New Mexico just stupidly gave up its presidential votes to California and New York, and Ohio could be next.
Category Archives: History
Obstruction Of Justice In The Obama Administration
The top five uninvestigated cases. Note that it’s the top five, not only five.
The Electoral College
No, it wasn’t a pro-slavery ploy.
SLS And Moon In 2024
The Highwaymen
There’s apparently a new flick out about the guys who finally got Bonnie and Clyde. Lileks reviews the reviews.
Gershwin And Ravel
We went to Disney Hall for the first time on Sunday, for a concert. I’d been wanting to do it since it was built, to hear the acoustics first hand. They were great, though there’s obviously no way to A-B them with (e.g.) the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which was the previous home for the LA Philharmonic.
Anyway, it was an interesting concert, with a lecture beforehand, in which I learned that Gershwin had once asked Ravel (who was a quarter of a century his senior) if he would give him composing lessons. There are two stories of his response: The first is that Ravel said that he should prefer to be a first-rate Gershwin to a second-rate Ravel; the second (more likely accurate) was that he asked Gershwin how much money he’d made in the last year, and when informed that it was a hundred thousand (in 1920s dollars), he said that he should be taking lessons from him.
I also learned that while Gershwin later orchestrated his own music, Rhapsody in Blue was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé (of Grand Canyon Suite fame), more than once. We also heard the first recording of it, converted from a wax cylinder, with a very different take on the opening clarinet solo.
Finally, I learned that Irving Berlin couldn’t read or write music, and that Gershwin was one of his writers. Also that Berlin used only the black keys, and played everything in F#, but his custom piano enabled it to automatically transpose to other keys.
The concert itself was Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, followed by Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, with the French soloist Hélène Grimaud, whom I’d never heard before, or of, but she was fantastic attacking the keys in the first and third movements, and beautiful in the gentle adagio.
After the intermission, the orchestra played Ravel’s La Valse, then concluded the performance with a spectacular American in Paris, which I’d never heard performed live before, featuring some lovely solos by the concertmaster, a woman who appeared to be of Chinese (or some other Asian) descent.
It was a little pricey, but we greatly enjoyed the show, and should do things like that more often as, like everyone else, we aren’t getting any younger. At least not yet.
Joe Biden
I do think he’s getting a bad rap for his creepy behavior, but I’ve no idea where Piers Morgan gets the idea that he’s “one of America’s most decent men.” I don’t think that decent men accuse their political opponents of racism and a desire to put blacks back in chains. It’s particularly odious when it was his party that historically had that desire, and until the Civil War, literally did it.
Democrats And Socialism
Well, this is refreshing. Maybe she should think about switching parties, though; she seems out of touch with the base.
NATO
What is its 21st-century value?
It’s interesting to note that he doesn’t talk about the current mess with Turkey. I think it was a mistake to admit it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of Turkey, Erdogan seems to be losing popular support (which is a little surprising, considering the power grabs he’s been making).
AOC
…doubles down on dumb. Perhaps, like Joe Biden, she also thinks that Roosevelt went on television after the 1929 market crash.