I enjoyed the John Marin show at the Amon Carter much more than Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park Series at the Modern.

The Kimbell managed to borrow a whopping nine Caravaggios, which in addition to their own were the center of their Caravaggio show. These were augmented very intelligently and sensitively with paintings from his contemporaries & imitators.

Israel was trailed from painting to painting by a muscular Latino who could have conceivably leaped from the paintings themselves. Israel finally struck up a conversation with him. The guy was quite sophisticated and had come for the Caravaggios. He was there with his husband and their ten year old son.

Friday night I re-watched My Architect, the beautiful film about Louis Kahn, the architect of the Kimbell.

  t h a n k   y o u   f o r   p o s t i n g   a b o u t   y o u r   e x c e l l e n t   a d v e n t u r e s   y o u r   a m a z i n g
  j o u r n e y s   y o u r   c i t y   l i f e   y o u r   s m a l l   t o w n   l i f e   y o u r   f r u s t r a t i n g l y   f
a b u l o u s   j o b s   y o u r   r e l i g i o u s   a n t i p a t h i e s   y o u r   a t h e i s t i c   a f f i r m a t i o n s
  y o u r   B u d d h i s t   m e d i t a t i o n s   y o u r   C h r i s t i a n   s p l e n d o r s   y o u r   d o g s   y o u
r   f l o w e r s   y o u r   c h i l d r e n   y o u r   f a b u l o u s   f o o t w e a r   y o u r   c h i l d r e n   y o u r
  g r a n d c h i l d r e n   y o u r   w a y   w i t h   c h i l d r e n   y o u r   t r o u b l e d   m o t h e r s   y o u r   m
o t h e r s   n o   m o r e   y o u r   l o s s e s   y o u r   s e x y   b o y f r i e n d s   y o u r   e x b o y f r i e n d s  
y o u r   p a s t   b o y f r i e n d s   y o u r   f a n t a s y   b o y f r i e n d s   t h a n k   y o u   f o r   p o s t i n g  
y o u r   p o e m s   y o u r   s e x y   s e l f   p o r t r a i t s   y o u r   g e n e r o u s   s e l f   p o r t r a i t s  
y o u r   l a u n d r y   s e l f   p o r t r a i t s   y o u r   r e l u c t a n t   s e l f   p o r t r a i t s   y o u r   w a n t
- t o - g e t - t o - k n o w - y o u - b e t t e r   s e l f   p o r t r a i t s   y o u r   b r i l l i a n t   p h o t o s   y o u
r   c l a s s i c   p h o t o s   y o u r   f a n t a s t i c   d r a w i n g s   y o u r   c o m i c   d r a w i n g s   y o u r  
p h o t o g r a p h i c   j o u r n a l s   y o u r   s e x y   u s e r p i c s   y o u r   a n i m a t e d   g i f s   t h a n k   y
o u   f o r   y o u r   s t i m u l a t i n g   l i v e s   y o u r   c o m p l e x   l i v e s   y o u r   f o r t h r i g h t   l
i v e s   y o u r   i m a g i n a t i o n s   y o u r   t h o u g h t p r o v o k i n g   d i s c u s s i o n s   y o u r   a w a r
e n e s s   o f   t h e   m o m e n t   y o u r   l o v e   o f   b e a u t y   t h e   s e n s e   o f   d éj à v u   y o u   a r o u
s e   y o u r   s a d n e s s e s   y o u r   j o i e   d e   v i v r e   y o u r   n e a r n e s s   t o   g o d s   y o u r   p
l u c k   y o u r   s e n s e   o f   a d v e n t u r e   y o u r   y o u t h f u l n e s s   y o u r   y o u t h   y o u r   t r
a n s f o r m a t i o n s   y o u r   s u b t l e t y   y o u r   k e e n   m i n d s   y o u r   t e n d e r   h e a r t s          

  
Jesse finished painting my house trim yesterday. He didn't paint the stucco, and as far as I know it's always been yellow, which I don't mind - especially since the house is in a city named yellow. Everything else was kept the same too - except one thing. When he was finishing up yesterday he offered to come back and repaint the front door. It was a very dark brown - Jesse thought it was black. I said why not paint it red. (Some red had been used on the front porch railing.) So he painted it on the spot. I kind of liked it. I know it's not subtle or minimal - or maybe even tasteful, but I've really grown to love visiting those sunny cities where the houses are painted in cheerful colors.




     [livejournal.com profile] transairn                                      
     [livejournal.com profile] scream4noreason                                      
     [livejournal.com profile] bobo_dreams                                                   AVE ATQUE VALE

      
      

Religious frenzy drives a man to cut off his own balls....and then -- the morning after.
I think this is the best English translation of
Catullus 63. It is slightly long.
But if you have 5 minutes, try it, you might find it worth your time...


 Over deep seas Attis, carried on a rapid catámaran,
 eagerly with hurrying footsteps sought that forest in Phrygia,
 penetrated the tree-thick coverts, the goddess' shadowy habitat,
 and there, by furious madness driven, wits adrift in insanity,
5seized a keen flint, slashed away the weight of his groin's double complement;
 and when she felt the members left her shorn of all their virility
 dropping still a spatter of fresh-shed • blood on the ground as she sped along,
 quickly with snow white hand she seized the lightweight rat-a-tat tympanum—
 yours the tympanum, a Cybébé, yours, great Mother, the mysteries—
10and on the hollow drum-skin beat a • táttoo with delicate fingertips,
 making this passionate invocation, body convulsed, to her followers:
 "On together with me, you Gallae, seek the high forests of Cybelé,
 on together, you roving herd of the Dindyménian Dómina,
 who like exiles in pursuit of new and alien territory,
15following me as leader, comrades to my orders obedient
 bore the salt sea's tidal swiftness, its rough oceanic truculence,
 and now have all unmanned your bodies • from too great hatred of venery—
 by your impetuous wanderings let your • mistress' heart be exhilarate!
 Purge your spirits of slow reluctance, and all together now follow me
20to the Phrygian home of great Cybébé, the goddess' Phrygian forest groves,
 where the sound of cymbals echoes, and the sharp rattle of kettledrums,
 where the Phrygian player's déep notes boom from the curve of his basset-horn,
 where the maenads, ivy-garlanded, toss their heads in mad ecstasy,
 where with shrilling ululations they act out their ritual ceremonies,
25where the goddess's roving troupers long have flitted perégrinant—
 there is where we now must hasten with our impetuous sarabands!"
    
 As soon as Attis, woman no woman, had uttered these words to her followers
 an instant cry went up from the quivering • tongues of the ululant revellers,
 echoing cymbals clashed, there thudded the light tattoo of the tambourines,
30as headlong to leafy Ida hastened with scurrying footfall her company.
 Leading them, breathless, pressing onward, gasping her heart and spirit up,
 threading thick woodlands Attis wandered, the drumbeat still her accompaniment,
 like some heifer, as yet unbroken, fleeing the collar's grim discipline,
 while the Gallae crowded hotly after their swift-footed pacesetter.
35So when they reached Cybébé's precinct, swooning-exhausted, woman-faint,
 shot with huge effort, breadless, empty, soon they collapsed into somnolence.
 Tides of slumber, slow and languorous, closed their eyes, rippled over them:
 in soft repose there ebbed to nothing all their minds' rabid delirium.
 But when the Sun with his golden orb and eyes of sharp-dazzling radiance
40lightened the pale white empyrean, harsh earth, the sea's liquid riotousness,
 chasing away Night's gloomy shadows, his fresh steeds' hooves briskly clattering,
 then Sleep arose from Attis wakened, fled away swiftly, precipitate,
 sought comfort in the trembling bosom • óf the goddess Pasíthea.
 So after slumber, now abandoned by her frenzied paroxysm,
41Attis reflected on the deed that she herself had initiated,
 saw where she was, what things she'd lost, mind purged to diaphanous clarity.
 Back to the shore she forced her footsteps, heart full of simmering bitterness,
 and there, as she gazed with tear-filled eyes at the ocean's lonely immensity,
 thus she addressed her distant homeland, in saddest accents and piteously:
    
50"Ah, dear country that shaped my being, country that bore and delivered me,
 which to my misery I abandoned-like some runaway minion
 fleeing his master—and pressed on hotfoot to Ida's wildwooded forestry,
 passed the snowline, made my way to the wild beasts' frost-riven ádyta,
 reaching as far, in my mad frenzy, as their remotest covert—ah where,
55where, in which quarter, O my country, must I now look for your territory?
 My eyes, unbidden, long to turn their • gaze upon you, motherlandwards,
 while, for this too-brief space, my mind stays • free of its savage insanity.
 Ah, am I doomed to these alien forests, far from what's home, what's familiar—
 absent from country, from my possessions, from friends and those who engendered me
60absent from forum and from palaestra, from race-course and from gymnasium?
 Ah wretch, ah wretch, whose life henceforward is nothing but wailing and misery!
 What variation of human figure exists that I haven't appropriated?
 This I, now woman, was I the ephebe, the child; this I the young teenager,
 this I the gymnasium's finest flower, the glory of oil-smooth athleticism.
65For me all thresholds were warm, for me all hallways were crowded with visitors,
 for me the house was a riot of posies, of flowers all looping and garlanded,
 when the sun came up and the time was on me to rise and abandon my bedchamber.
 Am I now to be known as the gods' own handmaid, the serving girl of great Cybelé?
 Shall I be a maenad, I but a part of me, I unmanned to sterility?
70Am I to dwell on verdant Ida's chill and snow-clad escarpments? Shall
 I waste my remaining lifespan under • the lofty columns of Phrygia,
 there with the hind that roams the forest, there with the boar in his timberland?
 Now, ah now, what I've done appalls me; now, ah now, I repent of it!"
    
 As from those rose red lips there issued with arrowy speed her sharp utterance,
75bringing a new report to the ready ears of the gods, those keen listeners,
 Cybelé then, unyoking the reins that harnessed the lions to her chariot pole,
 goaded the left one, the cattle killer, kindling its wrath with her urgency:
 "Go now, my fierce one, go, pursue him, plague him with savage dementia,
 make the stroke of his frenzy drive him back to the groves of my habitat,
80he who yearns so overfreely to shake off my mastering dominance!
 Flog your back with your tail in fury, lash yourself into rabidity,
 roar till each hidden covert reechoes your fierce and terrifying utterance—
 go, my fierce one, toss the tawny • mane on your neck's muscularity!"
 So spoke Cybébé in rage, with one hand • slipped the yoke pin. The beast took off
85in a feral fury, driven wild by its self-incitement to savagery,
 sprang on roaring, paws in motion sending the brushwood skittering.
 But when it neared the sea-damp shoreline, the bright white stretch of the littoral,
 and there saw delicate Attis standing by the sea's marbled infinity,
 it charged. Demented, she scuttled headlong back to the wild woods, a fugitive,
90there to remain for ever, a lifelong • slave girl, a feminine acolyte.
    
 Goddess, great goddess, O Cybébé, goddess, mistress of Díndymos,
 far from my own house be all your • furies, Lady, and madnesses—
 whip up others into frenzy, goad on others to ecstasy!
    
    
                               Gaius Valerius Catullus
                               translated by Peter Green


After Christmas
I went to Fort Worth, to Houston,
 
 
 
 








 
 
 
and to San Francisco.








      
 
Lots of time to walk around,
to think,
 
and just do nothing.
 
 








mlr: (ball  & chain)



i hate and i love. why do that? good question.                
no answer, save 'i do'.    nailed, through either hand.  
    
    
    
    
   
   
  no matter how high your spirit
  however imposing your looks
  you could shoot through seven boards
  and read five lines at a glance
  and have slept on a tiger head pillow
  once sat on an ivory couch
  but without any whatyamacallit
  you'll be just as cold as snow


mlr: (modern)


Another Saturday
 
 
 

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mlr: (modern)

Another Saturday
 
 

Η κάμαρα ήταν πτωχική και πρόστυχη,
κρυμένη επάνω από την ύποπτη ταβέρνα.
Aπ’ το παράθυρο φαίνονταν το σοκάκι,
το ακάθαρτο και το στενό. Aπό κάτω
ήρχονταν η φωνές κάτι εργατών
που έπαιζαν χαρτιά και που γλεντούσαν.
 
Κ’ εκεί στο λαϊκό, το ταπεινό κρεββάτι
είχα το σώμα του έρωτος, είχα τα χείλη
τα ηδονικά και ρόδινα της μέθης —
τα ρόδινα μιας τέτοιας μέθης, που και τώρα
που γράφω, έπειτ’ από τόσα χρόνια!,
μες στο μονήρες σπίτι μου, μεθώ ξανά.
 
 
Κ.Π. Καβάφης

'08

Jan. 5th, 2009 10:48 pm
2 n e w s y s t e m s f r o m s c r a t c h
: a c l i e n t -s i d e P O S s y s t e m - & c
i r c l e j e r k s p r o g r a m | m o s t d i f
f i c u l t o r g a n r e c i t a l t o d a t e
( d u p r é p f g m i n o r , B W V 5 5 0 , B
W V 6 8 2 , m e s s i a e n l i v r e d ' o r g u
e , d i s l t e r s o n a t e ) | v e r y g o o d
( m a y b e e v e n s u b l i m e ) c h r i s t m
a s e v e p e r f o r m a n c e | c o m p o s e d
4 p i e c e s | e x e r c i s e c o n s t a n t :
s w i m m i n g 1 h o u r o n a v e r a g e 2 .
5 d a y s a w e e k | m o r e d i a g n o s t i
c t e s t s t h a n a n y y e a r i n m y l
i f e | h e a l t h c o n c e r n s i n a s c e n
d e n c y | p a i d o f f 9 0 % o f m y s e c o

'08

Jan. 5th, 2009 10:47 pm

n d h o u s e m o r t a g e | i t o u c h p u r c
h a s e d | f i r s t e u r o t r i p s i n c e
0 4 | b e a r e v e n t s a t t e n d e d c o n t
i n u e d t o d w i n d l e - o n l y B P - d o
w n f r o m 2 i n 0 7 | 1 s t y e a r s i n
c e 1 9 9 8 n o v i s i t t o s a n f r a n c
i s c o | n o f b a c t i v i t y i n 1 y r
| l e s s c o n t a c t w i t h g a y s i n g e
n e r a l | t o l e r a n c e o f b o r i n g / i n
c o n s i d e r a t e / r u d e / a n n o y i n g p e o
p l e i m p r o v e d | r e b o u n d s f r o m a
n x i e t y / d e p r e s s i o n a t t a c k s i m p
r o v e d & s e l f w i l l e d | m o r e l j e n
t r i e s t h a n t h a n e v e r b e f o r e |




I'm an iPod newbie. I used to think I wouldn't enjoy one and dismissed the notion. But I bought an iTouch before my recent trip to Spain & France mainly for the dictionaries I could load and movies for the plane.

Before I left, I loaded up as many CDs as I could - some Spanish Renaissance things, all of the "recorded legacy" of Stravinsky, and assorted other stuff. I didn't listen to the iPod at all in Spain - I guess I was busy enjoying the conversation. But when I got to Paris, where I was by myself for 5 days, I plugged in the earphones and listened a lot, and I bought a few more CDs over there.

I was surprised what a good companion it was: I had Marin Marais in the Louvre, Agon and Apollo in the Pompidou, Perotin in the Sainte-Chappelle, jazz on the streets, and Annie Lennox going out at night.

Since then I've been enjoying the Sony Ligeti recordings...
my AAGO scores arrived in the mail. the exam consists of 2 3-hour written exams given on consecutive mornings, and 1 playing exam (45 minutes to 1 hour) on one of the afternoons.

before i took the test, my biggest concerns were the dictation question on the written exam, and transposition and harmonization questions on the playing exam. after i took the exams, i felt the playing exam all went well, the weakest part being the figured bass question. i had concerns about the written exam, specifically the analysis question and the musical knowledge question.

oddly enough, my scores were better on the written part, especially on the 2 questions where i thought i had a problem. my playing scores were in relationship to each other about where i thought they would be. but i thought the playing exam scores would in general be a little higher.

i took the test in dallas. the examiners were hidden from sight and anonymous.

Exam at the Organ
Prepared Pieces(40) 32.5
Awareness of stylistic period(7)6
Imagination and musical excitement(6)4.5
Phrasing and articulation(6)4.5
Rhythm(6)5
Tempo(5)4
Note accuracy(6)4.5
Registration(4)4
Sight Reading (10) 8.5
Transposition (10)9
Figured Bass (10)6.5
Bass/Melody Harmonization (15)10.5
Improvisation (15)11.5
Total (100)78.5


Written Exams
Analysis (25) 22.5
Fugue (20) 17.5
Dictation (Ear Tests)(15) 12
Composition/Harminization (20) 16
Musical Knowledge (20) 20
Total (100)88

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