Schreiber

Went to the Symphony tonight. (Dad's partner has season tickets, but she's in Nicaragua, and I guess Dad didn't feel like going.) The programme was Beethoven-based (the Eroica, specifically); he's not one of my favorite composers, although I can appreciate his genius abstractly. The *interesting* bit was that they'd held a competition for best new composition by a composer under thirty:* the winner was some dude from Hawaii, who'd written a piece called "Becoming Beethoven": very much in the style of the composer, and loosely themed around the story of Beethoven going deaf. This was perhaps most evident at the beginning, where the orchestra was doing a (very melodious, but still very striking) imitation of the effect of tinnitus. The rest of the performance of it was...odd: it was hard to say, in a number of places, whether the composer was DELIBERATELY doing really weird quasi-counterpoint, or whether the orchestra's timing was off.** If it's the latter, well, that sucks, because it was a really great piece that someone was mucking up.
In between Beethoven-inspired and actual Beethoven, we had Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue': another revolutionary piece, but played and heard so often (including in old Delta commercials) that it feels hackneyed. Kinda like the humor in Holy Grail, I suppose, except that I have a permanent passion for Holy Grail, and don't have strong feelings about Gershwin. So I spent that chunk of the concert reflecting that Gershwin really had no successors, that I'm aware of at least: no one who took American popular music and turned it into symphony. And what would a 21st-century equivalent sound like? If I was to imagine it, I'd go for a full-on symphony, whose movements would refer to the different styles of our musically-fragmented age. Start with a movement of hiphop (what with rappers' tendency to sample everything and anything, an original orchestral composition with a strong percussion beat and someone rapping over it could actually work quite well. For full justice, you'd then somehow have to do movements of Country and Dubstep, but somehow make them not suck; or you could say screw it and just do a movement of literally symphonic metal instead. Throw in something folk-rock infused, for all of the bluegrass, actual folk-rock, singer-songwriter stuff, and other related genres; then maybe finish with more rap (or put the metal HERE). Oh, and you'd have to tie the whole business together thematically and musically. It would be difficult but not, I think, impossible. Pity I'm not a composer.
...So I was not, and am not, doing justice to the Portland Symphony: with the possible exception of "Becoming Beethoven" they played everything very well, and the pianist for Rhapsody was just brilliant, and thoroughly deserved his two callbacks' worth of Dixieland.

Afterwards, I went to Bar of Chocolate, for one last hurrah before Lent. This may have been a mistake. (Also, I need to remember that I have now *had* Tokaji, and do not absolutely need to have that particular odd experience again.)
Also for Lent, I'm giving up non-essential internet use. Blogging does not count, though; so hopefully I'll actually be posting MORE for the next few weeks. Here's hoping.

* and buy, do I feel old and useless now.
** Numerous viola jokes came to mind.

Things that are addictive:
1) Doppelkeks. Such a brilliant idea. Kinda like you crossed a digestive biscuit with a graham cracker, and then took two of them and put chocolate cream in the middle.

2) Civilization III.

3) Coffee. Our morning coffee breaks are how I became acquaited with Doppelkeks, but they also have the aforesaid bad-for-you beverage...and I've usually gotten up at seven or so, after staying up til midnight talking with drunken Romanians. So by 10:30, I'm in the mood for caffein.

4) Italian grocery stores. I miss Romeo and Joe's. Only found fresh basil TODAY...
I thought I was also going to miss my local, gay, wine merchant. Then I discovered the Getränk-Markt at Netto. Now, Netto is a pretty crappy supermarket, but downstairs, they have a wholesale drink market that would put the land of Cockaign to shame. Almost. If you had told me a month ago, that I would soon be in a place where you could buy Hefeweizen by the crate (as well as mineral water, fruit juice, and fifty other kinds of beer), and where Norman Cider would be displayed in an obscure place, with explanatory labels and marked down, I would not have believed you. Behold the glory that is Netto.

5) Grace. I'm in withdrawal...

6) Harry Potter. Frickin' Harry Potter. I bought a ( copy ) on the train trip to Würzburg to stave off boredom. It really is hackneyed (though C, M et al. assert that it's satyrizing the genre[s], and it does have its moments.) But I should really put it down now--and leave off LJ'ing--and figure out my presentation on Til Eulenspiegel. (As long as we're on the subject of owls...)

PS As long as we're on the subject of Rowling and chocolatey goodness: do you think the ChocoFrogs (or whatever they are in English) are a reference to the Crunchy Frog routine?