Tragic irony, seeing as how this post will soon bring Neb's wrath down in full force.
sent this along to Neb and I
You are revenged.
(This should perhaps have been published on Standpipe's blog, but I wasn't sure if that's what Awl was getting at. At which Awl was getting.)
"Whereas Oklahoma! is clearly free from any tenuous connections to terrorism."
Sure, blame the innocent victims of jihad.
Without 2 and 3, I wouldn't have gotten the jokes.
I join neb in his admiration heebie's quip and his (assumed) little bitchery about heebie's grammar.
Wait til they find out about Ali Hakim, played by Aasif Mandvi in a recent revival (although by Eddie Albert in the original and the movie).
But Kismet can be kind as well as cruel.
The great thing about Kismet is the prominent song about state-sanctioned torture in Iraq, which itself raises several questions in turn, such as, what was lutenist doing as court musician in Baghdad?
Is this the theatre thread? I was surprised today to learn that someone locally is doing Evil Dead: The Musical. That seems awfully...ambitious?
Fleming said sensitivity about the play is understandable because of Flight 93's demise in nearby Shanksville, and because the sudden death of a drama student in a car crash affected students last year.Could be right out of National Lampoon's High School Yearbook.
and everybody agreed that it had been the best Senior Year for the best Senior Class ever at C. Estes Kefauver Memorial High except for the tragic deaths of Howard Havermeyer and President Kennedy and the car accident after the Prom.
re: 9
Ouds are and were standard instruments in that part of the world. Apart from the lack of frets [and they did have them in the past] a modern Arabic oud is more or less indistinguishable from a renaissance lute.
Stupidly, I bought an oud a few years back and then have never learned to play one.
I know someone who maintains that "fiddle" and "violin" name different instruments.
That's silly, but I'm prepared to make the analogous case for "lute" and "oud".
Or, if not precisely make a case, at least state a claim.
I bought an oud a few years back and then have never learned to play one.
Country music song lyric?
"My head hurts, my feet stink and I can't play the oud."
For oud neck design, my dear,
For oud neck design.
Shorten, remove the lute's fret,
For oud neck design.
re: 13
Well, they are very very similar instruments with a common ancestor, and whose names are etymologically related. But there are some construction differences [ouds are built heavier to be played with a plectrum], and minor scale/tuning differences. But they are damn similar. The music is completely different, of course.
Bass viola da gamba versus cello sorts of level of similarity, I suppose.
The local high school put on Sweeney Todd once and my barber thought it was great. (It really wasn't much like the Broadway version, but apparently any publicity for barbers is better than no publicity).
Oh hey I saw "Oklahoma!" this weekend. You know what would liven up the dream ballet? Terrorism. Or really anything else except what's actually happening onstage at that point.
I had this whole misbegotten daydream during "I Cain't Say No" about Ado Annie being Edo Annie who instead sings "I'm just a Girl Who Cain't Say Noh" but that's about as far as I got with it.
If this were the theater thread I might want to blather about Hilton Als' slightly baffling apologia for Diane Paulus and Suzan Lori Parks, but actually there's not that much to say maybe beyond "wha?"
Bass viol is way differenter than that! Frets and two more strings and funky lute tuning and stuff.
re: 22
Well, lute has frets, oud doesn't. They are tuned differently, and sometimes the number of strings are different. 12, much of the time, on a standard renaissance lute [which is tuned a bit like a guitar a minor 3rd up, only with paired courses]. Ouds commonly have 11, as the bottom paired course is often a single string, although they can have, I think, 12 or even 13. Mine has 11 and is Arabic rather than Turkish tuned.
Baroque lutes are a whole different ball game. All teh strings. One day I'll get one, since I can actually play the bloody music. Unlike the oud.
That's mightily impressive. Playing the lute looks something like impossible to me. Too much to keep track of. I played viol for four years in college but not especially well. If they didn't cost so much I'd get one to keep around and occasionally make noises on.
I've only played the music on classical guitar, which is quite do-able even with the much of the baroque stuff if you drop-tune/scordatura, or transpose a few of the bass notes up an octave. The bass courses are unfretted anyway, so while there's a gazillion strings the bulk of the music is in a 2 or 3 octave range. Renaissance lute stuff is straightforward on a guitar. You can more or less read the lute tablature as written if you drop the G string a semi-tone.
My classical guitar chops aren't up to the really hard or fast Baroque stuff like this, but I could work up to it. The music is often lovely, though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN5FkY1zlos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV2AsQwcwZc
I now want to see a terrorist ballet.
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Speaking of not OK.
1) Tangentially-related to my work I came across the following organizational self-description: "X is a talent-obsessive, action-oriented entrepreneurial force, determined to re-invent the business of Y".
2) Presentations which use "modalities" for commonplace things like phone vs. tablet vs. laptops. Especially ones where you can't have a drink every times someone says "modality".
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A ballet about terrorism, or a ballet that is itself an act of terrorism?
If I could magically play the lute I would like to play Vieux Gualtier's Les Cascades. This is partly because I don't know much lute music, but partly because it is lovely. I think it's good to have a fantasy I-wish-I-could-play-that piece. If I could play piano hundreds of times better than I ever shall, I'd play the precipitato from Prokofiev 7 every day upon waking.
A ballet about terrorism, or a ballet that is itself an act of terrorism?
Ideally the form would reflect the content.
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Is this currently the lighten up thread?
Have a drink, people! The technology that brings the Unfogged weltanschauung to the mundane world of after work bars.
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One could make the case that "lute" denotes a class of plucked chordophone, and that the oud, as a member of that class, is thus a lute. A very strong case, I think.
A ballet about terrorism, or a ballet that is itself an act of terrorism?
Ideally the form would reflect the content.
ones where you can't have a drink every times someone says "modality".
Fascist bastards.
Cecil B. DeMented?
But with diabolical pas-de-bourrés.
35 referred to the people who won't let you play drinking games in meetings.
I want one of the 32 machines. Would long words just turn brown?
Anyway, from that same website, I learned NMM to REM (the band).
I now want to see a terrorist ballet.
WE WILL GO ON WITH THE BALLET IN ONE HAND AND THE BALLOT IN THE OTHER.
35 referred to the people who won't let you play drinking games in meetings.
I think 32 machines should be brought to meetings as a matter of policy, so that when you get a word in buzz word bingo you can drink it.
15: Ah, but does she eat lutefisk too?
32: those sounded like lousy cocktails to me. But then again, I recently used the word "modality" many, many times in a limited timespan.
But then again, I recently used the word "modality" many, many times in a limited timespan.
Snipers, you have your orders.
re: 30
With lute, it'd probably be something by Dowland, like the Lachrimae Pavan. Which has the advantage of being just about playable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEMS3vwxWtc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI_1mAt9M9w
More globally [but sticking with classical music], I can't really get past Bach, so if I could magically play piano -- the Goldberg Variations. There is a guitar arrangement, by Eotvos, but it's way beyond my level. I can just about stumble through the Aria [Eotvos playing his own arrangement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nalx_MGP3Q ] but the fast movements are impossible. So, magically I'd play it on piano. Or, a current minor obsession, the Shostakovich Violin concerto [on violin].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIp9hcMwY6o&t=2m19s
43.last: Well sure, but that's because you knew some of your friends were playing buzzword bingo. Cleverly done!
Dowland, of course, is emo as fuck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym1kWj1TwkU
44, 46: to be fair (you know, to me), I think it was actually the most accurate way to say what I was trying to say. And it wasn't in a business-y context.
More globally [but sticking with classical music], I can't really get past Bach, so if I could magically play piano -- the Goldberg Variations.
I was thinking the WTC. I'd just play it over and over, onanistically, glassy-eyed, half-conscious, the way I imagine Chopin used to.
48 -- it's depressing that my snipers are so inefficient that they've given you enough time to clarify. I need better snipers.
I have a slightly embarrassing (so I'm going to tell it to EVERYONE!) memory of kind of crying and freaking out in my car to the bonkers mvmt of the DSch violin concerto in high school. I think I was upset about something else to begin with. Now watching it (calmly but not unemotionally) in a performance w/ Oistrakh.
Dowland's wonderful. I'd love to take a stab at some of the songs but am afraid I'd sound like Sting or worse. Oh hm I just started to sing "Awake, Sweet Love" and it goes badly indeed with Shostakovich, and worse yet with a rudimentary vocal technique, though really, early music, insinuating ellipsis...
I am all but free-associating now and will shut it.
If this were the theater thread I might want to blather about Hilton Als' slightly baffling apologia for Diane Paulus and Suzan Lori Parks, but actually there's not that much to say maybe beyond "wha?"
I read this last night and did indeed say "wha?" It has been interesting to see critics divide into clear camps of "Yay awesome!" and "Um, no."
I refuse to believe that Hilton Als thinks the measure of art is whether its identity politics fall fair on a modern ear, and that it's fine to take a red pen to it when they don't. I'm very much looking forward to a Paulus production of The Merchant of Venice. Funny misunderstanding! He meant a pound of CORNED BEEF!! Shakespeare just needed a little help talking about the Jews, but we're all over it!
I'm a fucking drama queen, guys. I'm really sorry, but there it is.
The Oklahoma City Memorial is very much worth seeing.
I sort of want to take up a collection now, so that mr. smearcase will no longer have to work, and can practice the life of refined, proustian aestheticism to which he is so clearly well-suited.
don't we already have rite of spring for terrorist ballet? I seem to recall it was received as such at the time...
53: I would have thought that the better thing to do with a play that you honestly thought was really racially problematic might be to not perform it, and put on (or indeed write and put on) something else that suits you better. But that probably wouldn't have sold quite so many tickets.
Stanley@10
Evil Dead: The Musical is a total hoot, and eminently worth seeing. Alcohol only makes it better.