Erik's Rants and Recipes!

2003-07-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

Moving Day!!!!

This is the last thing that will ever be posted on the Blogger-hosted blog. From now on I am on Moveable Type! The new URL is www.eriksrant.com. As I mention on the welcome post I put on there yesterday, I will be gradually going through all the archives and categorizing all of the posts, so you will be able to find recipes, rants, theory lessons, analyses, bullfight reports, music reviews, etc. much easier. Please let me know of any bugs you find, and I can fix them (or ask Ann, who has been so generous with her time).

So, the fun moves to a new location....

2003-07-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Last post here: a belated Friday Five, kind of. I tried to write something funny. A sort of Me as Dictator biopic. Ha ha. OK, amusing.

Then I tried to take it seriously. Worse.

When it comes down to it, I cannot see watching, let along making a film of my life.

So, instead I will offer five films that I really like:

1. 8 1/2
2. Wings of Desire
3. The Night of the Shooting Stars
4. La Strada
5. Singing in the Rain

And here are five films that I find grossly overrated:

1. Schindler's List
2. Forrest Gump
3. Star Wars (all of them, but we'll count them as one)
4. Gone With the Wind
5. OK, let's face it, everything Spielberg did, with the exception of the first Indiana Jones film is sentimental gorp. I cannot narrow it down any more than that. The man collects Norman Rockwell, you know, the Rembrandt of Punkin Crick. His films are creepy. His philosophy is creepy. The music he uses is abominable. Oh yeah, don't bother to ask me "what about..." and then name something recent, as I have given up. I will not give that man any more money, nor my time. He has such a track record that I have no problem trashing any further films of his without seeing them. He needs to publicly repudiate all of his prior films before I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

2003-07-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

It will soon be moving day. I will announce very soon the new url (which will be close to the current url). Everything here will be there, except comments archives, and it will be better organized, so you can find recipes from the past, the whole Building Blocks of Music series in one place, the analyses, the rants, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all sorted for your convenience.

So, in order to avoid having to double post everything, I will be maintaining blog silence for about a day. I might have the thing all done by the end of the day, but it might be tomorrow. Thank you for your patience!

2003-07-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am writing a lot on the new fado this weekend (cover feature, so it has to be good), so I will not be working on the Victimae analysis. It is close to done, but needs some final touches (and I want to post it simultaneously with Building Blocks: Mode Part I). The fado story is due in my editor's inbox Tuesday morning, and I have Lectura Dantis on Wednesday, so it will be awhile. If you are anxious for more arcane analysis, I am sorry to keep you waiting. I will, as a slight compensation to you, post my Mariza and the new fado story on the blog on Friday or Saturday (I want Bay Area folks to have to buy the paper).

I have also been reading the founding documents of religious communities: St. Benedict's Rule, St. Augustine's Rule, St. Francis's Rule, the Dominican Constitutions, the Jesuit Constitutions, etc. Lots of interesting things have been going through my mind on the nature of government, society, community, penance, seasonality, etc. I might post some of these random thoughts.

I will try to post some more summer recipes, though. Tonight I am grilling lamb-burgers with Italian fontina cheese, served on grilled Pugliese bread with dressed mixed greens, avocado slices, and heirloom tomato slices (and grilled balsamic onions, for those who want them). For wine we will be having a Bonny Doon Clos de Gilroy grenache and a Quinta da Sonora (a dry red Portuguese style wine from the foothills of the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountain range (ha ha ha, that and the Great Sahara Desert, buddy!)). I will report on the wines later tonight or tomorrow.

2003-07-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

If any of you are going to be in the Bay Area in late October, I will be speaking on Italian Music at the Time of Dante for the Lectura Dantis at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. For those of you needing a good excuse to get to San Francisco, this probably isn't it, but late October is a beautiful time of year in the city (it is also a good time to eat at local restaurants, particularly Oliveto or Chez Panisse).

The music of that era was interesting, and I hope to do it justice. Come one come all. Come for the Ars Nova, stay for the Vita Nuova!

2003-07-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

The other great music event we went to was the Annual Saw Players Picnic and Music Festival at the Roaring Camp Railroad in Felton, California. This was one of those kill two birds with one stone sort of deals, as it appealed to Amalia's fanatical love of "choo choo's" and my love of the singing saw. We heard saw players from all over, some great, some good, some, well, enthusiastic. The food at Roaring Camp is an abomination (we would have been well served to have brought our own lunch, rather than spend $14 per each on the worst hamburger I have ever had in my life), but everything else is pleasant. We rode the choo choo, played in the stream, listened to the incomparable Robert Armstrong (of Cheap Suit Serenader's fame), and then went to Santa Cruz to visit Ann and Jaime (Ann is the one responsible for the cool look of this web page - hire her if you want a good web designer (or if you want your walls to look really good, too)). Anyway, nothing beats the singing saw, and if you are in Northern California on the third Sunday of July, it is worth a drive up Highway 9. The music is good, the trains are fun, and the setting is beautiful. Also, Felton is only a few miles from Bonny Doon Vineyard (and David Bruce and Byington, etc. etc.).

2003-07-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Mark of Irish Elk fame is listening to one of Yazoo's great Hawaiian reissues, so it is as good a time as any to tell you about one of the great musicians we saw this weekend. Saturday we went to the Sounds of Hawaii show at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. Most of the music was great (except for the rock band whose best song was a mid-80's new country cover), and some of it really stood out. For instance, I still cannot get the sound of Raiatea Helm out of my head. She has one of those great, soaring pure voices with perfect phrasing and intonation. What's more, she is only 18, so she should really improve (most singers, depending on the genre, hit their prime in their late 30's), although I cannot imagine how. I have no idea how she sounds on record, so I cannot report, but if she sounds just half as good as she sounded Saturday, I would recommend her without hesitation.

2003-07-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Also released today for your musical enjoyment (c'mon, Keilholtz, is this a blog for discussion of weighty matters or is it a commercial platform?)...

For the first time on DVD, Brazos Film's award winning documentary of Cajun and Zydeco culture J'ai Ete Au Bal! By Les Blank, Maureen Gosling and Chris Strachwitz. Featuring Clifton Chenier, Queen Ida, Walter Mouton, Rockin' Sidney, The Balfa Brothers, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard, Nathan Abshire, Michael Doucet and BeauSoleil, John Delafose, Wayne Toups, BoisSec Ardoin, Chuck Guillory, The Hackberry Ramblers, Dennis McGee, Boozoo Chavis, Canray Fontenot, Paul Daigle and many more. There are 30 minutes of "Lost and Found" footage that are really good, and filmmakers' commentary that is interesting.

Now, I don't pitch all of our releases to you. You will not find me telling people to rush out and purchase a title unless it is something that stands out. Also, I tend to push non-Arhoolie titles more than Arhoolie ones on the Blog. However, the three releases we have today are all worth getting.

This will give you an idea of how good this documentary is. Melanie is lukewarm on Cajun and Zydeco music. She'll go to a concert or festival, but she is not one who would go to the shelf and pull out a Louisiana French record to listen to. But I was watching this one at home while I was recovering from the surgery, and she stopped to see a little and stayed in the room for the whole thing. As far as I am concerned, that is the ringingest endoresement for a documentary on Cajun music you can get.

The other DVD we are releasing today is Brazos Film's Chulas Fronteras and Del Mero Corazon. Both films are documentaries about the music and culture of the Mexican-American Border by Chris Strachwitz and Les Blank, and both are outstanding. I saw Chulas Fronteras several times long before I started working at Arhoolie and thought that it was great. Like J'ai Ete Au Bal, we have added 30 minutes of "Lost and Found" footage (and we are not just pushing crap from the cutting room floor onto the DVD - this is real stuff that is worth watching).

Frankly, I would recommend Chulas Fronteras just for the footage of Lydia Mendoza, alone (and if you don't know who Lydia Mendoza is, you are missing out on an amazing singer), not to mention getting a close up look at Narciso Martinez's hands on the button accordion.

I find it very easy to write up and push records and films like the ones we put out. I really don't think that I could work publicity for the garbage that has invaded and taken over the pop music world, though. I would rather be a trash collector than have to push Mariah Carey or Celine Dion. The trash collector gets to take all of the noxious refuse of a household and deposit it in the appropriately hideous place called the dump. The pusher of Mariah Carey has to go around encouraging people to bring more noxious refuse into their houses.

2003-07-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the record business, Happy Street Date! Records, like bishops, are released on Tuesdays. We have a very good bishop in His Excellency, Most Rev. Allen Vigneron, and he is not retiring, so we have no bishop new release to look for today, but we have a new record!

Arhoolie Records, ARH CD 474, Clifton Chenier, The Best of Clifton Chenier - The King of Zydeco & Louisiana Blues. Available at your local independent record store (or most Towers, Virgins, some Borders, and Wal*Marts in Louisiana) or directly from Arhoolie Records. Here is a capsule review a writer happened to drop my way:

Clifton Chenier
The Best of Clifton Chenier
Arhoolie Records
***1/2 (three and a half stars)

Subtitled "The King of Zydeco and Louisiana Blues," this collection features a mix of Chenier’s classic Zydeco standards, like "Ay, ai, ai" and "Zydeco Sont Pas Sale" as well as some great blues numbers. One of the strengths of this title, as well as a weakness, is that longtime Chenier producer Chris Strachwitz, set out to highlight Chenier’s blues abilities, which are considerable. Chenier was an outstanding blues singer, but the price for the inclusion of each blues number is the exclusion of a Zydeco masterpiece. Overall, though, the album is outstanding, with some of the best Zydeco music ever made, interspersed with top-notch blues and topped off with a fascinating interview, which, along with a previously unreleased version of "Zydeco Sont Pas Sale" make this interesting even to a long-time Clifton Chenier fan.

-Pete Flowers
peteflowersmusic@aol.com

2003-07-18T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Building Blocks of Music: The Interval

When we have two notes to consider, we describe the relationship between the two as an interval. We can look at the interval in two ways: the vertical (when the notes sound simultaneously or at least overlap considerably) and the horizontal (when one note follows another). Because it is easier to hear horizontal intervals, we will begin with them.

Now for a personal aside: identifying intervals by ear was a stumbling block for me as a student of music. At the University of California, Santa Cruz, we had a grueling 64 Interval Test, of which we had to identify 58 correctly. I finally passed it, and have had little trouble with identifying intervals since then, but it did not come easily. I actually ended up with a rough perfect pitch as a result of working on hearing those intervals (you can wake me up in the middle of the night with a gun to my head and ask for A440, and I can give you A440 (although as a baroque geek, this is disturbing. Proper A is 415Hz)).

The first division of intervals is into consonance and dissonance. We will first look at the consonant intervals.

If you are sitting at a piano, please play C and then G, preferably around Middle C, but it can be any octave. What you have just heard is the Perfect Fifth. What this means is that the interval between the notes is a certain ratio (I will not confuse you with the exact ratios), which remains constant, no matter what the lower note is, so a Perfect Fifth above D is A, above E it is B, etc. By calling it Perfect we are recognizing two things: first, that this interval is found early in the harmonic series, which we discussed in Building Blocks: Tone, and, second, that the first note is found in the Major scale of the second and vice versa. So, in our example, one encounters a G in the key of C, and a C in the key of G. The Perfect consonances are dangerous to the composer, because they imply such a strong harmonic affinity. When we get into counterpoint, we will see the care that composers use in handling the Perfect Fifth (from here on referred to as P5), the Octave (P8) and the Unison (P1).

The P8 interval is simply a doubling of pitch, so an octave is C to C. The P1 is an identity: play the same note twice and you have it.

The other Perfect interval is the Perfect Fourth (P4). It is a tricky one, because it can sound incredibly dissonant. In fact, in the study of counterpoint, the P4 is considered a dissonance to be avoided (or treated with the care that one would treat any dissonance). Part of the reason is that the P4 is an INVERSION of the P5, so if we play C and then F, the P4, we know that F to C is a P5 (hint, inversions add up to 9).

If we play C and then E, we get an imperfect consonance, called a Major Third (M3). It is called Major, because E is in the key of C Major, but C is not in the key of E Maj. If we play C and then E flat, it is a minor third (m3), because the E flat is not in C Maj, but the C is in the Key of E flat Major (the Major key with three flats: B, E, and A). The inversion of the third is the sixth, so if we start on E our Major sixth (M6) is C sharp, and the minor sixth (m6) is C.

As you play these intervals, notice the associations with songs that come out of them. An ascending P5 (C up to G) may bring the Star Wars theme to mind. A descending P5 (G up to C) might call to mind Born Free. Use these clues to help you learn your intervals. If you know of handy guides to the intervals please feel free to post them in the comments box, to help others learn these. My examples are often a little esoteric, so many of you who are more attuned to popular music might be more useful here.

Now we have the dissonant intervals. We will start with the second. From C to D we have a Major Second (M2), or a whole step. If we move from C to D flat we have a minor second (m2), or a half-step. If we invert the second (2+X=9, and to add to the joy, an inversion of a Major interval is a minor interval and vice versa) we get the seventh. C up to B is our Major seventh (M7), while C up to B flat is our minor seventh (m7).

These are the natural intervals. If we augment an interval, it means that we add a half-step (so an augmented fifth (+5) is the same, for our purposes, as m6). Likewise to diminish an interval means to deduct a half-step (so a diminished fourth (-4, actually the degree sign is preferable, but I have no idea how to render that from the computer, so we will have to use the less preferable -sign) is the same as M3. All of this leads to the problem child of intervals: the tritone (also known as Diabolus in Musicam – the devil in the music), a thoroughly unstable interval. To hear a tritone, play C and then F sharp. Think, “Maria” from West Side Story. Avoiding the tritone is a serious business in writing counterpoint. Not only is it dissonant, but it gravely damages the melodic flow, and cannot even be outlined in three notes (C, E, F#). In tonal harmony the shifting nature of the tritone makes it incredibly useful in the V7 chord, but that is way down the road, so no need to worry about it now.

So the intervals are, in ascending order from the root:

P1
m2
M2
m3
M3
P4
Tritone (+4/-5)
P5
m6
M6
m7
M7
P8
From here on, the intervals are the same, but added to the octave. No one really talks about anything larger than P12, or P5 an octave up.

The Vertical Interval. In some ways a note with a complex wave form can be described in the same language as a chord, or a stack of notes played simultaneously. The way to separate these two concepts is to declare that in looking at the vertical interval, we are concerned with the tones that have roughly equal sonic energy. Certainly each one will come with a host of overtones, but each of these overtones will have diminished sonic energy, as we saw in the Building Block: The Tone.

For this level of conversation we will only concern ourselves with two notes played simultaneously, so no need to think of the more complex harmonies of triads yet.

Basically, the language of dissonance and consonance is the same, but our ear has a little more work to do to tell which interval is which. Play the examples from above, but play them at the same time. Notice whether the resultant combination has a settled feel or whether it sounds like something needs to come after it. You will get an idea of the strength of consonance and dissonance: m7 is less dissonant than M7, for instance, P5 is more consonant than M6, etc.

When you contemplate these relationships and how they work together, you get a good idea of how marvelous the Cosmos is. All of these relationships are built into the very nature of sound! Almost. We cannot talk about the interval without talking about tuning.

For a variety of reasons, the ratios that make up the circle of fifths, that wonderful acoustic phenomenon that generates the 12 tones of the scale by moving up in fifths (C,G,D,A,E,B,F#,C#,G#,Eb,Bb,F,C) does not add up all the way, so if we keep the ratios of the fifths pure, the C will not be the octave C we started with. The gap is the Pythagorean comma. Resolving that gap has resulted in many tuning systems that either abandoned the use of some keys (most of the just tempered scales do this), or compromised the intervals so that the octaves work out, and the intervals are usable.

What you are used to hearing is the Equal 12 system, in which the ratio between each tone in the chromatic scale is identical as you go from one note to the other. To do this, the fifths, thirds, and sixths are compromised, so they are not as consonant as they should be. But temperament is a topic for another Building Block, so I will leave it at this introduction!

So, read this, plunk out the intervals, think about it, ask questions, digest it, and we will get to the analysis of Victimae paschali laudes.

2003-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

I have to get stuff for dinner now, but later tonight (much later, as I have to do some preparation for the Mariza interview), I will post the Building Blocks of Music: The Interval. I promise. No going to bed until I click "Publish."

2003-07-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

Could someone please tell me what is going on in the bison meat market? I keep hearing sob stories of bison farmers who are just not able to sell their meat, and have to settle for a pittance per pound. Then Melanie gets bison steaks without noticing the price, and they are outrageously expensive (but worth every bit of it, yum!). Then, a week later she finds at Trader Joe's ground bison for $5 for 2 pounds. For some reason she only bought one package. So, what is the deal? My butcher who sold us the steaks is a little on the high side, but would not gouge Melanie or me, but it would seem that if the bison rancher is getting any decent percentage on the sale, he has nothing to worry about, even if he is selling his lesser cuts to Trader Joe's for grinding into the $2.50/lb stuff.

Do any of you know the real story? By the way, I highly recommend bison meat. For Melanie's birthday I grilled bison burgers (with lovage and garlic, following Alice Water's recipe in Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook) over mesquite and oak, and served them on toasted pan de mie rolls with balsamic grilled onions and a green salad on the side (tomatoes are finally acceptable here). I was going to make classic pommes frites (cut thinly - McDonald's actually gets this right, par-fried in peanut oil, allowed to cool, then fried again in fresh peanut oil), but found a farmer at the market who was selling zucchini blossoms, which are one of Melanie's favorites (I batter them in a light egg/flour/milk/salt/pepper batter and fry them in extra virgin olive oil), so I did those instead.

We served it all with a bottle of 1995 merlot (that a friend made, sorry, it's not on the market) and were in for some good eating. Our friends brought over some gelato from the one place in the Bay Area that makes authentic gelato (not the best, but satisfactory).

2003-07-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

41.02564% - Major Geek. Thank God they are clueless on the realm of music geeks, otherwise I think that would have put me completely over the top. Still, 41% for someone who is not a computer geek is pretty bad. I may have to think of the ramifications of this.

2003-07-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Dante Night, but we are reading St. Augustine right now (on Free Will), then Virgil, then I am going to harangue the group about the ars nova period and then we will probably wind our way back to the Dark Wood, where we will again lose our way and require the Cosmic lifeguard.

I highly recommend doing this in your own parish. Our lecura dantis is made of a couple of professors, an Ignatius Press editor, a mayoral candidate, a high school teacher, a few students, a priest, a couple of artists, and a public transit administrator. We meet every week, discuss the reading (for the Divine Comedy, we stuck to 3 canti a week), get into heated arguments, drink tea and coffee, and go our merry ways.

It is a great way to spend an evening.

2003-07-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

Recently Jeff posted a quote by James Fenimore Cooper. I cannot let that stand without pointing you in the direction of this great piece by Mark Twain. Read it and weep (or laugh so hard you nearly wet yourself, almost wake everyone up in the house by nearly falling out of your chair, and come close to breaking the computer trying to use the keyboard to right yourself). An exerpt:

Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of Deerslayer is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Deerslayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary delirium tremens.

A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no life-likeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are--oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.

2003-07-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

The topic has come up on Kathy the Carmelite's Blog about meeting fellow bloggers in person. I have met three St. Blog folks (although one I met before I realized he had a blog, and then read his blog and did not realize that it was the fellow I had eaten lunch with before), and it really is fun.

Thinking about this makes me think about the peculiar nature of the Blog discourse. I like the interactivity (as long as it is respectful and intelligent, the comments trolls that some folks seem to attract are an inevitable side effect, I guess), the balance between serious matters and less serious matters (they are actually arguing about retsina over at another blog), as well as formal writing and almost conversational discourse. I also like the fact that blogging becomes self-selecting, with folks gravitating towards various subinterests. Once in awhile I can scan some of the others to see if there is anything I need to read, but I have just a few that I look at every day.

The one thing that bugs me about blogs, however, is the time limit on a discussion. I suppose it is a good thing, as it keeps things from getting drawn out, but sometimes a good dialog gets cut off when the post moves too far down the page. There must be some way of letting particularly active posts float up towards the top.

When blogging will really get interesting is when the cultural historians, literature theoreticians, and semioticians start cataloging and developing a theory and poetics of the blog. Expect some whacky writing, as well as some good theory. Of course the big question is how much of this will really be archived. Will it float through cyberspace eternally? Will it quietly fade away? Will it fade away only to pop up on some fanatic's machine (Look! I single-handedly saves all web pages that were available on July 15th, 2003! This will revolutionize the study of 21st Century History!)? If it all lasts, how will all of it be sifted, sorted and digested? I foresee some horrible grad student projects in this.

If it is randomly erased from memory, with a few things popping up for random reasons, will they assume strange mythologies: We know that the writer known as Nihil Obstat served as some kind of judge to the religious community of the time (often referred to as St. Blog's Parish - even though we have no information about the life of St. Blog - some in Rome have even suggested, behind closed doors and in hushed tones, that he never existed, he was important enough that they named a whole system after him).

One last musing: what if Proust had a blog? Think about that as you watch the sun set over the horizon!

2003-07-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

We had an unseasonable summer day in the Bay Area today! Weeee. Sunshine. Warm. I had to review a Hawaiian record for the paper (just a capsule review, nothing giant- you will have to wait for the Mariza interview for a good meaty music article). Life can be awfully pleasant if you are not careful:

Rev. Dennis Kamakahi
Pua’Ena – Glow Brightly
Dancing Cat Records
**** (four stars)

When cattle were introduced to Hawaii it was essential to bring in trained cattlemen to maintain the herds, so Mexican, Portuguese and Spanish vaqueros came to work the burgeoning cattle industry. They brought their guitars with them and altered the sound of Hawaiian music forever. To fit Polynesian music to the guitar, it was necessary to retune the instruments and the slack key style of guitar was born. One of the masters of Slack Key Guitar is Rev. Dennis Kamakahi. His guitar playing and singing exemplifies the style, with his rich voice and solid accompaniment. Kamakahi creates a wonderfully relaxed sound that is perfect listening for a warm evening. His music is enchanting and soothing without preciousness or the slightest affectation. Pua’Ena is full of honest and straightforward music that instantly evokes the tropical sounds of Hawaii.

2003-07-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

One of my writing duties is exciting. I just found out today that I am going to interview Mariza, who has probably the greatest voice in Portugal. She is going to be in San Francisco on Aug 2nd, and I am interviewing her this week for a story to run Aug 1st. I will post the story here (as well as the reviews I have written about her albums) on August 1. Of all the big name musicians and singers to write about, she has to top the list.

I thought that I was smitten by Cristina Branco's voice until I heard Mariza's Fado em mim. 20 years ago it would have been easier to be the best fadista. The only competition was the elderly and fading legend Amália Rodrigues (yes, that is where we got the name). Well, there were others, but not like today. Now, the field is much more competitive, with great singers like Dulce Pontes, Mariza, Misia, Cristina Branco, Ana Maria Bobone, etc.).

Now if someone could tell me why Madredeus still sells records I would appreciate knowing. Their arrangements are not bad (I don't mind the modern settings with synthesized strings and all that), but there are a lot of singers out there who can sing circles around Teresa. I liked their music in Wim Wender's Lisbon Story, but it was not much more than pleasant atmosphere. If I want to hear fado, I listen to one of the above.

2003-07-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

I posted that last one and hit View Your Blog and something unusual came up: Some other person's template, complete with busty starlet with a come thither look. Or maybe it was a pop songstress. I am not what one would call au courante on these things. "why, it's an outrage! Good musicians go hungry and half talents like, like, Eddie Money make millions!"

OK, I am not that bad, but I don't think I could pick Christina Aguilera out of a lineup. At least I think that is who the girl who showed up on the blog was. I seem to see her face in Billboard, so it probably is she.

Anyway, I don't care who you are, what are you doing on my Blog?!? If I am going to post photos, they are probably going to be of Amália (although I am resisting that, because once you start there, you never stop. You start accosting random passers-by: "do you want to see pictures of my two year old? She is obsessed with 'choo choo's' and sometimes thinks she' a horse!").

My first thought was "hackers!"

"Hackers!" Keilholtz sputters. "Hackers! Imps! Rascals! Reds!"

Then I republished and it went back to the Taurine thing. Bull. Man. Lots of Red. I guess it was just a technoburp.

2003-07-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

I have been writing up a storm (OK, I have also been at the Scottish Highland Games at the Dunsmuir Estate in Oakland, but mostly writing), but it is for paying writing gigs, so I have been neglecting the blog. I will get to it: I have not forgotten you, but liner notes, record reviews, music features all come first, as that is the stuff that puts the pasta on the table.

Your continuing patience is appreciated!

2003-07-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

Someone found this site looking for "pan de higo recipe." Unfortunately I do not have one, but it would be something worth experimenting with. At worst it will not hold together and you will have a sticky mess of figs and almonds. No big deal. You just chop it up and use it as a cookie filling. I am not sure if I would try to make one using fresh figs or dried figs rehydrated in marsala (yum!).

My cooking priorities are pretty much set for the week:

1. Eat up leftovers from San Fermin, from Tuesday's risotto, and from the carnitas, salsa verde, guacamole and chips I made last night.

2. Cook up the veggies that I bought at the farmers' market.

3. MUST get out this weekend and pick walnuts. It will be too late in not that much time, and I will run out of nocino and have to do without for at least a year if I do not get this done.

4. Sweeten the current batch of limoncino.

5. Then, next week is Melanie's birthday week, so her requests definitely take priority.

So, experimenting with pan de higo will probably not happen for at least a week. I am sorry. I will dutifully report any results once I do it. I will not try to simply replicate the delicious pan de higo that I can buy from Spain. It is not expensive enough for me to want to take the effort to just make a clone. I will definitely be shooting for improvement.

Meanwhile, it looks like the comments are down, and I still am looking for Day of the Dead material. I have found some stuff, but the vast majority of what I have run accross is either completely ignorant of or hostile to Catholic traditions (when I get this thing written, I will write on here about the nonsense I have found). So, if you know of anything from a solid Catholic perspective (or at least by someone who is not an idiot when it comes to understanding Catholic theology and practice), please email me at EKeilholtz [ a t ] aol [ d o t ] com. Thank you!

2003-07-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

URGENT REQUEST!

I am under a tight deadline on a project involving the Mexican Day of the Dead. Much of the anthropological literature is written by Marxists and assorted anti-Catholics who are determined to downplay the significance of All Souls and All Saints observances. As a result they yammer on about the syncretic elements of it, how it is really just a Catholic gloss on ancient Amerindian festivities.

Given the bias of most scholars in the Latin American studies fields and the lack of solid evidence of exactly what these ancient practices (most of the stuff is given the level of assumption and is poorly footnoted), and the erroneous notions of the Faith when it is not altogether ignored, I am assuming that there is a high degree of error throughout almost all academic discussion of this observance.

Now, this is the problem: I have to have a good rough draft of this project by Sunday. I have never been to Patzcuaro or any of the places where this celebration is done in a grand style, and I will probably only have one day to use the library (although I will have more time for checking sources after this rough draft is in). If any of you have any information about the Day of the Dead, can point me in the right direction either with print titles or (preferably) Internet sources (reliable ones, though), I will greatly appreciate it!

I am looking for solidly Catholic material, although I am not looking for a whitewash. If, indeed, there are syncretic elements in the theology (obviously there are in the art, and some of the rituals) and beliefs of most of the folks who observe this day, then I need to know about that, as the most important thing here is accuracy.

So, please, if you have any information, please let me know via the comments box or my email: EKeilholtz[at]aol[dot]com.

Gracias!

2003-07-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

As promised, the full review of Pearl's Cafe. It was slightly edited for print, but I do not have an electronic version of that, and I do not have the time to hunt through for changes and to type. Sorry. I think we added something at the end, too. The long and short of it is EAT AT PEARL'S! Yum yum!

If one expects the façade of a restaurant to somehow advertise the quality of what is inside, Pearl's Café in Fremont will first confound then delight. The humble exterior yields absolutely nothing about the cuisine and setting that awaits the diner behind the red door that separates the restaurant from the front-yard/parking lot of what was once a humble single family home.

Although Pearl's is not in a rustic stone building in the countryside, nor has it the elegant formality of a classic haute cuisine restaurant, executive chef Christine Fahey is preparing food that will earn her a place in the canon of Bay Area culinary legends.

Starting with the freshest ingredients, Fahey uses her astounding inventiveness to combine the perfect blend of flavors and textures to live up to the dictum that in a well prepared meal, the diner should taste the food and not the cooking.

Fahey stands out from her peers by combining disparate ingredients while maintaining the integrity of the essential elements of the dish. For instance, in the first appetizer, clams and mussels in a tequila broth with tomatoes, avocado and cilantro (a special appetizer priced at $10), nothing is lost in a fog of competing flavors. Rather, the tequila structured the dish, while the cilantro and tomatoes provided a refreshing lift, with the edges rounded out by the avocado, leaving the center of the dish to be the wonderfully sweet and briny shellfish.

Our other appetizer, a goat cheese flan with fresh berries and baguette slices ($9) was exquisite. The warm flan was delicate and smooth, highlighting the flavor and texture of the goat cheese. The ripe, cool, seasonal berries counterbalanced the earthiness of the cheese with their sweetness and slight tartness.

All entrees are served with a choice of soup or salad (which can be ordered separately for $5 or $6, respectively). The salad, mixed organic greens with marinated red onions, blue cheese, strawberries, and toasted sunflower seeds, was an archtypical Californian salad. Perfectly dressed, the salad balanced the slight bitterness of the greens with the piquancy of the onions and cheese, the sweetness of the berries, and the nuttiness of the sunflower seeds.

The noble simplicity of Fahey's cuisine is exemplified in the soup of the day, which was a chilled melon and basil soup the evening we visited. Each bite of this soup exploded on the palate with two flavors that epitomize early summer. The soup was light and refreshing, a good palate cleanser between the appetizers and the main courses.

Choosing an entrée at Pearl's is one of those tasks that one undertakes with expectation and a touch of regret. From Cajun-spiced prawns sautéed and tossed in housemade barbecue sauce finished with a splash of cream over crisp fried polenta ($22) to semolina gnocchi stuffed with basil pesto and fresh mozzarella cheese ($18.50), everything on the menu tantalizes with daring combinations of fresh ingredients.

We chose the lightly smoked double cut pork chop on a warm German style potato salad with blackberry chutney and grilled asparagus ($23) and the daily special, a generous piece of escolar grilled and served with purple basmati rice, a coconut milk broth, carrots, broccoli, cilantro and a lemon grass aioli ($24). The pork was perfectly cooked, moist and not overpoweringly smoky. The sweet chutney was a good foil to the richness of the pork, and the heartiness of the potato salad. The only problem with our whole meal was the asparagus, which were slightly undercooked and should have either been peeled or had the bottom inch cut off.

The escolar was grilled to an even doneness, flaky and moist, and the preparation gave a pleasant Southeast Asian accent to the dish. The seasonings brought out the fish's delicate flavor, while the lemon grass aioli added richness that pushed the dish over the top.

For dessert we ordered the Scharfenberger chocolate and espresso crème brulee with almond biscotti and the fresh berry beggars purse with vanilla bean whipped cream and raspberry coulis (all desserts $6.50), both of which were outstanding. Each bite of the crème brulee was an explosion of chocolate and coffee flavor, with contrasting textures provided by the smooth custard and the crisp caramelized top. The biscotti were dipped in molten Scharfenberger chocolate and would have made a good dessert on their own.

The berry beggars purse was a buttery puff pastry base topped with an ample amount of warm coulis. Although the menu said it was to be finished with whipped cream, ours came with vanilla bean ice cream, which was a good contrast to the warm beggars' purse.

Portions of all of our dishes were generous, and the presentation of everything was appealing. All of the details of every dish were tended to with care and expertise. Even the bread, a homemade herb bread, and the homemade herbed butter were memorable.

Pearl's service is excellent, yet informal. Our server was exceptionally friendly, helpful, knowledgeable about the food, and attentive. The enthusiasm the staff has for the food is readily apparent in the attitudes of all the wait staff. Not only was our server able to recommend wines, but he gave us tastes of the wines available by the glass.

Pearl's Café's wine list is excellent, with some unusual varietals and blends alongside the usual offerings. Wine prices are reasonable, and the wine by the glass list is diverse enough to offer diners a match to any of the items on the menu.

In contrast to the rather subdued exterior, the interior of Pearl's Café is warm and inviting. Either in the two dining rooms or in the pleasant patio in the back, diners are surrounded by décor that harmonizes with the superb, yet unpretentious food Pearl's offers. The use of space in this small restaurant is efficient, yet does not feel cramped. There is ample room between the tables, and the noise level is acceptable.

2003-07-08T14:32:00.000-07:00

For those of you following my recipe series on summer foods (which will be amended to include some no-carb stuff for various folks who need that), I would like to use this next one as an example of frugality in the kitchen. As you know, the other night I cooked a duck with a pluot sauce. It was a lot of food for the two of us (Amália had eaten something earlier, so it was just Melanie and I), so we had leftovers.

Last night Melanie picked the meat off the carcass and made stock from the bones. Tonight I will make a duck risotto:

Finely chop about 1/4 of a pound of thinly sliced pancetta and all of the duck skin that is left. The finely dice a carrot, a celery stalk, and an onion (or shallot). Finely chop a few dried porcini mushrooms. Peel two cloves of garlic.

In a large saucepan (or whatever you use to make risotto) heat up 2 T of the duck fat leftover from cooking the duck to begin with, 2 T butter and 2 T extra virgin olive oil. Gently fry the pancetta and chopped duck skin. Add the garlic cloves and fry for a minute. Add the onions and fry for a few minutes. Add the carrot and celery and fry until aromatic.

Add two cups of arborio rice, a generous pinch of fresh time, and the chopped mushrooms. Cook for about four minutes until the rice starts to get translucent. Pour in a cup of white vermouth and cook off.

Lower the heat and add hot duck stock, ladle by ladle, stirring occasionally, until the rice is cooked al dente. Take it off the heat. Salt and pepper to taste, finish with 2 T butter and a generous helping of freshly grated reggiano parmeggiana.

Serve with a pinot noir and a green salad.

2003-07-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

I am just finishing my lunch and contemplating what a marvel msg is. I just ate a few too many barbecue potato chips, enough to make my tongue tingle a bit, and it got me to thinking about what msg can do for flavor. It is powerful stuff, and needs to be used in moderation, but it is really the unsung hero of the kitchen.

Now, I don't have a bottle of msg in my kitchen, but I use it in other subtle ways: in the fermented anchovies of Worcester sauce, in dried seaweed flakes, in Maggi sauce (I guess it's called a sauce), etc. Obviously some folks are allergic to it, and should stay away, but for those who are not allergic, it is time to rehabilitate msg into the canon of valid kitchen seasonings.

Now, if my foodie friends read this I am probably going to have to defend myself on charges of heresy, but I will stand by my defense of our noble friend, monosodium glutamate.

2003-07-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

Warning!

My father has been reading this blog. No problem here. In fact that is great. The problem is that I sometimes read the blog from his computer and have commented from his computer. So, if he comments and does not change the name and all of that, you will think that his ideas are coming from me. Some of them we share, but if it suddenly seems that I am a big supporter of unregulated markets, individual liberties, and Stanford University, don't worry that I have some alter-ego coming through, nor that a vicious hacker has taken over my identity, rather that he is commenting and has not changed the settings.

Of course if he were reading this, he could see this as an invitation to comment, too (not to mention the great silent majority out there).

2003-07-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

Someone found this site looking for "performance practice" inegales. I will be discussing baroque performance practice in regards to rhythmic variation (notes inegales, overdotting, etc.) as well as jazz swing rhythm when I get to Building Blocks: Rhythm. I will warn you that this will be fairly basic. I will get to the more in depth discussion of these things when we get to Baroque keyboard works, so stay tuned!

2003-07-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

A big welcome to the person who found my site by searching for "san fermin" + nude.

Please note that I do not endorse running the bulls au natural.

In bullfighting a natural is a pass of the bull with the muleta in the left hand. It is one of the most elegant things a man can do. However, it would be absurd to do this nude, and would result in arrest by the Guardia Civil (at least it would have in the old days). Likewise, those running through the streets of Pamplona should wear clothes, preferably white with a red sash.

On another, more positive note, I see quite a few people finding this site looking for Zand's Pastries on Solano Avenue. I heartily endorse them, as I have in the past, and particularly recommend the Iranian pistachio baklava, an explosion of nuts, butter, honey and rose water served by really nice people.

2003-07-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

And now it is time for the weekly guess as to what to expect on the old Blog:

1. Building Blocks of Music: The Interval
2. Victimae Paschale laudes analysis
3. More recipes
4. A record review.

Beyond that, all bets are off. If I get to it, I will also post:

5. Building Blocks of Music: The Mode
6. Building Blocks of Music: Rhythm Part I
7. Carbon Monoxide Culture Part II
8. Analysis of Miles Davis's "So What" from Kind of Blue.

2003-07-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, here is my menu for San Fermin:

Tapas:

1. Anchovie stuffed olives
2. Spanish chorizo
3. Queso Manchego with membrillo

Sopa:

4. Gazpacho

Carne:

5. Linguiça
6. Chourico
7. Boef Gardienne de la Comargue
8. Basque marinated steak
9. Bifanas (Portuguese marinated pork)
10. Carnitas con guacamole y tortillas

Dishes that were on the menu but got nixed:

11. Papas bravas
12. Tortilla español

Main Course:

13. Paella

Postres:

14. Cheesecake.
15. Fresh fruit

Dessert that was on the menu but no one remembered to take it out:

16. Pan de higo.

If you want recipes or sources for any of these, holler and I will post them.

2003-07-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

Collectors Choice (one of the great funky resources for music you never knew you needed) is offering Martin Denny's Only Live Recording! It is called Baked Alaska - The Cool Sounds of Martin Denny. I may have to get my hands on this to review it for the paper. The CD era is great!

2003-07-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

Another quiz-thingie is going around that I will pass on. This one shows your preferences for President in the next election. Since my candidate is not on it, I am not going to participate. Of course my candidate is not on it because he is a Spanish citizen and happens to be dead. Oh well, win some you lose some. My second choice is a Portuguese citizen and is dead, so I cannot even settle for second. As for the eligible nuts on the ballot, well, I suppose in the end I will vote for Bush again, although he is a free-market (and corporate welfare) Protestant. I never said I liked him, I just vote for him.

2003-07-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Happy San Fermin!

If you are running, bueno suerte!

We celebrated early with our Iberian barbecue. We began at 4pm with tapas and brought the paella out of the oven at 11:30pm.

For the first time ever at one of my San Fermin parties, we actually watched bullfight videos (by the request of others, too). Saw a great performance by Enrique Ponce, in which the bull was granted the rare indulto. Magnificent animal matched with brilliance on the part of the matador! This sort of combination yields breathtaking results. I think that all of the inexperienced folks watching were drawn into the whole thing.

Being with folks who are experiencing the bulls for the first time always makes me think of when I was turned on to bullfighting at the age of 12 in Spain. The first bullfight I went to was in Madrid, and it was a mixed bag. I wasn't immediately gripped by it, but some spark was ignited, since I wanted to learn more about it. In the course of the next week I read Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. The next weekend I could not go to a bullfight, but watched one on TV. It all came together a bit more. The next week I was dragging my parents to Plaza Monumental de Barcelona, where Emilio Muñoz, Paco Ojeda and Espartaco were performing. That did it. I have been an aficionado ever since.

For someone in the United States, being an aficionado involves more reading books, more watching videos, and more email exchanges than actually getting out to the bulls. I like reading about the bullfights, but so far no one has written a satisfactory poetics of toreo. Most books about bullfighting tend towards the overly romantic, often with an Anglo trying to demonstrate that he is the great expert of bullfighting and showing very little knowledge of poetics or aesthetics. I still love Death in the Afternoon, but it falls into this category (with some rather amusing howlers - how Hemingway could have gotten some of the things wrong that he did is amazing).

Even among aficionados there are some crazy ideas. One fellow on the Mundo Taurino list insists all sorts of mystical nonsense about the bull recognizing the inevitability of its death (from a fellow very smitten with post-Endarkenment philosophy, nonetheless), another thinks that the bull has precise control of the horns to the point of practically being able to crochet with the things, and so forth.

A corrective is needed, based on solid science, poetics, and aesthetics. Every so often I think I should give it a go, but I have other projects with higher priority, and the market for such a thing would be minimal. If any of you, dear readers, want to take the task up, let me know, and I will point you in the right direction.

2003-07-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

Summer recipe update:

We did not grill bison, because they did not have the goat cheese I wanted for the figs, and if I am going to build a fire, I want to maximize it and cook a lot of stuff on it. So, we went out to fine Swedish food (Ikea), and will eat the bison tonight. Then I will give a report on the menu with recipes. I think it will be:

1. Figs stuffed with goat cheese, wrapped in pancetta and grilled (recipe given a few days ago).
2. Pasta al pesto (pound fresh basil, a couple of garlic cloves, olive oil, and toasted pine nuts in a mortar, add freshly grated reggiano parmeggiana and serve over fresh pasta).
3. Grilled bison steaks (as described in the fiorentina recipe).
4. Ratatouille (leftovers - eggplant, zucchini (actually three varieties of summer squash), capsicum (red and some other yellowish one), green garlic, all sauteed individually in olive oil (except the green garlic which was sweated for 7 minutes in olive oil and water on low heat), seasoned with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Reduce canned tomatoes with fresh thyme and lavender salt over medium heat. Layer in buttered dish: eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, green garlic, tomatoes, then pour a cup of white vermouth and a cup of homemade brown chicken stock over it and bake for 30 minutes)
5. Fresh fruit and cantucci for dessert.

I will serve this with some sort of red wine (probably a sirah or a merlot) and mineral water.

I will probably throw a bird of some sort on the grill to use up the fire and the pluot sauce leftover from Tuesday. If I can find inexpensive pigeons I will use those.

2003-07-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

Building Blocks of Music Vol 3. NOISE

When we think of noise we tend to think of a social definition, which is basically sound that we do not want to pay attention to. The social definition is rather nebulous, as it can describe true noise (the clatter of garbage cans at 7am on a Saturday morning) or tone (the incessant Reverse indicator of a delivery truck), or even sound we would consider pleasant music in other circumstances (living with a string quartet and listening to the same thing over and over at 2am on a Wednesday). This definition will not do. It is completely subjective, and does nothing to communicate anything about the nature of the sound.

Noise is a random distribution of sound energy, so that no recognizable pattern can be discerned. On our Cartesian grid, think of a bunch of random spikes, like an EKG gone horribly wrong. In its purest state, we have white noise, which is the perfectly random distribution of sound energy throughout the audible spectrum. If we run the white noise through a filter and get rid of certain ranges of sound energy we get pink noise. We can do this creatively and build a piece of music entirely on filtering and changing white noise (find a copy of Joji Yuasa’s Icon: On the Source of White Noise for a stunning example of this).

Generally, though, we hear noise in music as a part of a tone. When we describe a flute as “breathy” we mean that noise is part of the sound. Noise gives an earthiness to sound. Noise can break the monotony of constant tones (that is why snare drums can liven a symphony). Noise can be repeated to establish rhythmic structure (the drums in a march, or in jazz). Noise can have a complex relationship with tone, as in the timpani, so that if the timpanist is playing sharp, the whole orchestra sounds flat. Noise can have a similar relationship with tone in the low notes of a pipe organ to make us quake in terror of the impending horn phrase in Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra.

When we synthesize sounds, we add noise to make them more believable. When we record music, we try to kill all noise that is generated from the machines, the ambiance of the room, the nature of the recording medium. If we want a bit of a recording to have the effect of, say, coming out of an AM radio, we add selective noise to be believable.

Because the sounds of life are noisy, we can take noisy sounds and use them to evoke complex memories. In the middle of the 20th Century, there was a whole school of music called musique concrete that used nothing but sounds recorded and edited to create music. When it worked, it was otherworldly, as it transformed the sounds we are familiar with into a context of structured music or even narrative. To this day there are sections of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry’s work in this direction that haunt me.

Sound effects men do this sort of thing all the time, and have, in fact, altered what we think things sound like. For instance, many people think that the sound of a ricochet is integral to the sound of a gun firing. It isn’t, but has become such a part of the auditory culture that it has to be in the sound for people to accept it. When they made Apocalypse Now they spent a fortune flying recording engineers to remote jungle locations and recording helicopters and guns. The didn’t use this footage, since it was deemed unbelievable. Instead, the sounds were generated in a studio.

If we are to equate the world of pure tone with the otherworldly and the world of noise with the terrestrial, then it is important to see how in the music of an Incarnational Faith the two have an important role. God became man in a noisy world. He was a carpenter. If we see Christ bringing the celestial harmonies in their purest form in his Divine Nature, we must see the terrestrial noises as being intimately attached to His Human Nature. A Puritan music would be entirely synthesized with sine waves. A Catholic music (I am thinking the Baroque in particular, but all genres and styles), is full of gritty violins, windy organs and reeds, clattering percussion, breathy voices, even pianos once in awhile. It bridges the gap between Heaven and Earth, Man and God. It aspires to the high Heavens, but it does so with the means of making music we have on Earth. If we say that music is good, we are saying that it is inherently Catholic. It might be played and written by all manner of men, but that which is good music is Catholic music, insofar as it is good.

Around the time of musique concrete, which was centered in Paris, the Germans in Cologne were playing the Puritans, fiddling with oscillators to yield totally controllable tone-based music. They called this elektronische Musik. There was a young Catholic musician, however, who had spent time in both places. He studied under the great Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen and worked in Cologne (OK, I hate spelling it this way, but the umlaut is being flaky on blogger). Now I have no idea what manner of Catholic this fellow was at the time. He certainly had some funny ideas in the 60’s and 70’s, but I think he has come back to his roots in a way. However, his formation was certainly Catholic, and he is a bright man who would understand the implications of all of this. Anyway, this young German Catholic composer bridged the gap between Paris and Cologne, and created some of the most incredible electronic music ever made. He even wrote one of the most important pieces on the theory of electronic music and the balance of Tone and Noise makes up a quarter of it. Of course, the composer I am referring to is none other than Karlheinz Stockhausen.

As I mentioned earlier, we will tackle Stockhausen’s essay later, but first we must look to the next Building Block: the Interval.

2003-07-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

Building Blocks of Music, Vol. 2. Tone

When a sound has a repeated pattern between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, we use the term pitch or tone to describe the sound. I am trying to avoid excessive mathematics, although music is a mathematical art, so some mathematics will be necessary. I am going to ask you to remember back to the old Cartesian graph, with the horizontal X-axis and the vertical Y-axis.

On our graph, the X-axis represents time, moving constantly from left to right. The Y-axis represents the amount of energy of the wave (the amplitude). Any pitch may be graphed using this system. In an analog sound generator, whether it be a string, a vibrating column of air, or the diaphragm of a loudspeaker, the far points on the Y axis represent the vibrating thing, whether it be air, string or paper, at the points where the motion stops in one direction and goes the other direction. So, if a vibration moves in a pure pattern of up/down over time, the result is always a sine wave (that roly-poly paradigm of regularity). This sine wave is the purest expression of tone. A sine tone sounds excessively pure. In fact, because it is so rarely found in nature, it is sometimes difficult for us to grasp which pitch the tone is. We are used to dirtier sounds, with multiple layers of sound energy at different pitches and different energy levels.

The closest we have in the world of acoustic instruments to a sine wave is the flute or recorder. Even then, there can be harmonic energy as well as noise energy (but we will leave noise out until Vol 3). We tend to use language of purity to describe sounds that are close to the sine wave: crystalline, ringing, etc.

The sounds we associate with musical instruments, however, tend to have layers of pitches, known as harmonics. The lowest pitch is the fundamental. When we say that an oboe is playing A, nowadays we mean that the fundamental is vibrating at 440 Hz (cycles per second). Mozart would have assumed 432 Hz and Bach would have been comfortable with 415 Hz, but the ever-brightening sound of the orchestra is for later discussion. However, we do not expect all of the sound energy of the oboe to be vibrating at 440 Hz. In fact, above this fundamental is a whole range of sympathetic vibrations that follow a pattern known as the harmonic series.

The harmonic series is expressed as ratios of vibrations, and it is a constant. The fifth harmonic, for instance, has the same relationship to the fundamental whether that fundamental is A or E flat. When the harmonics are present in a certain pattern, the wave starts to look less like a sine tone and more like a saw blade. We call that sort of sound a sawtooth wave or a triangle wave. A tone with a triangle wave pattern is richer, and easier for us to hear as a tone than a sine wave. If we add energy to the higher harmonics, we get a square wave, which is a rather complex arrangement of harmonics.

Now, jumping ahead two volumes in the Building Block series, we will get to the interval, which describes the relationship between two pitches. We will see that each tone of the musical scale is based on the harmonic series. We will also see that the purest expression of the harmonic series is problematic in terms of real music, as the harmonics get a little out of whack, so that the logical progression of fifths, thirds, and octaves, do not come together. As a result we have a variety of tuning systems to reconcile this gap. When we look at temperament we will particularly pay attention to the tyranny of the equal 12 system, why it was accepted, and why it is about the worst sounding tuning possible.

Tone is related to timbre, or the quality of the sound, because the timbre is made of harmonics interacting with the fundamental, however, timbre generally refers to the stable relationship of the harmonics to all of the pitches of the set. An A (or la, as I prefer to use fixed do solfage (with do and ti, not ut and si, for my French and Italian readers) can have the same timbre as D (re), if the amount of sound energy is the same, relative to the fundamental, between the two. The significant difference is the frequency at which the fundamental vibrates.

When we get into intervals, we will discuss these ratios more in depth, but there is one that you need to know right away, and that is the interval of the octave. An octave is simply the doubling of a pitch, so if A=440, the next A will be 880. What we do to the notes in between is a matter for our discussion of temperament. So, if we look at the octaves between the standard points of audible sound we get: 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, 5120, 10240, and finally 20480, or about 10 octaves. When we discuss Stockhausen’s “Four Criteria of Electronic Music” and look how it can help us understand all music, we will visit this concept in depth.

When we look back at our Cartesian graph, we can determine how loud a sound is by the range between high and low points on the Y-axis. The louder the sound, the more energy is in the sound, and the more distance will be registered on the Y-axis. The pitch is not changed by the dynamic (loudness), but our perceptions can be, particularly in a sound with a lot of harmonic activity in it.

One final point of dynamics and pitch is that this analog is exactly what happens when the sound hits our eardrum. The points that the ear drum moves to in either direction are the points on the Y-axis. The amount of time between crests and troughs is the X-axis.

The next Building Block to consider is the effect of a distribution of sound without a regular pattern, which we call noise.

2003-07-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

I knew that these words would come back to haunt me. This last weekend I went to Amalia's first art show (it was a group show, not a solo one yet). It was great.

Of course the audience was the proper one for a show of children's art: namely the parents. The general public was not subjected to this. There was a lot of good stuff though. These little ones have potential.

PS: Blogger used to have no trouble with the accent on the second "a" of Amalia's name, but now it replaces it with a "?" Does anyone know what can be done to correct this?

2003-07-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

For some reason my comments have been down more than they have been up recently. I am at my wit's end (which is not too far out when it comes to these machines). Perhaps they will come back, perhaps not. In the absence of them, you can always comment directly to me at EKeilholtz[at]A[merica]O[n]L[ine][full stop]com[MERCIAL]. You can decipher that.

2003-07-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a record review in a while. Here is a capsule one that ran last week in the ANG papers. Unfortunately I have limited space to discuss a recording in a capsule review, but you will do yourself a good service if you rush out and buy this record:

Various Artists
Down in the Basement
Old Hat Records
**** (four stars)

Subtitled "Joe Bussard’s Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926 – 1937," this disc, with its accompanying 72 page booklet is as much a look at outstanding American roots music as it is a portrait of "the King of Record Collectors." Bussard is one of the great 78-rpm record collecting fanatics, and the booklet is full of stories of his collecting. No stodgy academic, Bussard collects music he loves, music that is as exciting and moving today as it was when it was recorded. The transfers have some surface noise, but not enough to really interfere with the music. The 24 tracks on this disc are the best of the best and feature everything from early jazz to a 1931 cut of Gene Autry yodeling a blues, a la Jimmie Rodgers.

2003-07-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

One point I forgot to make in the duck recipe is that it can be done with any of the stone fruit: plums, apricots, cherries, pluots, peaches, nectarines, etc. If you use peaches and nectarines, you may want to add some lavender salt or dried lavender blossoms.

2003-07-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

I promise, no more rambling rhapsodies to fruit this week. I couldn't help myself, as I had just eaten duck, which is one of the great pleasures of life.

Today I will be posting the next two volumes of Building Blocks of Music. I may also post another round of summer recipes (tonight we grill bison!), but that might wait until after dinner, as I am not sure exactly what else I am going to serve with the grilled bison. Maybe pasta al pesto. Maybe not. We'll see. I will tell you when it is done.

2003-07-02T00:31:00.000-07:00

Summer Recipes, Vol 3. Plums, Cherries, Apricots and Pluots.

There is something magnificent about the genus Prunus. Beautiful blossoms in February, lovely fruit in early summer, dried fruit the rest of the year, not to mention the noyeaux, the kernel of the stone, which can be used for ice cream or liquers (but, please be careful with using them in liquers, as the cyanide can be dangerous if you do not know the exact proportions and amount of steeping).

For me, nothing speaks better of summer than the few weeks that apricots are at the peak of ripeness. The smallest bite evokes a whole lifetime of early summers, with a good part of the day spent at my grandparents’ house, under the shade of elm trees (51st and T Streets for those who know Sacramento). The temperature in the shade would be 100+, but it was great.

My grandparents had a next-door neighbor named Edward. Edward was a classic eccentric: the Christmas tree was disposed of around the time the apricots were ripe, newspapers accumulated, the usual stuff that eccentrics would do if they followed any sort of pattern. Behind the houses on T street is an alley, a dirt road where the Italians would have their Victory gardens (although my family was raising their own produce since time immemorial).

At some point Edward planted an apricot tree, even though he was not a big fan of apricots. The result was that my grandmother and I had the run of the tree in the height of the season. And the rest of the year meant my grandmother’s fantastic apricot jam. So, for me, these great stone fruit resonate with early summer.

Some of the other great uses for these fruit include various brandies. From the Serbian Slivovica to the Hungarian Barak Palinka to the Prunus eau de vie made by Bonny Doon, the flavor of these fruit is well suited to the making of clear spirits. Other uses include the lekvars, those delightful pastes made from dried apricots and prunes.

At some point, some genius decided to hybridize the plum and the apricot. The resultant fruits are known as Pluots, and sometimes favor the apricot, but generally favor the plum. At the local farmers’ market one of the farmers wanted to go home and was selling pluots for $1 for as many as one could fit in a bag. I could not resist, and, even though many of his pluots were overripe and oozing juice, I bought a bag. At home I put the firm ones in a bowl and the others went into the refrigerator for cooking.

Tonight I decided to make a duck with pluot sauce, and that is the recipe I will share (there had to be a point somewhere in this rambly post other than a tribute to the noble stone fruit).

I started by removing all the loose fat from the cavity, and cutting out the excess skin. I chopped this into small bits and put it into a saucepan and covered with water. I set the saucepan over a low flame to render. If you cook duck or goose and throw away the fat, you are committing a grave sin. Duck and goose fat is the best cooking fat known to man. We will return to the fat later.

I sauteed the liver in olive oil and pounded it to a paste in a mortar. I added a handful of pounded pancetta and four mashed garlic cloves and then fried some caraway seeds in the remaining olive oil in the skillet. I added them and about five pounded juniper berries to the pancetta and liver. This is the subcutaneous stuffing (known as battuta in Italian).

I rinsed and dried the duck and made about 10 incisions in the duck in which I stuffed the battuta. I then thoroughly rubbed sea salt and fresh cracked pepper all over the outside and cavity of the duck, and placed a lemon, sliced into about 5 slices, into the cavity. I placed the duck in a baking pan.

I heated a half cup of extra virgin olive oil to the smoking point and poured it over the duck and immediately placed the duck in a preheated 425 degree oven. I basted the duck and lowered the heat to 375 about 15 minutes into the cooking. I basted the duck every 10 to 15 minutes and added a diced carrot, a diced stalk of celery, and a diced onion at 40 minutes into the cooking.

Meanwhile, I cooked the overripe pluots (I just squished them into the saucepan, removing only the stones) at medium low heat. When the duck was done (about 1 ½ hours), I removed it, placed it on my cutting board and covered it in foil. I then skimmed off the fat (which I reserved to fry day old bread for fabulous croutons), and deglazed the pan with cognac. As it was cooking the alcohol off, I added a generous pinch of flour, and stirred it over medium high heat. When the flour had cooked for a couple of minutes, I poured the whole thing through a strainer, mashing the vegetables to extract all of the juices. I put this into a saucepan, added the cooked pluots (similarly pressed through a strainer) and about a half cup of ruby port. I cooked it down at medium high heat, skimming occasionally. After the duck had been out about 10 minutes, I carved it into good serving pieces and covered with the pluot sauce.

Now, let us get back to the rendered fat. When it is done (the sputtering stops), you have two elements: clear, rendered fat and cracklings. The fat is reserved for other uses later (put it in a container in the refrigerator and it will last quite a while, unless you use it as frequently as I use the stuff). I strained the whole thing and put the cracklings in my mortar. I added freshly grated nutmeg, allspice, sea salt and freshly cracked pepper and pounded it with the pestle. I put this in my salad (like bacon bits, but much better).

I served the duck, the salad (forgot to get a baguette today), San Pelligrino sparkling mineral water, and Rosemount Estate’s 2002 Shiraz. I saved the leftover sauce (there is a lot), and will probably use it on either smoked cornish game hens or a roasted pork loin.

Summer is good.

2003-07-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Did not go to the bulls last night, which turned out to be a good thing. My bullfight buddies all cancelled for a variety of legit reasons, and I was too tired to want to make the drive myself. More bulls later on, but only getting to one bullfight this summer is making me a bit grumpy. I may have to make a flight down to Tijuana to make up for it.

Anyway, it was good I did not go, since I was dead tired at midnight, which, had I gone, would have been when I would have been on the freeway coming home. So instead, we had my editor over for dinner, and had a ratatouille and Italian sausages. More mellow an evening, but good fun, and I did not fall asleep driving home!

2003-07-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

Summer recipes part two.

Here is a fun grilled appetizer that we have quite often, especially towards the end of summer, when figs are particularly good.

Slice a fig lengthwise halfway through (stop at the middle, don't cut the fig in half. Stuff the incision with good goat cheese (not feta, however). Wrap the fig in pancetta and grill over a smoky fire. Serve with a chilled Bonny Doon Malvasia Bianca.

What to serve after that? How about roasting a pork loin? First, stuff it with pancetta, rosemary, whole or split peeled garlic cloves, and pepper. Then tie it well. Rub the outside with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and extra virgin olive oil (don't forget the ends), and cook over a smoky fire. When an instant read thermometer gets to 135% from the middle, remove, let sit 10 minutes on a board, covered in foil, and slice thinly. It should still be slightly pink in the middle. Serve this with an ensalata caprese:

Slices of organic, vine ripened, heirloom tomatoes (in the interest of brevity, whenever I say "tomato" I mean, organic, vine ripened, outdoor grown, heirloom, preferably dry farmed tomato), alternating with fresh mozzarella (bufalo if available), then drizzled with high quality extra virgin olive oil, and ribbons of fresh basil. If you serve this salad, you must serve good bread to dip in the juice/oil!

Serve a good Northern Italian red (chianti classico, vino nobile de Montepulciano, etc.) or a good California Zinfandel (Ravenswood is a good choice, as is Black Mountain, on sale at Trader Joe's).

For dessert, homemade peach ice cream? Fresh fruit? Vin santo and cantucci? Take your pick.

Buon appetito!

2003-06-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Pansy, of Two Sleepy Mommies has requested good summertime recipes. Her comments box was not working so I emailed her promising to post some on my blog. Since she specifically mentioned grilling, I will start with the king of all grilled meat: a fiorentina (which is called by that name by all civilized people, save the Florentines themselves). It is one of those simple pleasures that rates up there with an outdoor concert of Monteverdi's intimate madrigals. I imagine that if I could enjoy a fiorentina at an outdoor concert of Lamento della Nimfa, I would probably have to just give up food and music altogether, since nothing would be so good again!

To make a good fiorentina you need a good fire. No more briquettes. Wood (grape in particular) is best, but hardwood mesquite charcoal (chunks, nothing compressed), is a good second. If you use charcoal, soak a handful of oak chips in water to throw on later (right before you put on the meat, drain the chips and scatter them on one side of the fire).

Now we will discuss cut. A fiorentina is essentially a T-bone, which is basically a small Porterhouse. It should be cut to Italian specifications, and should be from grass-fed Chianina cattle, but any good t-bone or Porterhouse will do! Rub the steak with a freshly cut garlic clove, then with freshly ground pepper and sea salt. Then brush with Extra Virgen Olive Oil.

When the coals have burned down, grill the steaks, 7 minutes on the first side, 5 on the second (I guess, I don't time it, I stand there and test doneness by poking it with my finger). When done, pull the steaks, cover and let rest for 10 minutes, then serve with lemon wedges.

Serve with a good chianti, cold sparkling mineral water (San Pelligrino or Gerolsteiner are good with this) and a tomato and bread salad:

1. Day old good French bread
2. Olive oil
3. Fresh thyme
4. Garlic cloves
5. Good balsamic vinegar
6. Organic, heirloom, vine-ripened, outdoor-grown (preferably dry-farmed) tomatoes (I like to use several varieties for interest).
7., Fresh basil (optional)

Make croutons with the French bread: warm up your olive oil. Lightly fry 3 peeled cloves of garlic. Remove garlic. Raise heat slightly and fry bread cubes until done. Salt with sea salt, season with fresh cracked pepper and fresh thyme.

In a bowl add the croutons, diced tomatoes (bit sized, don't bother peeling and coring - make sure the juice gets into the salad), basil, sprinkle lightly with the balsamico and sprinkle basil, cut into fine ribbons.

If you still have a little red wine left, serve a room temperature camembert with toasted baguette points. For dessert serve fresh, seasonal, organic fruit, which should be washed at the table in a bowl of ice water.

Finish with limoncino or grappa, a shot of espresso, good conversation, and a cigar.

Note: to make this a fancy meal, start with a bowl of fresh fettucine al pesto. To make it a really fancy meal, start with an antipasto of kalamata and hondreolia olives, salame, ceci salad (open a can of ceci. Drain. put in a bowl with balsamico, extra virgin olive oil, fresh thyme. and an optional small finely diced shallot), and grissini (Italian breadsticks).

Also note: for whichever variation or degree of fanciness, may I suggest you start out with an apperativo of Cinzano rosso over a couple of cubes of ice and a twist of orange?

Buon appetito!

2003-06-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, to the person who was looking for "how to bullfight(pablo hermoso)" I need some clarification before I can help you.

If you are trying to bullfight like Pablo, forget it. That's like asking, "where can I learn to paint like Rembrandt?" Not even Rembrandt was able to teach that.

If you would like to book Pablo into bullfighting school, well, he is a bit old to start a career on foot. Let him stick to rejoneo. He is very good at it. I have seen him finish a bull with the muleta, so he probably has some aptitude there, but the world of rejoneo needs a figura like him.

One does not bullfight people, unless it is so in bovine language, and the implications of toros using computers is too frightening for me. Talk about "sentido," hombre!

2003-06-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

Foodie Alert!

I did not get to posting what I was planning on posting, because I had a super busy weekend, busier than expected. And, it will not relent until next week, so realize that blogging has to fall back to sporadic here, there, lunchtime, late night sort of writing.

One of the things that kept me busy is that I had a super tight deadline on a restaurant review (eat on Saturday, write on Sunday, post to editor Monday am). If you are at all serious about food, you must book a flight (or drive) to Fremont to eat at Pearl's Cafe. When you arrive you will be convinced that I am a jerk who is trying to play an elaborate joke on people. The place, from the outside, looks like it ought to have a sign out front that says either "palm readings" or "ice cold Coca Cola. Hot Boiled Peanuts. Bait."

However, when you go in, it is a different story. The decor is inviting, and the chef, Christine Fahey, is nothing short of a genius. If you were planning on going to Alain Ducasse for dinner, forget it. Use the money that meal would have cost to fly to California, drive to Fremont, and have the best meal of your life.

If you are going to be in the Bay Area, Pearl's Cafe must be on your list (it is reasonably priced, too), along with the French Laundry and Chez Panisse.

My review will run in the ANG papers on Friday, and I will post it afterwards, hopefully giving you some idea of how great this place is.

Meanwhile, lunch nears its tragic end, and I have Clifton Chenier CDs to mail to radio folks (ARH CD 474, Clifton Chenier, The Best of Clifton Chenier - King of Zydeco and Louisiana Blues. Street Date 7/22/03, with previously unreleased material. Order it now!).

2003-06-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

Friday Five

1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]?

I am planning to shoot a documentary in September, so we will be spending some time in August doing some preliminary stuff. Other than that, a couple of parties, a lot of writing, reading, working new CD releases, gardening, eating gelato, making gelato, going to farms with Amália and Melanie, feeding cows, going to bullfights, reviewing restaurants, painting.

2. What was your first summer job?

General Production Worker in the prepress department at the family printing company.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer [winter], where would you go?

Italy, of course!

4. What was your worst vacation ever?

I have never had a bad one.

5. What was your best vacation ever?

Spending May of last year in Italy with Melanie, Amália, my parents, and some friends. Travelling with an 8 month old is fantastic. I want to do it again, but we will need another 8 month old first, as Amália has outgrown the job description!

2003-06-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Another person found this site looking for "Nude Male Yoga." Are you fer or agin? If you are agin, you're at the right place!

2003-06-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

OK I lied. One little post about the Supreme Court.

Justice Kennedy is an idiot. A complete moron. He is the product of his high school! What do you expect from C.K. McClatchy grads anyway?

Gonzo journalists.
Judicial lightweights.
Rap-metal stars.
Harpsichordist/painters who blog about arcane food.

They ought to just shut the place down.

Seriously, though, my fellow CKM mock trial teammates and I could do better than this nitwit Kennedy. Have you read his opinion?!?

2003-06-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

To the person looking for "Chewing Gum Recipes":

Recipe 1
Rubber
Sugar solution
Artificial flavorings.

Place in your mouth and masticate. When done, stick icky mess under convenient furniture or on sidewalk. Turn yourself into the police for punishment.

Recipe 2 - All Natural Chewing Gum
Ingredients: Grass.

Chew grass until it is a paste. Swallow into first stomach. Regurgitate after preliminary digestion. Chew some more. Repeat three times. Poop good quality organic fertilizer!

Cheers!

2003-06-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

Y tambien...

I will be at a bullfight Monday night, so there should be a bull report sometime next week. I have been asked to write generally about the bullfight, and its place in Catholic society, so, if I have time I might touch on that. I must warn you that I am facing two major cooking challenges in a week: the company barbecue on the fourth and my Fiesta de San Fermin on the fifth. I will be spending most of tomorrow in the yard, finally (I haven't done much of anything this season, so it is still in winter neglect mode), and will be reviewing a restaurant tomorrow night (and three CDs over the weekend). So, blogging will be here and there, although I will not go dormant. I just might post lighter fare for a week. Then again, sometimes lack of sleep and too much espresso fire me up and I could rant on and on. Time will tell.

One thing I can guarantee is that I will not be discussing the Supreme Court decisions. I have not read the full opinions, and won't be for at least a week. My general reaction is, as always, "see! We need Roman-style law. Common law is for the birds!" followed by, "see! If the General were alive and running the United States this never would have happened." But neither of those count for reasoned conversation, so it will have to wait. Or maybe you can just get that stuff on other blogs.

2003-06-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

Good news!

I have wrestled something out of the mess of my Victimae analysis. Here is the upcoming schedule:

This weekend I will post the next two instalments in the Building Blocks series: tone and noise.

After you have had a chance to digest those I will post, simultaneously, Building Blocks: Interval and the analysis of Victimae.

Then I will post Building Blocks: Mode. Now, I realize that in continuing the anlaysis series before hitting Mode, I am putting the cart before the water buffalo, but the main emphasis on the Victimae analysis is on motivic development, which is much more dependent on Interval than Mode.

I will then have to decide whether to post Building Block: Rhythm I or Building Block: Harmony I first (or perhaps both) before the next analysis, which is going to be Miles Davis's "So What" from Kind of Blue. Hmmmm. Thinking. Thinking.

2003-06-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

Building Blocks of Music
Part One – the sound

I was going to start with the interval, but decided to start with the most basic building block of music: sound itself. Surprisingly, most musicians and music students never tackle the nature of sound itself, which is their loss. I was fortunate enough to have studied this material in depth with Gordon Mumma and Peter Elsea in the UC Santa Cruz electronic music program. Believe it or not, it even has helped me in interpreting work on the harpsichord.

Sound is a wave. It is pure energy. It must move through a material in order to transmit itself. Unlike light, it cannot skip through a vacuum and show up on the other side. The characteristic of the sound is effected by the material it passes through.

We perceive sound through three senses, although we only think of one. When the sound carries enough energy we can SEE the sound (think of watching iron filings on a cymbal). At the right frequency (the number of waves per second) and amplitude (the amount of energy carried in the wave), we can certainly FEEL the sound (if one has the right equipment and the wrong intentions, one may force a person to wet his trousers with sound). If the sound’s frequency is between 20 Hertz (waves or cycles per second) and 20,000 Hertz (or 20 KHz), and we have not damaged our hearing we can HEAR it (have you been to a rock concert? Walked a mile in a city during the day? You cannot really hear 20 kHz, then). Now, there are some composers and musicians (Karlheinz Stockhausen makes this claim), that even though one cannot hear above 20 kHz, we still perceive harmonics to about double that. Apparently they have done tests, etc. I am unconvinced.

When the sound enters our ears, it is converted from mechanical energy to electrical energy. The electrical energy is sent via the nerves to the brain, where the sound is interpreted. For those of us who grew up in Italian families with lots of female relatives, sounds of a certain frequency are not processed as speech, rather as background noise. It takes a special intonation of "are you listening to me?" to force the brain to accept information in these frequencies as speech. Fortunately my mother does not read this blog.

But for most folks sound matching recognizable phonemes is processed by the brain as speech and semantic content is extracted from it. Some sound plays with the boundary between speech and non-speech, and we will discuss that when we analyze Kurt Schwitters’s Ursonate and some of the vocal works of Luciano Berio and Arnold Schoenberg.

Sound that does not parse as speech can still carry information. Some sounds are indexicals of physical processes (a Doppler-shifted air horn is an alarming indexical of a rapidly approaching train (Cash, John. "Folsom Prison Blues" from At Folsom Prison. Columbia Records, New York. 1968. Or for a concrete example of this phenomenon, look at Superman animated shorts)). Sounds can convey non-speech information by interacting with other sounds, for instance, a narrative can be established by sounds indicating a door opening, footsteps, a revolver’s safety being turned off, a scream, a gunshot, footsteps, and a siren. Or a mood can be established by sounds indicating a brook, aspen leaves in the wind, birds chirping, cowbells ringing. Or the sounds can convey information by establishing patterns by way of relation and repetition.

When sounds convey information by establishing patterns with relations and repetitions we are in the realm of music (although, the other ways that sounds can convey information can be a part of music, too, as we will see when we look at John Zorn’s Spillane). But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Right now (and for the next two parts) we will just look at single sounds in isolation.

Sound can be divided into two basic forms: the tone and noise, which will be Part Two and Three. Part Four is when we will discuss two sounds interacting in the form of an interval.

2003-06-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Looking at the whole issue of the life of the Church after the Second Vatican Council is often problematic, as we have a natural tendency to cast everything into two parties, and the issue is much more complex than that. It is not, however, a matter of two extremes and various compromise positions.

I tend towards the traditionalist side myself, while recognizing that there was a need for reform and a dire need for the Second Vatican Council. I would like to see the 1962 missal updated with a few of the successful elements of the 1970 missal (the restoration of concelebration, the presentation of the gifts, the prayer of the faithful, etc.), as called for by the council. While I love a reverent, Latin NO mass, the trappings that have come along ("folk" music masses, all-vernacular masses, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Good Morning!" hidden tabernacles, just about any stained glass made in the last 60 years, &c.) are abominations and must go, and the sooner the better. I tend toward the Torquemadian, so would have no trouble with imposing sanbenitos on Marty Haugen and the St. Louis Jesuits (I do stop short of calling for an auto de fe).

I have made up some lists of things that should be restored and things that should be tossed. The assumption is that an item that exists must be preserved unless there is good cause to change it (an assumption that is built into the language of the Second Vatican Council documents, but has been ruthlessly ignored in the last 30 years).

Things that should be absolutely and immediately restored to universal Latin Rite use: Processions, numerous popular devotions, the biretta (not to mention cassocks, Roman collars and the whole notion of clerics dressing like clerics), habits for religious, Gregorian chant (as specified in Sacrosanctum Concilium), Latin, good sculptures of Saints, good stained glass, pipe organs, fire and brimstone missions (one week’s worth of hellfire sermons are a good restorative, especially in the culture of affirmation), Church-state relations as outlined in the Lateran Treaty (ah, Christendom, how we miss thee), trade guilds, the Requiem (with the complete Dies Irae), the second Gospel reading, priests celebrating mass ad orientum, minor orders, universal ban on altar girls, Catholic schools and hospitals that actually have a Catholic mission, so forth and so on.

Some things that can be jettisoned from the pre-VII days: sentimental plaster statuary, 98% of all paintings of the Sacred Heart, translations in Elizabethan English (we're Catlicks! Got our own sanctified ritual language, thank you. It's called Latin. Translate all 2nd person singular as "you" please. Not even the Quakers can properly conjugate second person singular anymore. The language has evolved, and if we are aiming to restore the proper distinction between formal, polite, and familiar, we have to be prepared to shoot for restoring it in the whole language, not just in translations of religious works), rote manualism giving theological answers to 10 year olds that are supposed to suffice for life, mumbled and rushed liturgy, sentimental paintings, too much lace, maudlin hymns, rigid clericalism (although it takes an embittered modernist to really present the ugly face of clericalism, the roots of this problem go way back), so forth and so on.

What will the future bring? I am optimistic and tend to agree with the Holy Father that we are approaching a new springtime in the Church. The big mistake is to look for the new springtime to look like the old autumn or even the old springtime. We will not be entering a neo-Gothic or neo-Baroque era, although the lessons and spirit of those eras will be a part of what is to come. While we will be more in touch with the Eastern traditions, we are not going to be Western Byzantines.

The trouble with radical traditionalism is that it looks at anything that is not part of the language and aesthetic of the last great era of the Church as potential pollution. Radical traditionalism is fundamentally a revivalist movement (think of the Weavers and you will understand why I shudder at the notion). Likewise, folks who detest the excesses of modern and contemporary art and look to a restoration of pre-Impressionism are barking up the wrong tree.

The culture just will not do that. It never goes back to some mythical "Go" and pushes the reset button. The great music of the 15th and 16th Centuries did not sound like the music of the 13th Century. The 14th Century made its marks, just as the real music of the 21st Century will be somewhat influenced by dodecophonic, stochastic, free atonal, minimalist, and all the other methods of making music that came about in the last 100 years. The stuff that is championed by Crisis Magazine is nothing more than revivalist fluff that will fade with the third rate stuff from the period it imitates (please note that I am not saying that all late Romanticism is third rate, rather I am comparing the revivalist fluff to the third rate stuff of the period).

Liturgy is the same. The Sacred Council has called for reform, and, indeed reform was needed. The 1970 missal will not last, but we will not be going back to the 1962 missal either. It will stick around for awhile, since it is immune to the sort of nonsense that the 1970 missal is inflicted with, but eventually it will be unnecessary, as the Roman Rite finally gets the missal it deserves. My guess is that there will be a new missal by 2010, and it will be a beauty.

2003-06-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Good News!

I subscribe to various email newsletters from so-called Animal Rights organizations, not (obviously) because I support them, but because I need to stay abreast of whenever they attack La Fiesta Brava. Today I got the second urgent and dire appeal for funds from one of them. I will not say which one, in case someone on the dark side finds this bit of unseemly gloating and wants to waste their money, but it is not a major one (although they are convinced that they are saving the whole world). It would be nice if PETA was on the rocks, but we will just have to keep praying.

Meanwhile, in spite of (or because of?) heavy animal nut propaganda, the bullfight is doing better than ever, with renewed interest in it from younger Spaniards, expansion in France and Portugal, and a new wave of talent that knocks the socks off of the matadores who were stars when I first got interested in it. I think that the animal nut propaganda, coming from distinctly Anglo-nordic philosophies, is striking a lot of Iberians as more cultural imperialism and we are seeing, for the first time in decades, young people who consider themselves leftists embracing the fiesta (in the old days, it was a very conservative art).

Similarly, as Portugal gets over its post-1974 obsession with American pop music, the Fado is rising to new heights. Also in Portugal a concerted effort, spearheaded by a government minister, is being made to preserve the siesta. All of this, combined with the stunning reception the Holy Father received in Spain point to some very good news for Europe and the Church: the Latins are reasserting their culture, and, inextricably bound to the Latin culture is the Catholic Church.

2003-06-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

GO HERE! for a refreshing art review. This is brought to my attention via some site or another that I lost in my chain of "Back" buttoning. It is a blog by a Teresa who was a Mormon and is now Catholic, anyway, her blog is good too. Wish I could find it. But lunch is nearing its tragic conclusion, and I will have to get back to work. Sorry. If I figure out the blog I will duly attribute it.

ERITED: IT is Making Light. Interesting blog.
FURTHER EDITED: When editing, it is best to spell "edited" correctly. As public penance, I will let it stand and simply post this correction.

2003-06-23T00:45:00.000-07:00

The topic has come up on Two Sleepy Mommies of the problems of some insular views that pop up in orthodox Catholic circles. I see a lot of what I am trying to do on this blog as addressing those issues, as they are going to be popping up with alarming frequency in the next decades. It is late at night, and I just read the post referenced, so I will not tackle it tonight. I need to put some of my thoughts together first, but the long and short of it is that these attitudes are why I am not completely smitten with Thomas Aquinas College, Christendom, or Franciscan University. I see a longing for some Pre-Vatican II culture that is long on nostalgia and short on reality. More on this later...

2003-06-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

I am not satisfied with the Victimae paschali laudes analysis. If I cannot get it into shape in the next few days, I will skip it for now and talk about Miles Davis's "So What." It is on the Kind of Blue album, which is a must-have in any serious music library. The "score" for that is in any good jazz collection (or fake book).

No matter what happens, I will not skip Victimae paschali laudes. I just don't want weeks and weeks to go by, so if it is a weak analysis, I would rather post something related, and go back to it. I never promised you chronological analyses!

2003-06-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

I am just about done with the analysis of Victimae Paschali Laudes. I want another day or two to go over it, then I will post it. I have a question, though. So far no one has commented on the Kyrie analysis. A couple of other blogs have mentioned it, but I am worried that I was too technical. If anyone has any questions on any of the technical aspects of music, please don't hesitate to ask. If you don't want to ask in public (although everyone knows that music is, as Professor Leiken told his class, a very complicated matter), feel free to email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [period] com and I will give you a confidential answer (or will post an answer without identifying the person who asked). My goal is to help stimulate conversation about music, and it will not be realized if I lapse excessively into music jargon (a natural hazard of being a music geek).

2003-06-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

Will not be doing the Friday Five today. Men should not talk about their hair that way. I get it cut three times a year, and am shooting for five this year. So far I have cut it once this year, so I am not doing so well. I do not like it long, and tend to yell at hippies, especially when they ride skateboards and are over the age of 20, but it takes too much time, because my barber is in Tecate, Mexico. I had to break down and go to my second choice barber this year, who is in San Francisco. I am hoping to get my hair cut in Mexico this summer. Then I will get my Christmas haircut in the City. Hmmm. That makes three again. Oh well. Maybe next year.

2003-06-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

I did not analyze Victimae last night. Sorry. We had rented Road To Perdition and we watched it instead. I wish I had analyzed Gregorian Chant for you instead. Serves me right. Terrible film that does not do justice at all to the book (which is great, by the way - can't remember the names of the author or artist, though, sorry). It featured a crappy score and dull acting, and the core of the film was ripped out, shredded and discarded. Why? The book was a comic book, fer cryin' out loud! The visual element, the pacing, the dialog was all done already. Also, the characters were clearly Irish, but I remember them from the book being immigrants, and far too many of the characters in the film had American accents. A lot of the impact was lost by that unfortunate decision.

I hesitate to say this, as the last time I ranted about an overrated actor, the poor fellow died the next morning, but Tom Hanks is grossly overrated. I am sure he is a swell fellow, a good husband, father, son, cousin, friend, neighbor, etc., but surely there are much better actors out there for the roles he gets. And, I really do not wish him ill!

So, I will work on this Victimae analysis this weekend, in between yard work and house work and all that.

2003-06-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Here's where I stand.

I am working on the second analysis, this one of Victimae Pascali Laudes. I might add to the Kyrie analysis, but I am frankly not too sure of this new idea, so I am going to mull it over.

The next installment of Cultural Carbon Monoxide is coming. It will also discuss the Baby Boomers, the French Endarkenment, and the Beat Generation. Or maybe not. We'll see, but that is where it is going so far.

The piano versus harpsichord and the rant against Brahms are still on deck, although the rant against Brahms has probably slipped a little bit (as I really do not have a good collection of Brahms scores, for obvious reasons. I don't know when I can get to the UC Berkeley music library).

If I have promised any specific recipes, I don't remember. If you want one, holler.

I have to admit that right now paying writing is taking enough of my late night scribbling time that I cannot spend the time on the Blog. I will plug along the best I can, and should have something new and exciting Thursday or Friday (I never get to work on this on Wednesday, due to the Dante Readers' Group). I really want to get all of the above things done by the weekend, so we can move on in our analyses to a piece of visual art. But, you know, bills to pay, and the newspaper sends me checks!

So tomorrow I may post a couple of little things, depending on my time, and will give you meat later in the week. Thank you for reading and for your patience with my fits and starts!

Oh yeah, we might move the blog. We are now testing Moveable Type, and seeing if I can get comfortable with it. Personally I have always been a linotype man, but we'll see!

2003-06-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

OK, someone found my site googling "Rod Dreher + nutmeg" I did not realize that he had a line of spices! Probably some crunchy con thing.

2003-06-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

Did you eat kidneys with onions last night? Drink Guiness and listen to The Pogues' If I Should Fall From Grace With God at least? Have any idea what I am talking about? It was Bloomsday, of course! Oh well, there is next year. I didn't do the kidneys and onions thing either. Monday is not a good night for a Bloomsday party.

2003-06-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Last night my mother grilled Portuguese Hawaiian sausages and needed a veggie. I went to the local market and picked up what looked good: an eggplant, a few zucchini, a couple of red bell peppers, and shallots. I scored and salted the eggplant, to drain the bitter juices, then cut it into bite size chunks and sauteed them with thyme in extra virgin olive oil. I salted and peppered them and put them in a buttered caserole. Then I sauteed the bell peppers (cut into strips) and put them in as the next layer. Then I sauteed four garlic cloves, split lengthwise and two shallotts, finely diced and laid them down. I covered them with a layer of grated fontina cheese, freshly cracked pepper, and a drizzling of cream. Then I sauteed the zucchini and added them. Then I cooked a can of organic chopped tomatoes with a half a cup of vermouth and a crumbled bay leaf (and more thyme), until it was thick. I added it and covered with more fontina cheese and cream. Then I baked it in an oven until the cheese browned. Delicious!

We served a Beaujolais Village, as we did not want something fancy, just something fairly robust. It was a good pairing.

2003-06-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

Saturday Scruples! I have never done these before, so....Now for something completely different!

1. You own a restaurant and serve fresh rolls with every meal. Often they're returned to the kitchen seemingly untouched. Do you serve them again?

Yes! Americans are too silly about wanting everything sterilized. By the way, just about any restaurateur will do the same. Don't be grossed out by it, though.

2. In a close fight for re-election, you learn that your rival recently had a nervous breakdown. Do you leak this to the media?

Leak it?!? How about publishing broadsides about it? "The safety of the polis cannot be entrusted to someone who does not have his wits about him! In fact, we will be investigating whether or not this candidate is perhaps a threat to his own and others' safety. Public safetly officials are already on the case. This has nothing to do with the upcoming elections, nor with my own personal feelings towards Mr. X, rather a deep concern for his own well-being."

3. You have a clear view of an attractive neighbor who does yoga in the nude. Do you ask this person to draw the curtains?

No, I call the police! No one should have to watch yoga in the nude.

2003-06-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Friday Five

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?

Build and paint my own harpsichord. Paint a fresco (anyone got a wall they will let me experiment on?).

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?

What, are you nuts? Of course not.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?

No.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?

I don’t know. I tend to like real places: San Francisco, Rome, Venice, Manhatten. The fictional world never seems to be as interesting. My favorite settings for fiction are real places and real times, described well. I am not even big on places that are utopianist: I find the cities of Brasilia and Canberra (and Washington, D. C. with its fantasy of Roman revivalism, to some extent), for instance to be hideous.

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?

To play the Bandoneon or lute.

2003-06-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

So, I gave you the first analysis. I will be working on the second one tomorrow night, might even finish it then. If I do, the next thing will be to post the next installment on Cultural Carbon Monoxide. If I have time I will fire a salvo in Harpsichord v piano and rant against Brahms. Since we will be in Sacramento for the weekend, I may not be doing too much, since I am not lugging all my reference works and notes. We'll see what gets done tomorrow night. Meanwhile, read, comment, argue, debate, etc.

2003-06-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

Kyrie Eleison from Mass XI “Orbis factor” (LU 46)
If anything needs clarification or correction, please holler!

Authorship: This setting of the Kyrie Eleison is essentially anonymous. There are many theories on the origin of the melodies and melodic style of the Gregorian chants, but there is scant evidence to support any of these theories. Certainly there was precedence in the Jewish temple service (for an interesting note on the Jewish roots of Catholic liturgy, please see “The Judean Heritage” on pp 25-26 of Grout and Palisca (from here on I will abbreviate Donald Grout and Claude Palisca’s A History of Western Music, Fourth Edition, W. W. Norton, New York and London, 1988 as G & P), noting the influence of Syrian music and Byzantine music as well, although the primary Syrian contribution was in the antiphons (p. 57)).

The name Gregorian chant refers to the role of St. Gregory the Great (ca 540 – 604), who had some undetermined role in writing, codifying, or commissioning some of the chants. As Grout and Palisca point out (p 51), the legend of St. Gregory hearing the chants from the Holy Spirit and dictating them to a scribe could not have been accurate because there was no effective system of musical notation at the time.

Liturgical Background: This Kyrie is a setting for use “For Sundays throughout the Year.” The name “Orbis factor” pertains to another text which was set to this melody later. This melody is still used in liturgies, although I have heard it more often as the melody for “Praise and Honor to You, Lord Jesus Christ” as the substitute for the Alleluia during Lent. I have heard this tune used completely inappropriately in a film, but I cannot remember which one (Name of the Rose perhaps?).

Mode: In modern parlance we would describe this as a natural minor (Aeolian mode), although this is a modern concept (it wasn’t until the 16th Century that this mode (and its corresponding hypomode) was recognized as existing independently). It is more historically seen as Mode I (dorian) with a b-flat. Please note that Gregorian chant is relative, key-wise. Simply because it is written in re (d) does not imply any exact pitch.

The mode system is important to understand, as it forms the basis of all subsequent Western music, from Gregorian chant to whatever is playing on your radio this very minute. It is roughly based on descriptions of how the Greeks organized pitches, but was distorted from the Greek understanding of how to divide an octave by misunderstandings through the years. I am not planning on getting into the nuts and bolts of how the church modes differed from the ancient Greek modes, unless requested. It is a technical matter that is probably beyond the interest of all but a few music geeks (who probably already know it). However, if you want to take the plunge and become a music geek, let me know and I will discuss the differences in modes.

Essentially a mode is a scale, a collection of seven notes, each subsequent one a second from the prior one. What gives modes their character is whether each second is a major (whole step) or minor (half step) second. There are not all-whole step modes until the 19th Century, and fully chromatic scales are never called modes. The other regular scale, the octatonic (whole, half, whole, half, whole, half, usw.) likewise is not found in frequent use in Western music until the 19th Century. What really makes music modal is that the melodies end on the first tone of the mode.

Those modes that have a Major third between the first and third notes are considered Major in character. They include the Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian modes (although the Ionian is a modern term). The minor modes (called such because they have a minor third in the first/third relationship) are the Dorian, Phrygian, and Aeolian modes. We will not consider the Locrian, since it exists only in theory, lacking a Perfect Fifth. The Lydian and Mixolydian modes are often found in American and European folk musics. The Phrygian mode with its flat second (which is an interesting animal in and of itself – when we deal with Renaissance polyphony, we will have to look at a Phrygian piece), gives flamenco music its characteristic sound (remember this for when we look at flamenco and the art music that draws from it – but don’t worry I will remind you).

Text: Lord Have Mercy (x3), Christ Have Mercy (x3), Lord Have Mercy (x3). But since this is primarily directed at St. Blog’s parish, I assume you know that. This setting is melismatic, so that each syllable has multiple notes, which is often the case with Kyries. Credos, with their lengthy texts, tend to be syllabic, with one note per syllable.

Ambitus and basic melodic contour: Major ninth. The melody begins on the fifth tone of the Mode, climaxes (in a prolongation of the climax) on the octave of the first tone, and dips to the unraised leading tone (if you will forgive the blatantly tonal language, the concept of leading tone comes later, but basically it means the last note of the mode).

Structure: The tripartite structure is built into the text: Kyrie Eleison (x3), Christe Eleison (x3), Kyrie Eleison (x3). Since the division of the three primary parts is also in three, we could borrow from the language of rhythm and call this a compound tripartite form(or, to borrow rhythmic terms from the 14th Century, Perfect formal tempus and perfect formal prolation, although to use those terms to apply to form is unusual. It can be justified by pointing to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s notes on the continuity of rhythm and form outlined in his “Four Criteria of Electronic Music” (taken from Stockhausen on Music, Lectures and Interviews Compiled by Robin Maconie, Marion Boyers Publishers Ltd. London, 1989). We will get into using these rhythmic and formal concepts later, in our discussion of the 14th Century Ars Nova music as well as the hyperrational total serialism of Boulez, so I will only give the reader a taste of what is to come). To the medieval mind, the perfection came in the division into three, as this is reflective of the Holy Trinity. To echo each acclamation three times gave the sort of marvelous micro-macrocosmic relationship that makes all of Medieval art fascinating.

So, we can start with A:B:A1, as the third iteration of the final set of Kyrie Eleisons is slightly different from the rest. To look at the subdivisions thus far we have A A A, B B B, A A A1. Since each section has a common part, namely the step-wise melisma on each Eleison, we can call that phrase B and give a final form to this as AB AB AB, CB CB CB, AB AB C1B. Note that G & P on their notes to this chant on page 65 consider the C prime to be a completely different phrase, D. The elements of this D are so close to the melodic material of the C (Christe) that we must recognize a unity between these. Overall we can describe this as an arch form, with the beginning and ending virtually the same.

Because of the use of the Christe material in the final iteration of Kyrie, the third section is tied a little closer to the Christe section, providing an extra measure of diversity, and faintly suggesting a sectio aurem relationship (because of it bracketing the first two iterations of the Kyrie in the third section, right where the golden section division would be). Clearly this does not negate the climax of the melody on the Christe, rather it reinforces it by reusing that material later, when it is no longer expected.

The effect on the listener of the form is magnificent, since the whole piece is held together by the stepwise motif used on each Eleison. The Kyrie starts on and repeats the fifth tone of the mode, before leaping to the first tone. As the melody moves to the Eleison, it outlines a triad built on the first tone (contrary to what beginning counterpoint students are told to do in building a good cantus firmus). The mode is strongly reinforced by these elements as well as the cadential formula of 7-1-1. The melody is varied (good balance between stepwise motion and leaps) and contains strong internal logic (working to reinforce the mode, setting up a strong presence on the fifth tone and resolving it after the triadic leaping with a strong stepwise arch), and it is short enough to lodge in the ear’s memory after one hearing. When the Christe comes in, moving almost immediately to the climax, it comes with a triumphant surprise, which, although connected to the other material, provides ample variety now that the ear has completely learned the Kyrie melody.

The climax of the piece is on the word Christe, and it is especially pronounced, since the melody leaps a fifth to land on the note, briefly moves to the lower note, and returns before descending. Since the exact CB pattern is repeated, the climax is actually tripled. Significantly, the word Christe, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is central to the tripartite arch form. The exact repetition of the motif of the Eleison provides solid grounding through repetition.

When the Kyrie returns it implies a relief, built into the arch form. Lord Have Mercy (ugh!), Lord Have Mercy (a little bit louder), Lord Have Mercy (with some urgency), Christ! Have Mercy!(ever urgenter) Christ! Have Mercy! (I mean it) Christ Have Mercy! (Amen!) Lord have Mercy. Yes. Mercy is being had. Oh, Lord Have Mercy. Lord. Have. Mercy. If you can read that in the tone of voice that I have in my head, you will get it. Otherwise, forgive me for a goofy way of writing.

This Kyrie is a great example of economy in writing. In a few simple lines this piece conveys a rather complex structure with a powerful emotional punch. Note that all of this is accomplished without the use of harmony and with a narrow vocal range!

Again, I see this as a bit of a rough draft. If you notice anything unclear or incorrect or missing or off the wall, please holler and I will make clarifications or corrections and will owe you a martini. At the very least I will try to not make the same sort of errors in subsequent analyses. For the next analysis we will move from the Ordinary of the Mass to the Sequence for Easter, Victimae Pascali Laude (attributed to Wipo of Burgundy), and maybe to the other major Sequences as well, depending on how much Gregorian chant analysis the readers (and the writer) can take. Most of the analytical techniques that theorists hone involve analyzing harmony, so trying to squeeze something out of monophony is a bit of a challenge. Perhaps we will move to something else after Victimae Pascali Laudes and come back to chant afterwards.

2003-06-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

I love St. Blog's! I get lazy and tell people to hunt down scores and figure out the melody, and then Don comes along and offers it on his blog, here! The Kyrie is a midi file, so imagine it with the text Kyrie Eleison sung (preferably by all male voices, as I think it works best in the lower voice register, but it can be sung by the alti and soprani as well). I am posting the analysis tonight (on the late side, especially for those of you on Atlantic time).

So, thanks are due to Don as well as to Alicia who let me know that this was up there!

2003-06-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

Someone appeared with a giant box of Lisbon lemons so I spent last night making a megabatch of limoncino. To make limoncino you let the zest from 5 lemons steep in the sun in 2 1/8 cup of vodka or grappa for 8 days, then you filter it and sweeten it with a syrup made from 2 1/2 cups sugar and 2 cups water and color it if you want it yellower. Then you bottle it and let it sit in the dark for a month. Then you store one bottle in the freezer and serve it after big meals.

So, the question is: what do I do with all that juice. I made Italian soda syrup, Melanie is making lemon curd, I am freezing some. But there is still a lot of lemon juice. Does anyone have any ideas? I might make ceviche Friday.

Needless to say, peeling and cutting away pith from lemon zest kept me from the Kyrie, and there is the Dante Readers' meeting tonight, so there will be a slight delay.

2003-06-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have decided to analyze the Kyrie first and to post it, and then to allow a couple of days for discussion before moving on to the Sequence. Objections?

2003-06-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

Also, I may have mentioned the dire funding situtation of The National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco. St. Francis a shrine church, not a parish, and lacks the means of support that a parish has. It is managed for the Archdiocese by the Conventual Franciscan Friars of the St. Joseph of Cupertino province as a place of pilgrimage and a place to bring the Gospel to tourists, sailors, visitors, and the many restaurant workers who stop by for a quick prayer or mass. Our liturgies strive to be as close as possible to what Vatican II and the Roman Missal of Paul VI actually ask of us. We have lots of Latin, Gregorian chant, polyphony, all supported by the outstanding Schola Cantorum, which may well be the best liturgical choir on the West Coast.

Unfortunately it is difficult to maintain this liturgy with the transient population that comes through. The archdiocese has its share of financial problems, and the economy is particularly hurting in the Bay Area. If you can afford to send a donation to the friars, without taking away from your own parish needs, wonderful. It will be greatly appreciated. If you cannot, could you please say a prayer to Ss. Cecilia and Gregory and a decade of the Rosary for the intention of our music program. Frankly it will take a miracle to continue to bring this liturgy to the people, and that is what we are asking for.

I am working on some ideas that could help out, but they are long shots, and fall into the category of miracles, too, so prayers on this effort would be greatly appreciated. The nature of these ideas would help the Church and the cause of sacred music everywhere, so they are not just for our local community. Thank you!

2003-06-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

THIS WAS EDITED AT AROUND 2PM. If you read it before then, please reread. I added some readings and comments. Sorry. I will try to be more organized in the future, but this is numero uno, so it will have rough edges.

Here are some suggested readings from Grout and Palisca (fifth ed) to prepare for the upcoming analysis.

If you are really pressed for time, skip to Chapter 2 and read pp 42 – 72, particularly the brief sections on our “Orbis factor” Kyrie on p. 65 and Victimae Pascali Laudes on p. 71. Then pick it back up at “Medieval Musical Theory and Practice” (pp. 74 – 82), although if you find yourself in over your head, skip it. The first sections describing the Mass will be redundant to most of you, but there are some gems worth rereading. At least the first 15 pages will go fast!

The sections of secondary importance are “The Judean Heritage” (pp 25-26), “Western Liturgies” (pp 28 – 32), “The Dominance of Rome” (pp 32 – 36), “Boethius” (pp 36 – 39).

If you have time for the sections of tertiary importance, please read “The Greek Musical System” (pp 9 – 23) and “Music in Ancient Rome” (pp 23 – 24). If you really want to get into it, you might want to read the first footnote in The Study of Counterpoint from Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, translated and edited by Alfred Mann, W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London, 1965. The information on building a simple melody is scattered through the text, but we get some good basic principles in the footnote. It is not essential to know how to write music in order to understand it, but a good knowledge of the problems encountered by composers is important. Also, we will look at how the actual examples from the Gregorian literature converge and diverge with “the rules.”

If this is not enough reading, ask, and I will be happy to suggest more! If it is too much, don’t worry, as I will try to make the analyses understood by those who have not read the material. There is no test at the end, and how much you learn here will not become part of your permanent record that will follow you for the rest of your life (unless you get the mad urge to get a degree in music or to become a musician or theorist, in which case this stuff will help you immensely).

I may refer to anything in the above readings, but if I do, you can look them up ex post facto and see what I am jabbering about.

If you are not familiar with the concept of mode, I will devote some space to that in the Primer section of the analysis. It is helpful if you can plink the modes out on an instrument, but not essential at this point.

Steven Riddle suggested that we look at other settings of these texts (and other texts that have been set over and over again in different periods, for instance, the Ave Maria), and that is a fine idea. We will look at other Kyrie Eleison settings as well as uses of Victimae Pascali Laudes. Perhaps we should look at a Gregorian “Ave Maria” right after these two chants. That way we have analysis of several chants under our belts before we look at other examples of monophony (the Messaien) and the use of modes (Miles Davis’s “So What?”).

2003-06-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

When my comments are down, as they were last I checked, you can always get comments to me (specify if they are not for publication) at: EKeilholtz [the funny little "a" with tail sign] aol [period] com. That way conversation does not come grinding to a halt with every whim of the folks who host my comments box.

2003-06-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

Mentioning The Musical Offering made me take a quick peak at the site, and I found this, a tribute to Joseph Spencer. I met Joseph about a year and a half before he died. I was in the shop talking to one of the clerks about this and that and we got to talking about harpsichords. Now, harpsichordists are weirdos and we tend to seek each other out in a crowd, because we are more comfortable among our own kind. Outsiders tend to make fun of us, for some reason. Well, Joseph was there and it turns out that he is not only a huge fan of early music, but, surprise, surprise, a harpsichordist! Not only that, but we had the same teacher.

I had listened to Joseph's radio show for many years, and it was a treat to meet the man behind the music. I saw him periodically in the shop and had a meeting with him when a few local record labels were trying to get a Bay Area record label association rolling. He was knowledgeable, friendly, dedicated to running a business that was more about serving the common good than making scads of money, in short, a really good guy. He is sorely missed in the early music community, and it is somewhat in his spirit that I am offering the series of musical analyses. The great treasure that is called Western Art Music needs to be nourished and supported in order to continue, and there is little to no money in spreading the joy of music theory. So, those of us who love Western Art Music have a duty and obligation to help spread that joy, as Joseph Spencer did for many years.

2003-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

One thing that I forgot to mention last night was that a simple soprano recorder is a great instrument for picking out a melody. It is cheap, portable, relatively easy to play, and chromatic. It's main drawback is its narrow ambitus (range). A Yamaha student model is just fine, and can even be used for more serious music (although a serious musician might be ashamed of showing up with a white plastic instrument).

Also, if anyone is stumped finding a score or a recording, please holler and I can suggest resources. Or call the fantastic all-Classical record store in Berkeley, The Musical Offering. I can sing the selections to those who are in the area, but my voice is not exactly, uh, operatic. That is an understatement, actually.

2003-06-08T23:21:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, another note of business. One of our beloved Franciscan priests is being assigned out of state. It so happened that the best time to throw him a party was around the time of the San Fermin party, so I decided to combine the two. The San Fermin/farewell to Fr. Francisco party will be Saturday, July 5th. I will be cooking up food from every country that has a significant role in bullfighting: Spain, Portugal, Basque, Provence, Mexico, Peru, California, etc. Fr. Francisco asked, "what about Minoan?" Well, it is a bit of a stretch, but it gives me an excuse to grill lamb, so we will have that, too. It is basically a barbecue (with paella, gaspacho, sangria and other goodies) that starts in the afternoon and goes into the night. All of St. Blog's is invited, so come one, come all. Every year I threaten to put on bullfight videos, but the closest we get is playing some records of bullfight music. If you are going to come to Oakland from out of town, please let me know so that we can make sure you have a place to stay. Some years we just go wall to wall sleeping bag in the living room, but if there are too many, I may have to negotiate with some friends. If the weather is warm, we can pitch tents in the backyard! I guess we can do that in foul weather as well, though.

Alicia, if this works into you schedule that would be great, but if not, let me know when you will be in town and we will have a smaller dinner party for y'all.

2003-06-08T23:12:00.000-07:00

I was going to inflict a difficult isorhythmic motet by Machaut on you for our first analysis, but I figured that it is a difficult piece, and that for beginners, I should work up to these things. So I looked through the polyphony literature and had it narrowed down to 12 potential subjects, and then it hit me.

Why not start with a little plainchant? Since there is no harmonic analysis of plainchant I am going to discuss two pieces: The Kyrie from Mass XI "Orbis factor" (listed as Liber Usualis 46 in some editions, also found in Charles Burkhardt's Anthology for Musical Analysis) and the sequence "Victimae Pascali Laude" (found in just about any good hymnal). I am not recommending recordings of either, because just about any professional one will do, and these are so well known that you probably know the music already. I know that the tune from the Kyrie is often used during Lent for a "Praise and Honor" substitute for the Alleluia. These tunes are also so well known that if you are having trouble with them, just about any musician friend can help you.

We will be discussing issues of form, mode, proportion, and looking at what makes these chants so beautiful that they have a perpetual place in the musical memory of Western Civilization. We will briefly discuss performance practice issues and the role of the Benedictines of Solemnes in editing and preserving the chant literature. We will use our discussion of these chants to springboard into a discussion next time of Olivier Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time. I don't have a recording to recommend yet, so if you have the time and resources, you might want to poke around and listen to different renditions of this masterpiece.

So, I will be posting my analysis mid-week. Meanwhile, if you have a chance to sing through the pieces, listen to recordings or musicians performing these, you will be that much better prepared. If you don't get around to it, don't worry, you should still be able to follow along with the discussion. Have fun!

2003-06-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased with Amalia. Today she was being read to by Melanie, and she got up, took off her pants and diaper and went to her pottie and did her business. 21 Months! If it didn't happen so late in the day, we probably would have had to go to Berkeley for a gelato.

2003-06-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

If you have been following the thread about which pieces of music to discuss here and at flos carmeli, you will know that I came perilously close to agreeing to start with Claude Debussy. I backed out, because I think the readers will be better served with a piece of pre-Tonal music. So, I will be hitting my early music library to find a piece. We will get to Debussy, since he is important and has significant links to the other arts, but to jump in and discuss post-Tonal structures without looking at some Medieval polyphony, Renaissance polyphony, tonalism, late Romanticism, well, it would be tough. So we will discuss something like Machaut or de Vitry or Perotin or Leonin or something of that nature.

Meanwhile, it is a beautiful day, and I recommend Joao Afonso's Zanzibar, which I reviewed here.

2003-06-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

Well, you have endured a lot of music and art stuff, so here is a recipe:

Pasta with fava beans, pancetta, and tomatoes (I may have given this to you already. If so, I am sorry, here it is again).

Fava beans can be eaten straight out of the pod when they are young and tender. If they are big, older beans, especially if they are starting to get starchy, they will need to be parboiled, refreshed and shelled. When they are ready, dice a big handful of thinly sliced pancetta (about 4 to 6 ounces). Dice a large shallot. Gently fry the pancetta in extra virgin olive oil. When the pancetta starts to brown add the shallot and fry until it is translucent. Add the favas and a generous splash of white vermouth. Simmer with tomatoes (use canned ones until July, then use your own seeded, peeled, and chopped vine-ripened organic heirloom ones) until the beans are fully cooked and the flavors integrated. Adjust for salt. Right before adding to pasta, toss in julienned basil (and fresh diced garlic to taste if you choose). Serve with shaved Reggiano Parmeggiana and a chilled Pinot Grigio or Orvieto Classico. If you are using it as a primo piatto, you can serve the red wine you are serving with the meat.

Buon appetito!

2003-06-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I have the start of a good list of suggested works for analysis, thanks to Steven Riddle, as well as a list I wanted to discuss on my own. I am hoping that others will contribute suggestions. The reason I am offering these analyses is that I have heard from several people things along the lines of "I wish I knew a little more about music theory or art theory, but haven't had the time."

So, this should be driven by you. If there is a masterwork that you want to learn more about, ask. I do not have all the answers, but I can offer a framework for analysis and can point to tools for digging deeper. If you follow all of these analyses and participate in the discussions, you should be able to hold your own in just about any discussion of art and music. I do recommend having some good reference books around, as well as making trips to the library for the opportunity to use the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which is the starting point for all serious research in music. If I could afford it, I would buy a set of this work (and would put it next to the Catholic Encyclopedia, another set I would love to have). But for the layman, a good introduction is the book that is one of the standard texts for undergraduate music history:

A History of Western Music
Fourth Edition
Donald J. Grout and Claude V. Palisca
W.W.Norton and Co., London and New York, 1988.

I give this edition, because it is the one I have. They may be on to a fifth, but I don't know. The companion to this, The Norton Anthology of Western Music is just about essential if you can read music. If you cannot read music, skip it, since it is just a collection of scores and will do you little good.

I will recommend some books for art history as well, but will need some time to think about it. There are several that have various strengths and weaknesses, and I am not sure which are the best. I do not want to suggest buying a whole library here.

I will announce the first work for discussion this weekend (in addition to ranting about Brahms). I will suggest recordings and sources for the score. We will start with music. When we get to painting I will suggest several works and see how many of the participants have had the opportunity to see the work in person. Reproductions just do not cut it, although for many works we will need to rely on them.

I know relatively little about dance, so if you want analysis of dance, you will need to go elsewhere. I am sorry. I like dance, but honestly could not tell you one step from another.

So, over the weekend I do recommend that you get yourself a copy of Grout and Palisca. You will find it a valuable book, and I will be referring to it when we discuss historical issues. As far as a harmony text, if you want to get that far into it, then Piston is fine. To really know more about the nuts and bolts of counterpoint, then Johann Josef Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum is the way to go.

2003-06-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the archives are missing, and I will try republishing them later, but after my last misadventure with blogger, I think I will leave well enough alone until the weekend.

Steven Riddle recently posted about his experiences listening to the work of Domenico Scarlatti on the piano and how something was missing. He further discussed the problems of Bach lute suites on the guitar. He is absolutely correct, and I am going to approach this with my bias against the piano momentarily set aside (although I will pick it up again immediately after I hit "Post and Publish" so don't go thinking I am getting cast-ironic on you).

The piano is a percussion instrument. It produces sound by means of hammers striking strings that are held at high tension to a cast iron frame. The sound is big and full. Even with a light touch, the notes ring much longer than on an instrument with a wooden frame. Certain composers compose with specific sound envelopes in mind. Scarlatti was always doing this. He worked with the contrast between delicate melodic lines and crashing chords to provide musical interest. If those elements linger on too long they completely destroy the effect. A pianist will attempt to fudge the effect by manipulating the dynamics, but this is essentially trying to change quality by changing quantity (well, more or less, and that is the crux of my argument against playing any Baroque music on the piano - more on that later).

Even to move certain pieces from the wooden frame fortepiano to the cast iron frame modern piano can devastate the intended sound. For many years I wondered why Mozart's Rondo alla turca was so named. There was nothing very Seljuk about the scales or harmonies. The form and rhythm was Western. Then my music theory professor, the brilliant Russian pianist Anatole Leiken, explained and used the historically informed choice of wood frame fortepiano to illustrate. In the recurring B section, the rolling chords were supposed to emulate the sound of the Janissary kettle drums. Without the excessive ringing of the pitches found on the cast iron instrument, these chords actually soundes drum-like. When the A section came back, the delicacy of the melody was a striking contrast, and we were able to hear this piece like we had never heard it before.

It is the same when I hear a Scarlatti sonata on a piano. The crispness of the chordal attacks is destroyed, and the contrast with the delicate passages is lost. The result is a flabby sounding piece. Vladimir Horowitz's Scarlatti is a horrid sounding example of this flabbiness. Scarlatti's music, when played on a harpsichord (and I cheat and prefer a French or Flemish double manual to the Italian single manual Scarlatti used) shimmers and sparkles like none other.

The one adaptation of Scarlatti that I have found that I like is on accordion. It is a Winter Edition release and is absolutely breathtaking!

2003-06-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Ann fixed it! I break it, Ann fixes it. I use boring out of the box templates, Ann fixes it!

If you want Ann to do similar magic on your website, contact her. She is a good worker, has a good eye, and is easy to work with (she puts up with my vague requests and turns them into good looking results). Her site is listed on the links area, but it can be found at PinkMochi.com. Ann is also a great musician, so if you need a top-notch percussionist with years of experience in Japanese Taiko, Korean (sorry, Ann, I forget what that kind of music is called), Western percussion, Indonesian Gamelan, etc., hire her and her husband Jaime, who is also a great percussionist.

However, she has a prejudice against the harpsichord, so be forewarned!

2003-06-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

Technical Difficulties.

Blogger seems to be on the fritz. Only showing the last entry, etc. Your patience is appreciated!

2003-06-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

I think that it is a good time to start my periodic (I am not committing to any particular time period) analyses of art and music. We are getting ready to delve into some heavy duty aesthetics, and I think that the best way to get everyone up to speed is to take a piece of music or a painting and go over it with a fine tooth comb to discuss what makes it beautiful, where it works, where it fails, etc.

Recognizing that not everyone is ready to dig into the collected paintings of Robert Ryman or the music of Webern, I am going to select works that offer some challenge but not too insurmountable for the layman. In fact, the person with average interest in the arts is the target. I have to assume that experts already know a lot of this. So, if I am swerving into jargon holler and I will back up and clarify. Do not feel that it is your fault; as it is probably my own lack of clarity.

Please note that when dealing with philosophy, aesthetics, etc., I will be taking the Catholic position. If you want to explore it from some other frame of mind, holler and we can discuss it. The assumption, however, is always the acceptance of orthodox Catholic doctrine in its entirety.

I will not stick to any chronological ordering, as that is the main problem of the discussion of art history: the erroneous notion of progress. I also will not stick to purely Catholic art. We will discuss examples from all over space and time.

I am not intending this as a tutorial in basic music and art theory UNLESS you, my readers, want that. I am happy to spend a bit of time walking you through the nuts and bolts of music and art theory, but only if you want that. I would hate to write tutorials on these only to find that no one is reading them.

The format will be like this: I will post a piece for discussion. I will recommend a source for a score and a recording and will give you a week to investigate on your own. Then I will post my analysis, which will be historical, theoretical, and philosophical. It might get a little anthropological if I am in an ethnomusicological state of mind. I want these to be discussions, so PLEASE use the comments box liberally. If the discussions bear fruit, I may ask your permission to use your comments for future projects, but I will in no way do so without getting your permission first. I do not pretend to have all the answers to the many questions that will come up.

Before posting a first piece for discussion, I would like to see if anyone out there has a different idea on how to do this.

Grazie!

2003-06-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ann has added a section for links, so we started with three. Go check out her site (pinkmochi) for the best in web design! I will be adding a blog-specific section and some other categories, as soon as I figure out what the categories are. If I just start adding links, there will be a mess in no time. So, for those of you thinking I should link to you, you are probably right, and I will, in due time.

2003-06-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

OK. I have to rant about something else right now. Bill Donohue and the Catholic League bug me to no end. These folks regularly make civil rights issues out of cases where none exists. If a private, Protestant university wants to sponsor some homoprop art show that makes fun of the Holy faith, we look stupid shouting "unfair." If this is how Princeton wants to be identified, then so be it. We already have ample evidence that this is another lightweight institution resting on its laurels (the funny case of the middle age man who fraudulently gained admission is a great example, but they also have Peter Singer and Cornel West). So they have a code of conduct that technically forbids this. So they are selective in violating it. Who cares if they make us feel bad? What business do we have there anyway? This is not a public institution, although they probably get some Federal money.

By turning it into a civil rights issue, we guarantee that they will play tit for tat, and use our doctrine against us if we want our institutions to get Federal money.

The long and short of it is that we want to them to change their tune, but not because they make us feel bad. We want them to see the truth and change because of that conversion.

We would be much better served if Donohue, rather than bitterly weeping at the various garbage art exhibits out there, worked to promote truth, beauty and good in art and let the garbage be seen for what it is. How many times has he brought undue attention to some silly exhibit that would have gone unnoticed (and been unprofitable) had he kept his mouth zipped?

Why doesn't the Catholic League sponsor shows in these towns of the right kind of art. Given a choice between more elephant turds, more piles of candy and good Catholic art, I would bet money where the crowds would go. The artgoing public is dwindling, and it is because it is sick of being talked down to by insufferable idiots wielding jargon-laden artspeak and acting superior. Then these curators and assorted art thugs would have to argue that their garbage is in the corner of the common man, while the common man is patronizing a different gallery.

Instead we get more hysterical whining from old Bill. Does anyone know the league rules? Can we trade him?

2003-06-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

Here is the Vormusik of THAT post. Enjoy. Think. Comment. Harangue. If I am feeling up to it I might post on the harpsichord versus the piano tonight (inspired by Steven Riddle), although I am suffering the residual effects of a cold compounded by being at the SF Symphony's Black and White Ball until 2 am on Saturday (What a show! We saw Pete Escovedo, Buck Owens, Debbie Harry (with her stellar jazz band), Morris Day and the Time, india.arie (yawn - reminds me of Tracy Chapman, but even more boring), and Chubby Checker), as well as continued after effects from the surgery (getting annoying). So I might wait until later in the week.

As to up and coming events: Melanie has something to go to on Monday, so I will not be at the bullfight Monday, so I might go Friday, in which case you will get a bullfight report over the weekend. We will see.

So without further ado...

126 measures of an E flat Major chord!

This is Vormusik to CO in E Maj. Something to think about and to chew on for a few days. This, like the other posts on art, music, theology, etc. should be seen as a rough draft manuscript handed to friends. I am doing this to get feedback so that when I put these things into my work on the Theology of Art they will be better. So, please read and be brutal.

This Vormusik is related to an email argument between a couple of good friends of mine, an argument that I have for the most part been reading and have yet to jump in. Their argument began at a baseball game when the topic of learning American history came up. Fr. N (names abridged to protect the innocent, but I will say that Fr. N is a bright, orthodox Franciscan priest who has many years of teaching under his belt) apparently said that learning American history was important formationally, as it helped build good participants in a pluralistic democracy. Mr. C (a Medievalist and professor of philosophy and history) countered that it is good to learn American history because learning is good – period, and there is no need to worry about the formative aspects. At least this is my understanding of the original conversation. It has grown into a debate over the good of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Fr. N has been taking the side that the pursuit of knowledge is good insofar as it draws us closer to holiness. That it is more important to pursue holiness, and if knowledge aids that, then so be it, but if it hinders that, then it is an obstacle. Mr. C says, "look, before you can say you are a holy man, you must say that you are a man. Education makes us a more complete man." Fair enough.

Cardinal Newman has been batted around, along with Genesis. It is a bit like a tennis match:

Serve. Genesis shows the terrible consequences of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

Return. That knowledge was experiential, meaning that for them to "know" good and evil meant participation in good and evil. A better example of the liberal arts in Genesis is Adam naming everything, in which this pure learning is an explicit good!

Out! Luv-fifteen.
Server approaches the chair. "What do you mean, out?!?"
No, wait. This is not a match with John McEnroe. It has been remarkable civil, which is exactly what I would expect from these two (well, actually three, as two of us have been cc:ed on these, and Mr. M has actually jumped in the fray a bit).

The resolution to this is fairly simple, and ties into the arts in general (particularly when we are looking at the moral effect of a piece of art). Both sides are right. Learning the liberal arts is a good and cannot be anything but formative. If learning does not advance us towards holiness, then we are not learning enough. There cannot be any dark knowledge (the only thing that can count as dark knowledge is experiential – so that we may say that someone has evil knowledge, meaning experience in doing evil deeds) any more than darkness can be said to exist (rather we can only say that light is lacking).

This distinction is, of course, important in refuting the heresy of Gnosticism. God is not the author of evil. If it is created, it is good. When we participate in pure, liberal knowledge, we are participating in God’s creation, and that is about as good as it gets.

Take the example of a nuclear scientist who develops weapons. It is not that he is wrong for learning the relationship between matter and energy, but that he is wrong in not learning his moral theology and in using this knowledge of God’s Creation for the sake of developing weaponry that he knows is used for immoral purposes (hence an experiential knowledge). If we are to cast our scientist as Adam, he is naming the animals, playing a part in creation itself when he studies the mysteries of subatomic particles. He is falling into sin when he knows, in the Biblical sense, how to use this power to threaten the world with the Hell of weapons of mass destruction.

If someone is gaining knowledge and not moving towards holiness, then the sin lies not in the gaining of knowledge, but in the neglect of studying that which is proper to man. We could even look at it as a matter of proportion. Someone who limits their studies to what they perceive as materially useful is not wrong to study those things, rather, he is wrong in giving them undue attention at the expense of that which will make him a whole man. I think of the poor lads and lassies in school who study "business administration" or other such nonsense. We wonder why they think us funny for objecting that the businesses they administer hire slave labor in China. What else can we expect? Their learning is deficient. They are incomplete in their intellects.

Similarly, when we are looking at a piece of art or music we must recognize that, insofar as it is beautiful it is good. Insofar as it is true, it is good. Insofar as it is, it is beautiful, good, and true. For bad art to exist, it must be deficient in something. We cannot say, for instance, that a Thomas Kincade painting is bad because it contains ugliness. Instead we have to show where it lacks proportion, integrity, and clarity (this is an easy example, since all of Mr. Kincade’s work lacks proportion, integrity and clarity – right now I am only sketching rough ideas. When we get to the actual series of CO in E Maj. posts, we will look at concrete examples. The benefit of Mr. Kincade is that I only need to point to his website. Anything we find there will fit the description of an art so degenerated as to almost completely lack beauty, truth, and good. Likewise in music we have Kenny G, who we can pick out of a pile of CDs, randomly pick a track and listen with confidence to utterly horrid music).

Now we have the tricky subject of art dealing with the human condition with all of its crustiness, all of its faults, all of its torments, trials, traumas, death and decay. Is an artist to ignore those, preferring to portray idealized situations and settings? Certainly not, as that approach fails to address the real affairs of real people. Instead the artist’s mission is to draw the viewer into the morass and reveal the good and beautiful hidden in there. To try to ignore the gritiness of the world is to sugarcoat, to offer an escape that does not exist. It is an act of salesmanship, rather than art, and it is, diabolically, a salesmanship of fraud. This is the crux of Carbon Monoxide culture. Why Carbon Monoxide? Why not cyanide?

Ah, this, my dear reader, is only the Vormusik. You are overly anxious to see the Rhinemaidens!

2003-05-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

I think I am going to pass on the bullfight next Friday, so the next bullfight report will have to wait until the 9th. Who knows, I might go on the 6th, since it is in Thornton, which is one of my favorite rings. I will be going to Thornton for the Festa for Nossa Senhora de Fatima in October, and will go for both days this year, so I will get my share of that ring. Thornton is a delta town, so it is shady and pleasant.

Speaking of bullfight reports, I have a correction to make on the last one. It was not the Modesto Festa. I was confused becuase it was the same cartel, but the Modesto Holy Ghost Festa is the one on the 9th. Oops! And the second forcado group was Tulare. That is called Bad Reporting! Sorry!

2003-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Just as I warned you to get your Easter menu in order, it is about time to start thinking about San Fermin menus. I will be once again representing the countries where bullfighting is important: Spain, Basque Country, France, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, and California. Of course, the Basque items get pride of place, but we honor the whole world of the bulls here.

If you are doing a San Fermin party you will want to find bullfight music. I recommend any recording by the Taurine band of Mexico City. I like to play "La Virgen de la Macarena" when the guests are called to the dinner table, as that is a good way to start things. Find a version with a good trumpet soloist, though, as that is what makes that particular pasodoble great. The Tijuana orchestra does a great job of that piece, and they follow the tradition of playing it when the matadores have entered the chapel.

2003-05-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Someone mentioned Margaritas in the Comments Box at Two Sleepy Mommies and that got me to thinking about ceviche and that made me think about summer Mexican menus.

Let us start with a proper Margarita. No slushies here. We drink 'em straight up in a martini glass. 100% blue agave tequila. No Cuervo! Grand Marnier. Juice of a freshly squeezed lime. All in a shaker with ice. Rim of glass coated in lime juice and sea salt. The drink is poured in. Yum.

Ceviche: halibut or salmon or some other ocean fish soaked in lime juice with a diced white onion and cilantro for three hours. Add sea salt to taste. Serve on grilled tortillas (corn only, preferably hand made) with a salsa of diced white onion, cilantro, green chilies, mango, avocado, and the merest hint of garlic.

Since you have fired up your Weber to grill the tortillas why not grill some shrimp and a nice carne asada?

And, since we are talking about a feast here, let's fix carnitas:

Simmer a whole pork loin roast in water with a sliced onion, three peeled and squashed garlic cloves, a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, a half teaspoon of coriander seeds, a hallf teaspoon of whole peppercorns, a good pinch of Mexican oregano, a handful of cilantro sprigs, and a bay leaf. Let it simmer until the meat is well cooked and ready to fall apart. Remove the meat, reserving the broth for risotto with Italian sausages (holler if you need that recipe). When the meat cools, shred it. Fry the meat with a diced onion, a dusting of cinnamon, and three finely diced chipotle peppers (with their adobo sauce) in goose fat (let it get crispy and brown but make sure it does not burn). Salt generously. Serve with onion, cilantro, guacamole, and lime wedges on grilled corn tortillas.

Now it is desert time, and you are probably full, so skip desert or have a little fresh fruit if you must. A shot of very good tequila would be in order here.

2003-05-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Friday Five

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered as being the best Emperor who ever lived.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?

"People who think in quotations deserve the thoughts they get." -E Keilholtz

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?

Wasn't too spectacular a year for personal achievement. No big splashy thing. No great paintings, no fantastic musical performances or compositions. I did not write anything great, did not create any new dishes that will change culinary history forever. I had some great times with Melanie and Amália, though, so as a cumulative thing, that would have to be it. I suppose the drawings I did in Italy were noteworthy, but they are lost and gone forever (thanks, Air France!), so perhaps they weren't so great.

4. What about the past ten years?

I don't know. What counts as an achievement? I don't tend to count things like getting married, having a baby, etc. Those were the most exciting and wonderful things, but achievement? I suppose it would have to be one of my paintings, but since I do not have a digital image of it, I can't post it, so I won't waste your time talking about it.

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?

Obey the Pope in all matters! The trouble you will get into by obeying the Pope will be worth it. The trouble you will get into by not obeying the Pope will not be worth it.

2003-05-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

I tried something new this week: garlic scrapes. I have a farmer that I often buy from who offers a lot of wonderful and unusual products. She has been on hiatus from the market for awhile, as she had to build a deer fence to protect her crops. But she is back and was offering garlic scrapes, the stem and bud of the newly mature garlic plant. Like green garlic, the scrape is milder than the bulb. Following her suggestion, I brushed them with olive oil and threw them on the grill (mesquite lump charcoal and hickory wood) after I had cooked my arista (pork loin, with a lengthwise incision stuffed with pancetta, rosemary, and garlic, tied, generously treated with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper and olive oil). Delicious! Unfortunately garlic scrapes are only available for a couple of weeks, so we will see about next week.

Tonight I am making another green garlic and cheese soufflé, from the Chez Panisse cookbook. It was so good last time that I wanted to get one more in before the end of green garlic season.

That's it for the food report! Go out and cook something!

2003-05-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

550 years ago today the last part of the Roman Empire fell with the sack of Constantinople. Think about that. 1453 was less than 40 years before the discovery and Evangelization of the New World by Christopher Columbus.

The great Cathedral of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Holy Wisdom Cathedral (Hagia Sophia in Greek) was desecrated and turned into a mosque. At least now it is no longer a mosque, although it still bears vandalism in Arabic and is not a church either. Constantinople now is known by the preposterous name of Istanbul (which is Greek for "to the City") and is still run by the Turk. They Might Be Giants are wrong. It is not just the Turks' business. It is not the Turks' business at all.

Sad to say there is a Latin role in the sacking of Constantinople, even, dare I say it, a specifically Italian role. First we have the Latin Church ignoring calls for help from Eastern Christians who were on the front in a war that continues to this day. We did finally come around and mount a fairly spectacular defense of Christendom in the First Crusade (and the next Two Crusades, as well as in the Reconquista of Iberia), but it was too little, too late. Two thirds of Christendom had been conquered and converted by the swords of the followers of the doctrines of Mohammed. Then, because of the betrayal of the Byzantines by the Venetians, the Byzantines were weakened and unable to resist.

Both the East and the West have paid for this event in blood, but the burden has been tragically higher on the East, so far. The West has yet to learn from the mistakes of abandoning our Eastern brethren. In the last decade we ensured that the snares of Mohammed will last for many years in the cradle of Christian monasticism, Kosovo (please note that I do not think that Milosovic is an honorable man, but we betrayed the Serbian people, as well as all Christians when we handed Kosovo to the followers of the doctrines of Mohammed).

But there is a light on the horizon. The cocktail of Nestorianism, Iconoclasm, Arabian mythology and tribalism that Mohammed either created or received from a demon is on its last leg. These followers of Mohammed reached their intellectual peak around the e 10th Century (more or less, we can debate this one for quite awhile). They cannot wage war without our weapons (I remember being struck by a picture of multi-billionaire Osama bin-Laden looking very pleased with himself as he was firing a rifle, although there is no way his people could have made that rifle). In order to survive in the numbers they have they require our liberalism, our food, our technology. Just like they did when they encountered Roman philosophy during their expansion, when their own philosophy is lacking, they turn to ours. Their understanding of God allows no more advancement in knowledge than they achieved in their first 200 years.

When the collapse gets momentum history will never have seen a major movement fade so quickly (well, the collpase of Commie-ism may give it a run for its money). It may not be in our lifetimes, but it will be by our grandchildren’s day.

On a regular basis we make fundamental mistakes with dealing with the challenge they pose. We assume that they think like us, when they don't. As a culture (not as individuals) they are incapable of a poker face. In fact they are playing poker with their cards facing us. Not only are they displaying them to us, but they cannot see them all themselves. Only we are too busy with our noses in our own cards to look. They are desperately trying to see our hand, and we are too busy studying our own hand to see theirs, which is held up in plain view. When we want to know what they think we throw some money at a few indoctrinated Marxist scholars who give us useless information. When their leaders tell us exactly how they see the world we assume that they are posturing.

Part of the problem of the West is that we have, since the French Endarkenment, maintained, as a culture, the notion that religion is not much more than a club. We assume that the followers of Mohammed think this way too. They don’t. We shouldn’t either, by the way, and we will talk about ways that we should look to the followers of Mohammed as examples.

When the followers of Mohammed critique the West they are mostly spot on. We have let our culture sink to an incredibly low level. With rampant abortion, pornography, consumerism, suburban isolationism, absurd individualism, factory farming, sky-high divorce rates, tremendous neglect of religious duty, drug abuse, usury, sodomy, oppression of the poor, robbing workers of their just wages, so forth and so on, we cannot take the completely high ground here. If we look into Scripture, we must see the many examples when God used an army of barbarians to punish His people. And this is the key to how I see the Holy Father’s warnings against our rush to war. If, instead of relying on our own strength, we as a nation spent that energy shutting down abortuaries, stopped subsidizing factory farms, praying the Rosary, etc., then the Holy Father might have seen that we were ready to take on this foe. But I can understand his lack of enthusiasm for the Global March of the Consumerists. (There is more on this particular thread on Mark Shea’s Blog).

Certainly God not only endorsed but helped His people in time of need, WHEN they appealed to him, repented of their sin, and resolved to amend their behavior. Can we as a culture hope to defeat the Infidel if we are trying to beat them so that we can inflict Planned Parenthood, Playboy, and Walmart’s on them? Can we win when we are led by heretics (I am asking this honestly – even though Bush professes orthodox Christology, I am not so sure with Ashcroft – does anyone know? But even with orthodox Christology, are these people so caught up in Puritanism that they are unable to do the job)? Also, do we have the humility to see the good in the religion of Mohammed? The piety, the reverence, the honest attempt to follow God’s will, the concern towards the poor, modesty in dress, control over one’s sexual impulses, etc. There is plenty we can learn from them. They have their faults, some of which are well-known, some of which are not, but their determination to adhere to what they believe is the will of God is admirable.

It would be much better if we were not at war with them, but as long as they believe in the doctrines of Mohammed, and take said doctrines seriously we will be at war with them or we will be subjugated by them. We must work for peace through dialog. And, we must clean our own house and turn away from the crassness, the consumerism, the culture of death that has much of our society in its grip.

I supported the recent war, but because we, as a nation must trust our leaders on sensitive national security measures. If the President says there are weapons of mass destruction, we need to trust him. But now, Herr President, du bist jetzt dran. Das Spiel ist in dein Hand. It is up to the coalition to show that this was a just war, part of the ancient war for the very survival of the West. It is too early to give up and call President Bush a liar, but it might be time to start drumming our fingers on the desk. If those weapons existed, it is getting close to the deadline for producing them.

So remember the fall of Constantinople. But also remember the West’s role in this tragedy. Examine where this war is today, and what our role is today.

St. Michael, Pray for us!
St. James, Pray for us!
St. Francis of Assisi, Pray for us!
St. Dominic, Pray for us!
All Holy Martyrs, Pray for us!
Blessed Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us!
Blessed Mary, Seat of Wisdom, Pray for us!
Blessed Mary, Queen of Heaven, Pray for us!

2003-05-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry to lapse so much in posting, but it has been a busy weekend (I know, excuses, excuses). I hope to be a better blogger this week!

2003-05-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

Bullfight Report

As it is late, and I am not at my own computer, I am going to stick to a brief report of last night’s bullfight. I will discuss more general taurine topics later, but here is an account of a specific bullfight. The novice should be able to glean some notion of what the art (not sport) of bullfighting is all about, even though an outline of the nature of the art is beyond the scope of this report. Please keep in mind that what I am describing is a Portuguese bullfight, performed on horseback. Purist aficionados see this as a secondary art to toreo en pie, even though this form is the elder.

Last night was the bullfight of the Modesto Festa and was held in the Praça de Toiros in Stevinson. Following local law, the bullfight was bloodless, and the banderillas were placed using Velcro. The performers were Cavaleiro (Alt) Pedro Franco of Portugal and Eduardo Costa (Praticante) of California. The forcados were from Turlock and (I believe – I get the two groups mixed up, and was talking to another aficionado when they were announced) Tulare, although they may have been from Southern California. I enjoy the forcados, but consider them a much lesser part of the fiesta brava (although in California, they enjoy the highest following of anywhere in the taurine world).

As for the bulls, there was not much to say about them. The first bull was decent, the rest borderline or out and out mansos. The focus was on three of the horses, which were bought from the legendary Rejoneador Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza of Spain.

These horses were incredibly well-trained. Hermoso de Mendoza, who I have had the privilege of seeing twice in Mexico, is known for performing ballets on horseback (albeit in a small ring with a wild bull charging at him). His horses are trained to respond to the subtlest of cues, bowing, dipping, turning, dancing, and outrunning the bull at the slightest nudge on the reigns or pressure of the knees. Under Hermoso de Mendoza’s guidance these horses move in ways that seem to defy physics.

Unfortunately, under the reigns of Franco the horses showed only a glimpse of what they can do. Although Franco is a full-fledged professional cavaleiro, he spends much of the season in California. This is akin to Barry Bonds playing softball in Japan from May to September. Needless to say Franco is not a top-tier performer. I have seen him many times on lesser steeds, and he is adequate, although somewhat dull. Watching him on the Hermoso de Mendoza horses, however, did not help him. Citing the bull, Franco would engage in the same elegant dances as Hermoso de Mendoza, but would then botch the placement of the sticks.

The effect was akin to a performance of a Bach suite in which the performer perfectly ornamented every phrase, but hit essential notes incorrectly. As I said to my neighbor in the stands, “this is like giving the keys to Dad’s Ferrari to the 16 year old and telling him to hold his own at Sear’s Point.”

Franco, inspired by the horses, was attempting to perform at a level far beyond his abilities, and the results were revealing. He misread the bulls, failed to engage the admittedly poor bulls, missed on his placement, and generally failed to dominate the animals.

Costa, who, as a young Californian, has shown tremendous potential in the past, was distracted. He fought one decent faena, making up for missed sticks with a beautiful over the back placement, a la Rodrigo Santos. His last bull was a disaster, and Costa allowed his horse to be pegged at least three times and was eventually unseated. My hope is that he will not be discouraged, as he has shown in the past that he can be a brilliant cavaleiro, probably even equal to California’s cavaleiro (alt) Joseph Correia (in fact, last year at Correia’s alternative ceremony, Costa fought in tandem with Correia in a brilliant faena). California has benefited greatly from having two decent local boys (and the young Sario Cabral who shows promise), and hopefully the remainder of the season will show that Costa is on track with the progress he has made in the last few years.

As far as the forcados, there was one good, clean grab from Turlock. The rest of the evening was less than inspiring, mostly the fault of bad bulls and improper preparation by the cavaleiros (I say this as an admitted non-expert on the forcados, however. Others may disagree and be completely correct).

The orchestra, from Livingston, was excellent. They have a good repertoire and sounded better than ever.

2003-05-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

At long last I will be at the bulls this weekend! While I would love to be in Tijuana for the corrida at El Toreo (the wonderfully rickety downtown bullring), I will be at the Festa at Stevinson watching Pedro Franco and Edouardo Costa. So there will be a bull report sometime soon!