The New Year, so far. I really should post more often.
Watching Life after People inspired some interesting speculations. Metro Cinema at the Citadel Theatre showed an insightful documentary about Glenn Gould. There were two good concerts at the Winspear Centre. My housekeeper and her sister paid me a surprise visit.
During my walks in the week following New Year's Eve, I imagined what my neighborhood would look like at increasingly greater times into the future, if it were suddenly abandoned right now. I would visualize what the scenes around me would look like after 35 years, 75 years, 150 years and 200 years. I realized that the most lasting sign that people had been here would be the neighborhood's park and boulevard trees. By 35 years, the wood frame houses would start to collapse into their basements, eventually leaving the area pock marked with strange depressions in the ground as they rotted away and newly formed forest soil covered them. The streets would also be covered with leaf litter and overgrown with shrubs and sapling trees. For about 75 years, here and there, rusty steel fence posts and street lamps, who's anchor bolts hadn't corroded through, would continue to stand above the accumulating duff, entangled with vetch and honeysuckle vines. Even then, the elms and maples of the boulevards with trunks bigger than they are now, would still tower over most of the new growth, curiously arranged in a grid of intersecting double rows running through a new wilderness. The school and the hospital would be the last buildings to go. Even though they are made of reinforced concrete, by about 150 years they would be reduced to heaps of rubble by the weathering and erosive effects of rain and snow, freezing temperatures and the roots of the vegetation that would establish itself, prying these structures apart and fragmenting the pieces to extract mineral nutrients. By about 200 years the rubble would be completely overgrown. The school would be a barely noticeable wide and low mound. From a distance, the hospital would seem to be just a hill covered with trees. If one were to climb it, one would occasionally see broken and weathered slabs, beams and columns still showing through the duff. Despite the passing of almost every other sign of humanity, most of the park and boulevard trees would still be alive, much bigger in diameter and a little taller than they are now, forming a denser canopy over what were once streets and avenues, but they would simply be the oldest and largest trees of a mature forest, and their arrangement in a grid pattern would be apparent only from an aircraft.
Friday before last, Metro Cinema showed an excellent documentary about Glenn Gould, The Genius Within, in Ziedler Hall. I had grown up thinking that Gould's interpretation of J. S. Bach's music was simply the way it was supposed to be played. I didn't know any better until later. I knew hardly anything about the man's private life until I watched this documentary. As well as being a chronicle of interviews with Gould during his life, the documentary inter-cut recent interviews with his surviving friends and lovers, commenting on the stages of his life being presented. Enough time has passed that rather than taking advantage of notoriety, the interviewees were concerned about Glenn Gould being remembered as he actually was. I have to disagree with Tracy from work, that Gould was a tormented man. Although he was eccentric and solitary even in his youth, he played that up when he became famous for its publicity value. He did choose to set himself apart, but the people who were close to him remember how charming, genuine and caring he was, and he certainly knew how to have a good time. He was not only a brilliant musician but a great man.
The concert at the Winspear Centre last Saturday was dedicated to the early works of Beethoven. The pieces were selected to illustrate the development of his unique style as he shifted from emulating Mozart and Haydn in his youth to his emergence as a celebrity. Schooled in the style of J. S. Bach, he became fired up with the new style of composition being created by Mozart and Haydn, now known as the classical style. He met Mozart only once but carefully studied his music. When he finally moved to Vienna, he became one of Haydn's students. After surviving a brutal upbringing, his first encounter with fame also coincided with his realization that he was gradually going deaf. On top of that, he was rejected as an unsuitable marriage prospect by the father of the young woman he loved. Beethoven in his later life truly was a tormented genius, but that didn't prevent him from composing grand and triumphant music.
After the concert I stopped in at New City. I'm always listening for new and interesting music, but nothing really caught my ear that evening. I do enjoy the music there, although some of it is just dissonant disco music. I did notice that there was still champagne left over from New Year's Eve. I hate to leave a job left undone, so I did my best to finish it off. They were also showing some of Charlie Chaplin's early movies on the big screen, from when he was working for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company. Besides Chaplin, some of the other supporting actors who appeared in the movies on the screen that evening were also a comedy team known as the Keystone Kops, who performed in many of Mack Sennett's other movies. In the movie they appeared in that evening they were a crew of striking bakers plotting revenge against their tyrannical employer. Rather than a force to be reckoned with, they were a bunch blundering saboteurs who were as much of a danger to themselves.
On Sunday, my housekeeper and her sister stopped by. I had explained to her that I have a depressive disorder, so she thought paying me an unexpected visit would be helpful. At first I was annoyed, but we watched a DVD of Inside Man I had just bought and drank some wine. Inside Man is an excellent movie starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer and Wilhem Defoe. It was jointly directed by Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. It's about a bank robbery where the objective of the robbers is not the money in the bank but the owner of the bank. The bank's owner has a criminal past that the robbers know about, and the evidence is hidden in one of the bank's safety deposit boxes. After the police had surrounded the building, the police negotiator, Densel Washington, asked the gang leader, Clive Owen, how he thought this situation was going to end. The gang leader calmly replied, "When I'm ready, I'm simply going to walk out the front door." There was a lot of talent on the screen, and they had a clever and fascinating script to work with. Inside Man was released in 2006. Considering all the robber barons that have been bailed out recently at public expense, the theme of the movie was almost prescient. We all enjoyed the movie and had a good time chatting and making jokes.
On Monday the Winspear Centre was overwhelmed by The Pink Floyd Experience. Pink Floyd produced a body of work that includes some of the best music ever written, and along with other progressive and experimental music of our time it will continue to be played and appreciated until our civilization fades away. The acoustics of New City are good, since it used to be the Odeon Theatre. The acoustics of Enmax Hall are flawless. Listening to The Pink Floyd Experience perform there was transporting. I was inside the music and carried away. Although I grew up with Pink Floyd and Glenn Gould, I continue listening for the sound of greatness, which is why I frequent venues like the Winspear Centre and New City.
During my walks in the week following New Year's Eve, I imagined what my neighborhood would look like at increasingly greater times into the future, if it were suddenly abandoned right now. I would visualize what the scenes around me would look like after 35 years, 75 years, 150 years and 200 years. I realized that the most lasting sign that people had been here would be the neighborhood's park and boulevard trees. By 35 years, the wood frame houses would start to collapse into their basements, eventually leaving the area pock marked with strange depressions in the ground as they rotted away and newly formed forest soil covered them. The streets would also be covered with leaf litter and overgrown with shrubs and sapling trees. For about 75 years, here and there, rusty steel fence posts and street lamps, who's anchor bolts hadn't corroded through, would continue to stand above the accumulating duff, entangled with vetch and honeysuckle vines. Even then, the elms and maples of the boulevards with trunks bigger than they are now, would still tower over most of the new growth, curiously arranged in a grid of intersecting double rows running through a new wilderness. The school and the hospital would be the last buildings to go. Even though they are made of reinforced concrete, by about 150 years they would be reduced to heaps of rubble by the weathering and erosive effects of rain and snow, freezing temperatures and the roots of the vegetation that would establish itself, prying these structures apart and fragmenting the pieces to extract mineral nutrients. By about 200 years the rubble would be completely overgrown. The school would be a barely noticeable wide and low mound. From a distance, the hospital would seem to be just a hill covered with trees. If one were to climb it, one would occasionally see broken and weathered slabs, beams and columns still showing through the duff. Despite the passing of almost every other sign of humanity, most of the park and boulevard trees would still be alive, much bigger in diameter and a little taller than they are now, forming a denser canopy over what were once streets and avenues, but they would simply be the oldest and largest trees of a mature forest, and their arrangement in a grid pattern would be apparent only from an aircraft.
Friday before last, Metro Cinema showed an excellent documentary about Glenn Gould, The Genius Within, in Ziedler Hall. I had grown up thinking that Gould's interpretation of J. S. Bach's music was simply the way it was supposed to be played. I didn't know any better until later. I knew hardly anything about the man's private life until I watched this documentary. As well as being a chronicle of interviews with Gould during his life, the documentary inter-cut recent interviews with his surviving friends and lovers, commenting on the stages of his life being presented. Enough time has passed that rather than taking advantage of notoriety, the interviewees were concerned about Glenn Gould being remembered as he actually was. I have to disagree with Tracy from work, that Gould was a tormented man. Although he was eccentric and solitary even in his youth, he played that up when he became famous for its publicity value. He did choose to set himself apart, but the people who were close to him remember how charming, genuine and caring he was, and he certainly knew how to have a good time. He was not only a brilliant musician but a great man.
The concert at the Winspear Centre last Saturday was dedicated to the early works of Beethoven. The pieces were selected to illustrate the development of his unique style as he shifted from emulating Mozart and Haydn in his youth to his emergence as a celebrity. Schooled in the style of J. S. Bach, he became fired up with the new style of composition being created by Mozart and Haydn, now known as the classical style. He met Mozart only once but carefully studied his music. When he finally moved to Vienna, he became one of Haydn's students. After surviving a brutal upbringing, his first encounter with fame also coincided with his realization that he was gradually going deaf. On top of that, he was rejected as an unsuitable marriage prospect by the father of the young woman he loved. Beethoven in his later life truly was a tormented genius, but that didn't prevent him from composing grand and triumphant music.
After the concert I stopped in at New City. I'm always listening for new and interesting music, but nothing really caught my ear that evening. I do enjoy the music there, although some of it is just dissonant disco music. I did notice that there was still champagne left over from New Year's Eve. I hate to leave a job left undone, so I did my best to finish it off. They were also showing some of Charlie Chaplin's early movies on the big screen, from when he was working for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company. Besides Chaplin, some of the other supporting actors who appeared in the movies on the screen that evening were also a comedy team known as the Keystone Kops, who performed in many of Mack Sennett's other movies. In the movie they appeared in that evening they were a crew of striking bakers plotting revenge against their tyrannical employer. Rather than a force to be reckoned with, they were a bunch blundering saboteurs who were as much of a danger to themselves.
On Sunday, my housekeeper and her sister stopped by. I had explained to her that I have a depressive disorder, so she thought paying me an unexpected visit would be helpful. At first I was annoyed, but we watched a DVD of Inside Man I had just bought and drank some wine. Inside Man is an excellent movie starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer and Wilhem Defoe. It was jointly directed by Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. It's about a bank robbery where the objective of the robbers is not the money in the bank but the owner of the bank. The bank's owner has a criminal past that the robbers know about, and the evidence is hidden in one of the bank's safety deposit boxes. After the police had surrounded the building, the police negotiator, Densel Washington, asked the gang leader, Clive Owen, how he thought this situation was going to end. The gang leader calmly replied, "When I'm ready, I'm simply going to walk out the front door." There was a lot of talent on the screen, and they had a clever and fascinating script to work with. Inside Man was released in 2006. Considering all the robber barons that have been bailed out recently at public expense, the theme of the movie was almost prescient. We all enjoyed the movie and had a good time chatting and making jokes.
On Monday the Winspear Centre was overwhelmed by The Pink Floyd Experience. Pink Floyd produced a body of work that includes some of the best music ever written, and along with other progressive and experimental music of our time it will continue to be played and appreciated until our civilization fades away. The acoustics of New City are good, since it used to be the Odeon Theatre. The acoustics of Enmax Hall are flawless. Listening to The Pink Floyd Experience perform there was transporting. I was inside the music and carried away. Although I grew up with Pink Floyd and Glenn Gould, I continue listening for the sound of greatness, which is why I frequent venues like the Winspear Centre and New City.