Have you ever heard a 40 voice choral piece? No, not 40 singers singing 4 or 8 parts; 40 singers, each performing a separate individual part. That's what we heard last night.
When my husband bought us tickets for Cal Performances' Polychoral Splendors of the Florentine Renaissance, I mostly noticed that it featured His Majestys Sagbutts and Coronets (that's pronounced "SACKbutts", by the way). I didn't realize until I heard the pre-concert lecture that we were attending the 21st century premieres of three choral works that haven't been performed since the sixteenth century. None of these works has less than 40 voices, and one of them has 60.
That's right. Sixty separate vocal lines, each sung by one singer. From the program notes: "... to experience the important spatial dimension of many choirs that are physically separated, a 16th-century version of 'surround sound' that is almost impossible to reproduce effectively on recordings." (Although they did record the concert; and if it's ever on sale, I'll buy it.) In Berkeley's First Congregational Church, we had the acoustics we needed.
The story behind this concert is absolutely fascinating, but it's also quite long, so I'll refer you to the concert program notes, which you can find online at Cal Performances. (Warning: it's 3.5MB.) In very brief, it's based on conductor Davitt Moroney's scholarly research into "gigantismo" - the suggestion that in the mid-16th century, there was more than the one known instance of choral works written for 40 or more voices. His research uncovered three of them, two from the court of Cosimo de Medici, in Florence, the third from Spain. This was all part of the amazing flowering of art that produced the great visual treasures of Florence - who but Cosimo de Medici could have afforded a sixty-voice choir? In fact, the pre-concert lecture noted that when Alessandro Striggio's mass, Missa sopra "Ecco sì beato giorno", was composed, there were only 5 places in Europe where it could be performed: Florence, Vienna, Hamburg, Rome, and Madrid. My composer can write more choral parts than your composer.
Listening to this music is like looking at a renaissance tapestry. It's incredibly detailed and dense. It isn't polyphony, there's no fugue. The separate parts blend together into a sonorous wall, with brief illuminations as a soprano or a tenor soars above the sound and then blends back in. I've never felt so much that I was in the presence of another age. The sound was overwhelming.
I particularly liked the 40-voice canon on the Ten Commandments - ten 4 voice choruses, each singing the same canon 10 times. When the 10th chorus comes in, all the choruses are singing all the words of all ten commandments at once (in Latin hexameter verse). You'd think it would be total chaos. In fact it's a brooding, introspective piece that is amazingly soothing. You can't understand the words but you're supposed to know what they are.
Oh, the Sagbutts. That's a proto-trombone, in case you didn't know. They had a whole family of them, I particularly enjoyed the Gabrieli Canzon primi toni which they performed. The really significant one was the grand bass sackbutt - I never could quite see the whole thing but it was so huge I wondered how long it was. Wikipedia says that the double-bass or "Octav-Posaun" sackbut was pitched in A in Michael Praetorius' day, but the modern version is in B flat. My husband, a former tubist, says that means the fully extended tube is 32 feet long, and the extended slide is probably 10 feet. It had a "pusher" attached, because the slide is too long for a man's arm to extend fully. Still according to Wikipedia, the only modern copy of the only surviving 17th century double-bass sackbut "is currently owned and played by Wim Becu," and that was the name of the performer last night.
Astounding music, all around. Do read the program notes.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Friday, February 03, 2012
Life, Death, and Rules
This isn't the post I started to write last night. In the interval, the power of the Internet has manifested itself again, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation has agreed that it made a mistake, apologized for cutting funding to Planned Parenthood and agreed to restore it. Apparently (as happened with SOPA/PIPA a few weeks ago), when we all rise up on Facebook and Twitter to complain, they actually do hear us. Most of what I read on Facebook yesterday was about this.
It all began yesterday when the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced they had decided to drop funding to Planned Parenthood ($600,000 a year, used only for breast cancer screenings) because Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress, some of whose members suspect it of illegally using federal funds to perform abortions. We have a new rule about donating to organizations being investigated, the Foundation said. We're just following our rules.
I'm not the only Planned Parenthood supporter out there who thought this was nuts; or the only one wondering, if they were just following the rules, why they hadn't pulled the plug on their $7.5 million dollar grant (for breast cancer research) to Penn State, currently under investigation for ignoring child sexual abuse. Is providing abortions really worse than ignoring pedophilia? What a question.
Now that the Komen Foundation has been bombed out of a position that no one with any sense would have occupied in the first place, I want to consider some of the issues this incident raised. The whole thing is a classic "be careful what you ask for" - one side effect was an absolute avalanche of support for PP, which the Komen folks probably didn't intend. But it made me think.
In a fit of anger, I wrote this on Facebook:
So, which is worse - a woman dying from breast cancer or a fetus being aborted?
The trouble with the abortion issue is that there are two lives involved - and each side of the argument insists that only one of those lives is important. But when you bring breast cancer screening into the equation, in the way the Komen Foundation did, you turn it into a decision on who should die - the mother, or the child. But that's a fool's game, because any child's welfare depends on a living, healthy mother - not one who dies of (or even spends years fighting) breast cancer.
Americans don't like to talk about death. I suspect that our culture feels if we can just be a little more brilliant and inventive, we can make the whole thing go away. But we can't. Sooner or later, all of us will die; the only question is when, and how. That child saved from abortion by defunding evil Planned Parenthood? Will die; the only question is when, and how. The mother with breast cancer? Will die; in her case, the question is, will she die sooner of cancer or later of something else.
I don't know anyone anywhere who thinks abortion is a good idea. It's a last resort tool. The anti-abortion side tends to demonize women who have abortions; I know some women who have had them, and the decision is, always, wrenching. I'm not going to argue either side; those arguments are unwinnable. But I want to point out that against the 3% of its time that Planned Parenthood spends doing abortions, it spends 35% of its time providing contraception, mostly to women who couldn't normally afford it - which has probably prevented more abortions than any right-to-life group in existence.
I'm glad that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has changed its mind. I'm afraid they will find that, even after changing their minds and doing (what I consider) the right thing, they've lost some important credibility. And only time will show what this has done to their donor base. Everyone will now look at them and ask, now what? And that's too bad, because they've done serious good in their day and may still do more. Ms. Handel is still at the Foundation.
It all began yesterday when the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced they had decided to drop funding to Planned Parenthood ($600,000 a year, used only for breast cancer screenings) because Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress, some of whose members suspect it of illegally using federal funds to perform abortions. We have a new rule about donating to organizations being investigated, the Foundation said. We're just following our rules.
I'm not the only Planned Parenthood supporter out there who thought this was nuts; or the only one wondering, if they were just following the rules, why they hadn't pulled the plug on their $7.5 million dollar grant (for breast cancer research) to Penn State, currently under investigation for ignoring child sexual abuse. Is providing abortions really worse than ignoring pedophilia? What a question.
Now that the Komen Foundation has been bombed out of a position that no one with any sense would have occupied in the first place, I want to consider some of the issues this incident raised. The whole thing is a classic "be careful what you ask for" - one side effect was an absolute avalanche of support for PP, which the Komen folks probably didn't intend. But it made me think.
In a fit of anger, I wrote this on Facebook:
The anti-abortion people essentially state that they would rather allow poor women (the only ones this affects) to die of breast cancer, than give them any opportunity at all to get an abortion, for any reason.This was unfair to the majority of anti-abortion people, of course; that's the trouble with writing, or speaking, in anger. But the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision appeared to take exactly that position. They said they were stopping funding for cancer screenings because PP was "under investigation" - but Karen Handel, the Komen Vice President for public policy since last January, who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood," is reported (in an article in The Atlantic) to have driven the decision to create the rule about being under investigation, for the specific purpose of defunding PP.
So, which is worse - a woman dying from breast cancer or a fetus being aborted?
The trouble with the abortion issue is that there are two lives involved - and each side of the argument insists that only one of those lives is important. But when you bring breast cancer screening into the equation, in the way the Komen Foundation did, you turn it into a decision on who should die - the mother, or the child. But that's a fool's game, because any child's welfare depends on a living, healthy mother - not one who dies of (or even spends years fighting) breast cancer.
Americans don't like to talk about death. I suspect that our culture feels if we can just be a little more brilliant and inventive, we can make the whole thing go away. But we can't. Sooner or later, all of us will die; the only question is when, and how. That child saved from abortion by defunding evil Planned Parenthood? Will die; the only question is when, and how. The mother with breast cancer? Will die; in her case, the question is, will she die sooner of cancer or later of something else.
I don't know anyone anywhere who thinks abortion is a good idea. It's a last resort tool. The anti-abortion side tends to demonize women who have abortions; I know some women who have had them, and the decision is, always, wrenching. I'm not going to argue either side; those arguments are unwinnable. But I want to point out that against the 3% of its time that Planned Parenthood spends doing abortions, it spends 35% of its time providing contraception, mostly to women who couldn't normally afford it - which has probably prevented more abortions than any right-to-life group in existence.
I'm glad that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has changed its mind. I'm afraid they will find that, even after changing their minds and doing (what I consider) the right thing, they've lost some important credibility. And only time will show what this has done to their donor base. Everyone will now look at them and ask, now what? And that's too bad, because they've done serious good in their day and may still do more. Ms. Handel is still at the Foundation.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A path to civil war
USA Today published the following quote, from the AP:
I have one question.BEIRUT (AP) – A senior Russian diplomat Tuesday said a draft U.N. resolution demanding Syrian President Bashar Assad step aside is a "path to civil war," as Syrian troops besieged rebellious areas with hours of shelling and machine-gun fire.
What do they think is going on in Syria right now, anyway? It looks like a civil war to me.
I don't suggest that we should all crank up the armies again and pile into Syria the way we did into Libya. But if Russia thinks what's going on in Syria right now isn't a civil war, I'd like to know how they define one.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Tracking the Money
The city of Oakland is facing the loss of $28,000,000 from its general fund, caused by two outside events: One, Governor Brown eliminated redevelopment agencies in this year's state budget, and Two, the state Supreme Court ruled that the "give-back" the Legislature crafted, which would have let cities and states "buy" their redevelopment agencies back, was unconstitutional. So - there goes the Redevelopment Agency money.
Why is this causing such consternation in Oakland?? Because they were using the Redevelopment Agency money for general operating funds, that's why. In addition to the 159 people who actually work for the Redevelopment Agency, the city was using those funds to pay, or partly pay, for positions all over the city, including (this one staggers me) half the mayor's salary! What??
Why do they do this? I've seen this before. In the early '70s, I worked for the San Jose Public Library. At that time, Lockheed-Martin was a major employer (pre-Silicon Valley), the economy was booming, the bucks were rolling in. (Also pre-oil shock.) And the city of San Jose, having found that citizens were always happy to pass bond issues, had developed the habit of funding basic operations (among other things, the library) out of those bond issues - so as not to have to engage in ungentlemanly conversations about, you know, taxes.
Then Lockheed-Martin lost a big contract. In the intervening 40-odd years, the details of the disaster have escaped me; but I distinctly remember that they laid off what seemed like half the Santa Clara Valley, and the next bond issue that came up for a vote died like a skunk on the freeway. And suddenly the city had payroll obligations that it didn't have enough general fund money to meet. And citizens who were even less likely to vote for new taxes than they had been when they were approving bonds. I forget what gyrations they used to solve their problem; I didn't lose my job, the city of San Jose still has a library. But this all came back to me when I heard that the city of Oakland was paying half the mayor's salary with redevelopment funds. (If I keep repeating that, it's because I still can't believe they did that.)
The cases in the two cities are identical. They couldn't get the taxpayers to raise taxes enough to pay for what they wanted to spend (and the San Jose case was before Proposition 13, they only needed a majority), there was this other money "lying around," so they used it. They ignored the fact that, technically, the other money had another purpose they were legally required to use it for. I would love to hear the justification for paying half the Oakland mayor's salary out of redevelopment funds.
The minimal good news out of all this, for Oakland today, is that the new City Administrator has devised a plan to consolidate services and remove duplications, including eliminating a number of "jobs" that weren't actually being performed by anyone, and will be able to correct the situation by laying off no more than 105 people (out of just over 3,000) and not closing any libraries or senior centers.
This is the first glimmer of fiscal responsibility I've seen in Oakland since before we elected Ron Dellums. God bless Deanna Santana. The mayor (and previous city council member) has tried multiple times to get citizens to vote for property tax increases, without success; and she didn't succeed because none of us trusted the city to spend the money in a responsible and prudent way. We all suspected the city government was full of duplicated services and overstaffed departments, and if we gave them more tax money they would just continue to throw it away.
The new budget is responsible and prudent. I'm still not ready to vote for a property tax increase. But if Ms. Santana stays around and continues to talk turkey about consolidation and simplification, some day I might consider it.
On the other hand, the city council hasn't accepted the new budget yet. Maybe it's too soon to relax.
Why is this causing such consternation in Oakland?? Because they were using the Redevelopment Agency money for general operating funds, that's why. In addition to the 159 people who actually work for the Redevelopment Agency, the city was using those funds to pay, or partly pay, for positions all over the city, including (this one staggers me) half the mayor's salary! What??
Why do they do this? I've seen this before. In the early '70s, I worked for the San Jose Public Library. At that time, Lockheed-Martin was a major employer (pre-Silicon Valley), the economy was booming, the bucks were rolling in. (Also pre-oil shock.) And the city of San Jose, having found that citizens were always happy to pass bond issues, had developed the habit of funding basic operations (among other things, the library) out of those bond issues - so as not to have to engage in ungentlemanly conversations about, you know, taxes.
Then Lockheed-Martin lost a big contract. In the intervening 40-odd years, the details of the disaster have escaped me; but I distinctly remember that they laid off what seemed like half the Santa Clara Valley, and the next bond issue that came up for a vote died like a skunk on the freeway. And suddenly the city had payroll obligations that it didn't have enough general fund money to meet. And citizens who were even less likely to vote for new taxes than they had been when they were approving bonds. I forget what gyrations they used to solve their problem; I didn't lose my job, the city of San Jose still has a library. But this all came back to me when I heard that the city of Oakland was paying half the mayor's salary with redevelopment funds. (If I keep repeating that, it's because I still can't believe they did that.)
The cases in the two cities are identical. They couldn't get the taxpayers to raise taxes enough to pay for what they wanted to spend (and the San Jose case was before Proposition 13, they only needed a majority), there was this other money "lying around," so they used it. They ignored the fact that, technically, the other money had another purpose they were legally required to use it for. I would love to hear the justification for paying half the Oakland mayor's salary out of redevelopment funds.
The minimal good news out of all this, for Oakland today, is that the new City Administrator has devised a plan to consolidate services and remove duplications, including eliminating a number of "jobs" that weren't actually being performed by anyone, and will be able to correct the situation by laying off no more than 105 people (out of just over 3,000) and not closing any libraries or senior centers.
This is the first glimmer of fiscal responsibility I've seen in Oakland since before we elected Ron Dellums. God bless Deanna Santana. The mayor (and previous city council member) has tried multiple times to get citizens to vote for property tax increases, without success; and she didn't succeed because none of us trusted the city to spend the money in a responsible and prudent way. We all suspected the city government was full of duplicated services and overstaffed departments, and if we gave them more tax money they would just continue to throw it away.
The new budget is responsible and prudent. I'm still not ready to vote for a property tax increase. But if Ms. Santana stays around and continues to talk turkey about consolidation and simplification, some day I might consider it.
On the other hand, the city council hasn't accepted the new budget yet. Maybe it's too soon to relax.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Why I Oppose SOPA and PIPA
Who could be in favor of Internet piracy? For the record, not me. But PIPA and SOPA are not only about Internet piracy. (For the record: SOPA is the house bill, PIPA is the Senate bill. Any law would have to be a combination of the two.)
In the interest of the free Internet, I will do something that could potentially be illegal under SOPA/PIPA: I will quote two extended discussions of the legislation from other blogs.
Yesterday on the global blog Crooked Timber (which I'm delighted to learn about), blogger Maria Farrell posted this:
Because Freedom isn’t Free: Why We* Blacked Out Crooked Timber
This is a detailed and thoughtful analysis of what could easily happen under SOPA/PIPA to almost any blog. Including this one. And it wouldn't even have to be anything I did: if any poster on Blogger were to post allegedly pirated content, the attorney general would legally be able to - shut down Blogger. All of it.
If this seems extreme, read this from Chris Heald at Mashable yesterday:
Why SOPA is Dangerous
Heald analyzes in detail exactly what's so threatening about this legislation, with links to the actual bill, so you can read it for yourself.
But this is my blog, so here's why I think this is wrong, based on reading these two sources (and other sources, but these were the best):
It is so broadly written that all anyone would have to do to shut down a web site, any web site, would be to file a complaint with the attorney general that the site was "facilitating the commission of copyright infringement."
There is no definition of "facilitating" in the bill. Here's the actual definition in SOPA (for the record this is sec. 102):
That's it. That's the entire definition. That means that a site is a "foreign infringing site" if the attorney general says it is. Don't let the code sections they list fool you. There is no standard of proof in this act. There is no way for a site to prove that it isn't "infringing." You are infringing if someone says you are.
This disturbs me deeply. This is another step toward the end of the rule of law in this country, following on the legalizing of indefinite detention of U.S. citizens in the N.D.A.A. recently. Even more disturbing, the attorney general is only required to make a cursory attempt to locate the owners of the site before starting proceedings. (Read the Mashable article, and the bill, if you don't believe me.) So your totally innocent site could be blocked and you might not find out until you tried to go there yourself.
And they're doing this based on bogus numbers. The GAO concluded about a year ago that commonly quoted "government statistics" on internet piracy can't be validated and appear to have been mostly made up: see this article by Nate Anderson in ArsTechnica on a GAO review of commonly published piracy estimates:
In the interest of the free Internet, I will do something that could potentially be illegal under SOPA/PIPA: I will quote two extended discussions of the legislation from other blogs.
Yesterday on the global blog Crooked Timber (which I'm delighted to learn about), blogger Maria Farrell posted this:
Because Freedom isn’t Free: Why We* Blacked Out Crooked Timber
Yesterday
This is a detailed and thoughtful analysis of what could easily happen under SOPA/PIPA to almost any blog. Including this one. And it wouldn't even have to be anything I did: if any poster on Blogger were to post allegedly pirated content, the attorney general would legally be able to - shut down Blogger. All of it.If this seems extreme, read this from Chris Heald at Mashable yesterday:
Why SOPA is Dangerous
Heald analyzes in detail exactly what's so threatening about this legislation, with links to the actual bill, so you can read it for yourself.
But this is my blog, so here's why I think this is wrong, based on reading these two sources (and other sources, but these were the best):
It is so broadly written that all anyone would have to do to shut down a web site, any web site, would be to file a complaint with the attorney general that the site was "facilitating the commission of copyright infringement."
Section 102(a)(2) permits the attorney general to take action against foreign sites (i.e., sites that do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction) if “the owner or operator of such Internet site is facilitating the commission of [copyright infringement].”And as you notice, it doesn't even have to be a U.S. site. This is the United States trying to impose its own legal structure on the entire world. Must be okay because we're just trying to get criminals, right?
There is no definition of "facilitating" in the bill. Here's the actual definition in SOPA (for the record this is sec. 102):
- (a) Definition- For purposes of this section, a foreign Internet site or portion thereof is a `foreign infringing site' if--
- (1) the Internet site or portion thereof is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users in the United States;
- (2) the owner or operator of such Internet site is
committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations
punishable under section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter
90, of title 18, United States Code; and
- (3) the Internet site would, by reason of acts
described in paragraph (1), be subject to seizure in the United States
in an action brought by the Attorney General if such site were a
domestic Internet site.
That's it. That's the entire definition. That means that a site is a "foreign infringing site" if the attorney general says it is. Don't let the code sections they list fool you. There is no standard of proof in this act. There is no way for a site to prove that it isn't "infringing." You are infringing if someone says you are.
This disturbs me deeply. This is another step toward the end of the rule of law in this country, following on the legalizing of indefinite detention of U.S. citizens in the N.D.A.A. recently. Even more disturbing, the attorney general is only required to make a cursory attempt to locate the owners of the site before starting proceedings. (Read the Mashable article, and the bill, if you don't believe me.) So your totally innocent site could be blocked and you might not find out until you tried to go there yourself.
And they're doing this based on bogus numbers. The GAO concluded about a year ago that commonly quoted "government statistics" on internet piracy can't be validated and appear to have been mostly made up: see this article by Nate Anderson in ArsTechnica on a GAO review of commonly published piracy estimates:
US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus
If you haven't already done it, I urge you all to contact your representatives in Congress and the Senate and ask them to oppose these bills. Sure, Internet piracy is wrong, but this isn't the way to fight it.
Monday, January 16, 2012
In and Around Whistler
I'll admit I wondered about visiting a world-famous ski resort in the summer. After all, don't you go to a ski resort to ski? But the mountains around it are gorgeous, and when there's no snow you can hike. There actually was snow, above about 5,000 feet - on the peaks, around 6,000 feet, it was quite snowy. It only rained on us one day, and one of the days we were there was glorious - sunny and warm! I'd say the activities we saw the most of included snowboarding (at appropriate altitudes, of course) and mountain biking (everywhere!).
The gallery On to Whistler starts with some photos I took on the drive from Powell River; waiting for the ferry at Saltery Bay I got some shots of a bald eagle, who was just hanging around the ferry terminal waiting for something edible to come along:
We watched the ferry come in and dock, a very slow and stately process. We've gotten so used to cars and airplanes that we forget how long it takes to make a boat do anything in the water:
At Langdale I got some shots of seagulls from above, they were cruising below me, looking for garbage (sorry, but it's true):
I don't have a lot of photos of Whistler itself, the town just isn't that photogenic. I've written about the bears we saw in another post, they have their own gallery. The day I enjoyed the most was the nice day, when Jim went on a strenuous hike and I strolled around Lost Lake, a lovely lake that you can get to on the bus. Here's Lost Lake from part way around, you can see the beach:
The high points of Lost Lake were the female merganser duck, with her five very small ducklings riding on her back:
I got several more photos of the ducks, and some very beautiful shots of the lake edges, but the other highlight was this fellow:
That, my friends, is an osprey, who hovered overhead long enough for me to get several other photos! All the photos are at the gallery Lost Lake, for your viewing pleasure.
The gallery On to Whistler starts with some photos I took on the drive from Powell River; waiting for the ferry at Saltery Bay I got some shots of a bald eagle, who was just hanging around the ferry terminal waiting for something edible to come along:
We watched the ferry come in and dock, a very slow and stately process. We've gotten so used to cars and airplanes that we forget how long it takes to make a boat do anything in the water:
At Langdale I got some shots of seagulls from above, they were cruising below me, looking for garbage (sorry, but it's true):
I don't have a lot of photos of Whistler itself, the town just isn't that photogenic. I've written about the bears we saw in another post, they have their own gallery. The day I enjoyed the most was the nice day, when Jim went on a strenuous hike and I strolled around Lost Lake, a lovely lake that you can get to on the bus. Here's Lost Lake from part way around, you can see the beach:
The high points of Lost Lake were the female merganser duck, with her five very small ducklings riding on her back:
I got several more photos of the ducks, and some very beautiful shots of the lake edges, but the other highlight was this fellow:
That, my friends, is an osprey, who hovered overhead long enough for me to get several other photos! All the photos are at the gallery Lost Lake, for your viewing pleasure.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
More Template Problems
I was still more annoyed to learn that I can't modify the design and layout of my blog template anywhere except in the Chrome browser. Trying to rearrange the layout in FireFox just doesn't work. Grump. For now, this will be my now blog template. I still want the old one back but it isn't going to happen.
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