professor Kennedy at CSULA. I had watched the Disney Hall being built for years, and had been to the garden once this year, but I had never been inside. I had seen pictures of the concert hall and did not know what to make of the random looking "organ" at the back of the stage.

I arrived half an hour later than I planned because of the traffic. Tonight was the opening night for the season. There was a gala event for the symphony patrons. They dressed up in fancy cloth and jewelry, and walked on the red carpet. We were excited to be at this special event. We heard that the cheapest ticket for tonight's concert was $1,500!!!

Opening Night Gala
Gala & Benefit Concerts GAL

Thursday, September 28, 2006, 7:00 PM
Walt Disney Concert Hall

Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Awet Andemicael, soprano (the Boy); Agustin Prunell-Friend, tenor (Master Peter); Kyle Ketelsen, bass-baritone (Don Quijote); Basil Twist, director and designer
Program:
Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
Falla: Master Peter’s Puppet Show
Ravel: Bolero
There is really nothing else like Opening Night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. This year’s themes of Spain and fantasy will permeate the evening as Basil Twist's larger-than-life puppetry enacts Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show. The thrilling Bolero finale will sweep you away.

Tickets range from $1,500 - $10,000 and include a significant charitable contribution. This gala evening benefits the Musicians Pension Fund and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

6:00 p.m. - COCKTAIL RECEPTION
7:00 p.m. - CONCERT
Post Concert - DINNER and DANCING

Black Tie

Our seat was on the right hand side balcony. The hall had a very open feeling. I thought everyone could have an intimate contact with the stage. Maybe the side seats were especially intimate. The organ pipes dominated the stage. We liked the wooden floors, and the wood colors of everything. The purple light behind the stage gave contrast to the light color of the wood. The music stands were also in wood color. We felt bright and sunny. We sat next to my classmate Tony the percussionist/composer.

I had not been to a LA Phil concert for a few years when I was away. I was glad to see the familiar faces of the conductor, the concert masters, and a couple of string players (I couldn't recognize the other players because I couldn't see them closely before). Tonight's program included three pieces by two French composers with Spanish theme.

Ravel's Mother Goose Suite calls for many strings and few winds. The harmony and orchestration was warm and fuzzy.

Falla's puppet's show had real puppets. It's in the self-reference tradition of Stravinsky, T.S. Eloit and Kurt Vonnegut I wrote about before. It was humorous and intelligent. There was a puppet show of puppet show on stage. The puppet Don Quixote was watching the puppet show of a French love story. A puppet boy narrated each scene, in recitative. Several times Don Quixote commented on the boy's narration. Once he said, "don't use too much counterpoint in the strings", and another time "that was minimalism". Every music lover would find this amusing. In the end Don Quixote mixed up reality and the story on his stage. He fought the puppets in the puppet show and destroyed the stage. I would like to get a video of this piece and read the music along with it.

It was a short concert. The last piece was Ravel's Bolero. I had heard LA Phil played it once before and was truly moved by the power of the composition. Now I had more knowledge of music, and from above the stage, I watched closely each instrument coming into the "game". I was impressed with the snare drum player for his consistency through out the piece. It must be a difficult piece to play the same pattern steadily for 15 minutes. The simple theme was repeated 20 times with different instrument combinations, from the faintest woodwinds to the confident brass to the warm strings to the agitation of all. It was very satisfying when in the end the light changes and brightened. I envy Ravel for his talents in orchestration.

After the concert, we went to the famous Water Grill to have a fancy dinner. This was also my first night wearing my new diamond ring. We enjoyed the food. The evening was complete.

TTC: Mozart by Robert Greenberg

2006-09-28T01:41:00.000-07:00

He composed his first symphony at the age of 8. His middle name means "loved of God." And Austrian Emperor Joseph II accused his music of having "too many notes."

This course is a biographical and musical study of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), who composed more than 600 works of beauty and brilliance in just over 20 years.

Mozart's music combined the pure lyricism of song with dramatic timing, depth of expression, and technical mastery of the complexities of phrase structure and harmony that allowed him to create a body of work unique in the repertoire.

Will the Real Wolfgang Please Stand Up?

And his personal life has generated nearly as much interest as his music. Who was Mozart? Was he the fair-haired boy-divinity of 19th-century Romanticism? Was he indeed the horse-laughing idiot of recent theater and cinema? Was he borderline autistic or musical freak?

Was he an artistic traditionalist working happily within Haydn-defined Classicism? A social and musical rebel at war with a patronage system?

What did his contemporaries think of his music? Why was he so passionate about writing operas? How did he view his audience, his patrons, and his fellow composers? Does any of his music reflect his own moods or states of mind?

Who and what were the crucial influences in his life and his art? And how did he really die?

We learn about Mozart's:

* journey from youthful prodigy to posthumous deification
* vexing relationship with his father
* tours to London and Paris
* struggles for a successful career
* marriage to Constanze Weber
* triumphs and disappointments in Vienna
* relationships with key figures such as Haydn, Emperor Joseph II, and Lorenzo da Ponte.

Much of today's Mozart scholarship is about debunking myths. One of the reasons for the Mozart mythology is the fact that few responsible accounts of Mozart's life and personality were written during his lifetime. Much was written years after his death.

Mozart's extraordinary, prodigious talent also fueled the notion that he was some kind of freak. At the heart of the Mozart mythology is the otherworldliness of his music. His middle name, Amadeus, 'loved of God,' also helped to imbue him with a God-like image.

The goal of these lectures is to show Mozart to be a person: a talented, hard-working, ambitious man who had friends and enemies and whose music was subject to criticism in his own day.

Mozart's Early Life: Young Apprentice and a Domineering Father

The reality is that Mozart, like any other composer, served an apprenticeship. What is extraordinary is that Mozart's apprenticeship began at such a tender age; he wrote his first symphony at the age of 8 and was a mature composer by the age of 20, when most other composers are just beginning their training.

He had an extraordinary memory and an ability to compose whole symphonies in his head. He worked extremely hard, frequently to the point of exhaustion—often at breakneck speed, amid squadrons of distractions, and without putting pen to paper until every last note of a new work had been composed in his head.

Mozart's early life was dominated by his father. Leopold Mozart counted on his children's musical talents to bring him the fame and fortune he could not earn for himself. The grand tour of 1763—1766 made the Mozart family the sensation of Europe and turned the small, fragile, desperate-to-please Wolfgang into an international celebrity and the family's main breadwinner.

Mozart learned his craft by absorbing the music of the best composers of his day: Johann Christian Bach (eleventh son of Johann Sebastian Bach) and the legendary Franz Joseph Haydn. By the time of Mozart's second visit to Paris in 1777 at age 21, his own original genius was emerging.

Mozart's second trip to Paris was a disaster. His mother died there, he failed to find a position, he had no money, and his domineering father was interfering with his life to a degree he now found intolerable.

Settling in Vienna: A Soaring Genius

In 1781, Mozart settled in Vienna, an exciting place to live and work for artists at that time thanks to the reforms of Emperor Joseph II. He married Constanze Weber against the wishes of his father; Leopold withheld Mozart's wedding dowry and later disinherited his son.

Mozart's genius soared. He reached the peak of his career in Vienna in 1782—1786. At this point, his piano concerti were his main source of income. Then, beginning in 1786, he collaborated with the great librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte on three of the repertoire's finest operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte.

By the late 1780s, however, Mozart's popularity in Vienna was on the wane. His music had always had its critics—those who thought it too difficult, complex, or contrived.

Mozart never attempted to compromise his musical integrity just to please the masses. Even his so-called entertainment' music is stamped with his inimitable and complex genius.

His politically controversial opera, The Marriage of Figaro, did not help further his career in Vienna. Masterpiece though it is, it deeply offended the Viennese aristocracy.

Mozart was, in essence, biting the hand that fed him.

Mozart continued to pour out one masterwork after another, the expressive content rarely hinting at his unhappy circumstances.

The Final Years: The Magic Flute and a Requiem Mass

In 1790 Mozart's health began to deteriorate and he became depressed. That year, he wrote very little of significance. His creative recovery in early 1791 was inexplicable. The compositions of that year culminated in the great Masonic opera, The Magic Flute.

By the end of the year, he was working on a Requiem Mass, anonymously commissioned by a nobleman who liked to pass off others' compositions as his own. The Requiem remained unfinished at Mozart's death on December 5, 1791.

Myths and speculation ,surround the cause of Mozart's death. The most famous myth is that he was poisoned by the Italian composer Antonio Salieri who, while a patient in an insane asylum decades later, claimed that he had done the dastardly deed. The most likely theory is that Mozart died from acute rheumatic fever and a stroke brought on by excessive bloodletting—at the age of 35.

A Wide Selection of Excerpts from The Great Masters

Mozart wrote more than 600 compositions, whose standard numbering comes from the catalogue listing first published in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. Among those excerpted:

Eine kleine Nachtmusick, K.525 (1787)
Don Giovanni, K. 527 (1787)
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 (1785)
String Quartet in C, K. 465 ["Dissonant"] (1785)
The Magic Flute, K. 620 (1791)
Serenade in D Major, K. 320 ["Posthorn"] (1779)
Così fan tutte, K. 588 (1789)
Flute Concerto in D, K. 314/320d (1777)
Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K. 456 (1785)
Ein Musikalischer Spass, K. 522 (1787)
Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364/320d (1779)
The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492 (1786)
String Quintet in C Major, K. 515 (1787)
Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 (1788)
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543 (1788)
Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 ["Jupiter"] (1788)
Requiem Mass, K. 626 (1791)

TTC: Books That Have Made History

2006-09-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

While waiting to finish my Haydn summary, I started listening to J. Rufus Fears's lectures, "Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life". There are 36 lectures:

1. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison
2. Homer, Iliad
3. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
4. Bhagavad Gita
5. Book of Exodus
6. Gospel of Mark
7. Koran
8. Gilgamesh
9. Beowulf
10. Book of Job
11. Aeschylus, Oresteia
12. Euripides, Bacchae
13. Plato, Phaedo
14. Dante, The Divine Comedy
15. Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice
16. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
17. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
18. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
19. George Orwell, 1984
20. Vergil, Aeneid
21. Pericles, Oration; Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
22. Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
23. Confucius, The Analects
24. Machiavelli, The Prince
25. Plato, Republic
26. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
27. Sir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur
28. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 1
29. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 2
30. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
31. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
32. Lord Acton, The History of Freedom
33. Cicero, On Moral Duties (De Officiis)
34. Gandhi, An Autobiography
35. Churchill, My Early Life; Painting as a Pastime; WWII
36. Lessons from the Great Books

However, I found the lecturer slow and tedious. He preaches too much in the lectures. Not everyone agrees with his moral values, and I don't like it when he mixes his personal messages with great books of the past. I cannot stand listening to him after 10 slow and painful lectures. I look him up on the internet and I think he looks like a preacher that I cannot trust. I don't care how many teaching awards he has won. I will read the books on his list on my own, and make my own judgment. This is the first of TTC lectures that I dislike. I will delete the files from my computer.

One sad thing is that Dr. Fears also teaches another lecture series that I am interested in: Famous Romans. I will have to give that a fair try some day.

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