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Opera, traditionally, could be Woke in that it’s very fluid about body size and age (225 pound and 52 year old women are more likely to get the biggest roles, such as beautiful young Isolde), and to a lesser extent, sex (adult women normally play young boys’ roles for reasons similar to why Bart Simpson is voiced by a woman). Like during the Great Awokening, opera relies on the forgiveness inherent in Let’s Pretend.
But the reason for this fluidity in opera between who the characters are supposed to be and who the singers who play them are is not due to Representation or Diversity or pity or whatever, but to ruthless meritocracy: on average, hefty folks of a certain age can blast it out better than good-l0oking young people.
Fortunately, one form of meritocratic competition was completely excised from opera after its peak in popularity 300 years ago: boys are no longer allowed to improve their chances of an adult singing career by being castrated before puberty.
The large majority of operas in the current repertoire are post-castrato craze. The Enlightenment (outside France, which disdained castrati) thought of castrati as excellent leading men for operas about ideal virtuous heroes. But the now-disdained Romantic Era thought that was stupid and kind of sick. The last castrato role was composed in 1824. Indeed, the most famous operas from the 1780s through the 1910s are intensely heterosexual.
You can see the changeover in Mozart (1756-1791). His old-fashioned boring operas like The Clemency of Titus featured roles written for castrati. But his great late stuff like Cosi Fan Tutte (more or less, All Women Do It) and Don Giovanni are the over-the-top heterosexual. Mozart’s peak librettist was Lorenzo da Ponte, a Jewish-born Catholic priest and friend of Casanova who was defrocked for being a pimp and wound up an Ivy League professor.
But the way things are going, perhaps the future will tend toward the gender-fluidity of the past.
From the New York Times arts section:
‘I Would Love to Sing Lucia’: A Male Soprano Comes Into His Own
Samuel Mariño, a singer with a rare voice type in opera, is making his Decca album debut with a glimpse at a more gender-fluid future.
So I jumped in figuring this article about opera’s more gender-fluid future wouldn’t mention opera’s grotesque gender-fluid past. But no, they go there. A lot.
By J.S. Marcus
May 27, 2022BERLIN — Samuel Mariño is a rarity in opera: a true male soprano.
Rather than relying on falsetto as a countertenor would, Mariño, 28, is able to comfortably sing high notes with his chest voice. Now he is branching out from Baroque parts originally written for castrati. A big step in that direction: “Sopranista,” his debut album on the Decca label, which is out on Friday.
He has his eye on a variety of roles, including Sophie, the ingénue of Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier,” and Dvorak’s Rusalka, he said in an interview, with the aim of sending a message that classical music should be “open to all communities,” including a multiplicity of genders. And “Sopranista,” named after the Italian term for a male soprano, offers a glimpse at that more fluid future. …
The album opens with Cherubino’s aria “Voi che sapete,” from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” Cherubino, originally written for a female soprano, is now a signature trouser role — an often young male character performed by a mezzo-soprano.
Mariño, who was born in Venezuela and is based here in Berlin, didn’t lose the boyish aspects of his voice at puberty; it only “partially broke,” he said. With a high speaking voice, life as a teenager — a gay one, at that — was difficult. …
… He then spent his early career specializing in castrato roles.
Unlike castrati of the 17th and 18th centuries — always beardless, and typically tall and paunchy — Mariño is short and lithe, and was already sporting a five o’clock shadow on a recent afternoon walk with Leia, his Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
At his apartment, Mariño spoke about his new album, his desire to go beyond castrati roles and his campaign to free himself — along with classical music generally — from the confines of traditional gender boundaries. …
But why wait around for natural accidents like this guy? We now have puberty blockers and a rampant ideology promoting their use, so perhaps the future of opera, like the past, will be more fluid?
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
I hope, and a piece of me believes, that this may be the Bridge Too Far that Wokelism dies upon.
Mm
So no this will not due because we like Eden that she bifvbehu gvsv assume.
You guys are bad idioms Abe have no image I. Limits dicethReplies: @Steve Sailer
Ever notice how that bridge keeps moving farther away?
“Michael Jackson was ‘chemically castrated’ by his late dad, says singer’s ex doctor”
https://ew.com/music/2018/07/11/michael-jackson-chemically-castrated-joe-jackson-conrad-murray/
Tetley had a long career doing little-boy voices, most notably Sherman. Bill Scott, who voiced Mr Peabody, joked that his mother had had him castrated to keep the money coming in. At least one hopes it was a joke-- Tetley had a classic stage mother.Replies: @Red Pill Angel
Hear the supernatural instrument of il Cavaliere Alessandro Moreschi, the “last castrato”, recorded in the Sistine Chapel in 1904, and weep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nukZS61W8f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al6yn4xHOuY
That Marinyo guy just sounds like a really good countertenor to me.Replies: @Wendy NY. Kroy, @Wendy K. Kroy
Let’s tuck this piece in here. It’s an isteve recurring theme.
Zero hedge has this piece,
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/how-cut-crime-murder-capital-america
A search of the article discovers one word missing.
A 5 second scan at this page tells you everything you need to know.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymississippi/BZA115220
However, I suspect that the second sentence in the quotation is an ancient trick which the writer must think is still clever: It doesn't read "how many more will there be IN JACKSON before the end of the month". The "out-of-envelope" figure they're looking for adds in the rest of the world -- so let's answer "at least in the thousands."
Found a clip of him singing “Voi che sapete”. He’s better than Maria Ewing, whose bug-eyed mugging makes her look like Rochester in a powdered wig.
My favorite:
IIRC Haydn very narrowly escaped (Maria Theresia complained of his voice
breaking when he was in the Sängerknaben).
But it would leave precious few female (TERF) singers – doesn´t this amount
to
culturalgenderoid (sp?) appropriation?Does being fat really confer an advantage at singing? Physically, there are two components: the lungs which supply the air flow, and the throat+mouth+nose that shape that air flow. Being fat (and inevitably out of shape) can only weaken the lungs piece of it. As for the throat+mouth+nose piece, that’s probably unaffected but certainly not improved by being fat.
Being big around the chest won’t by itself do a singer any good; layers of fat don’t breath and they don’t resonate either. In fact there’s no scientific basis to the idea anyone resonates from his chest. Singing “from your chest” is a coaching technique that helps by improving posture and maybe awareness of how others hear you, but your chest doesn’t in any way function like the body of a violin.
So if great singers do in fact tend to be fat, that just reflects a sedentary life and/or too much feasting with billionaire patrons of the arts.
I was hoping for a comment from Pat Boyle/Albertosaurus to shed some light on the issue but then I remembered he's no longer with us. RIP big guy.Replies: @Wilkey
Soprano Stephanie Blythe wears a size 30 and looks the caricature of an opera singer. But I saw Nadine Sierra in Lucia di Lammermoor last week and she looks like a normal woman. So does Renee Fleming, Susan Graham, and others. But Wagnerian tenor Ben Hefner was told by Beverly Sills not to lose weight, so the myth persists.
Everything about European and Asian classical music is grotesque, unpleasant, sordid, horrifying, and wrong. It is unsurprising to me that traditional non-African behavior, including castrating young boys for superficial artistic pursuits, co-evolved with this abomination they call “music”. After all, how can a people so sick and so insensitive as to produce this garish noise, actually value the lives of human beings from their own ethnic group?
We’re talking about people who invented penile subincision as a rite of manhood. Imagine the level of genetic damage that is required to formulate such evil ideas?
No wonder hip hop has dominated the charts for decades. Musical beauty is one of the unque traits of modern humans, which seems to have been lost in the descendants of the Out-of-Africa migraions, possibly due to their getting repeatedly gang raped by Neanderthal and Denisovsn men as far east as Wallace’s line in Australia. Archaic substituion of modern human musical genes yields predictable, sub-human results.
When I listen to the work of African artists like Jeff Mills or Carl Craig, or the polyphonic singing tribes of central Africa, I hear a certain audial beauty that I’ve just never heard from a non-African musician. The charts don’t lie, black African music is the prescription painkiller for the shattered non-African soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_kQ-_w1C8&ab_channel=SunRecordsReplies: @Joe S.Walker, @Joe S.Walker
With the invention of electronic amplifiers, singing changed completely.
And, more often than not, written and produced by guys with names like Levine and Rubin...Replies: @Anon
Dude, Steve is trying to give Stan Adams hope.
The great news for Guardianistas is that you can be a married mother and “queer” simultaneously.
Schrodinger’s Identity.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/30/i-am-queer-and-proud-even-though-i-am-now-married-to-a-man
To be fair to Ms Hudson, she didn’t exactly have a normal upbringing. Apples, trees and all that. She’s done well to still be in one piece, queer or not.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/04/taken-into-care-at-two-years-old-what-really-happened
Aww Steeeeve,
I for some reason prefer falsetto to the real deal.
In classical and in disco.
It’s mesmerising to watch this dude sing this bach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_5DG9BD-SU&list=PLecKPCyj4yRMxTujJw1hSwtFK0-KiUTx1&index=16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUII8x_1AA&list=PLecKPCyj4yRMxTujJw1hSwtFK0-KiUTx1&index=20Replies: @Frau Katze
In classical and in disco."
I tend to agree. I prefer Andreas Scholl to Tim Mead, though.
https://youtu.be/y5Xuc_Q4IW4
And for pop music, Matt Bellamy, above all, though he's not taken care of his voice. His earlier work is marvelous.Replies: @Stan Adams
Aaaaaaaaand we’ve just received word of an enormous load of absentee ballots! It’ll take all Second Lockdown to count them!
This never ceases to annoy me. You mean he lives in Berlin. Journalists started using this language as self-promotion through social media began.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were ‘based in New York’ like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were ‘based in Moscow’ when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren’t a first hand reporter.
It’s such a manifestation of ‘Anywhere-ness’. It reminds me of the whole ‘Anywheres and Somewheres’ proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto ‘Anywheres and Somewheres’) contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/
The opposite of a Pope, perhaps.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were ‘based in New York’ In April 2020, at the height of Covid panic, I was driving home from work at 3 or 4am when I tuned into CBS national news on the radio. The anchorwoman announced that she was "based in Westchester County, New York." It took me a few moments to figure out. Almost certainly, the anchorwoman was virtue signalling, by wanting listeners to know she was working from home rather than going into the CBS News studios in Manhattan.
Note: members of the news media were exempt from stay-at-home orders.
It's pathetic, like some lifetime desk generals who get the same awards as Eisenhower or Patton and think they're equal to them.Replies: @middle-aged vet
I think an essential part of what made the castrato voice so special was the oversized chest and lungs due to macroskelia. Moreschi’s voice is simply much more powerful than a woman or a fellow whose didn’t drop for some reason– and surprisingly masculine in the lower register.
That Marinyo guy just sounds like a really good countertenor to me.
Dream on.
Wokeism is synonymy’s with decency
Mm
So no this will not due because we like Eden that she bifvbehu gvsv assume.
You guys are bad idioms Abe have no image I. Limits diceth
https://nypost.com/2022/05/29/nyc-video-shows-men-hold-down-and-beat-asian-man-in-manhattan-subway-station
Mm
So no this will not due because we like Eden that she bifvbehu gvsv assume.
You guys are bad idioms Abe have no image I. Limits dicethReplies: @Steve Sailer
It’s Memorial Day, dammit. Stop trying to type with your mittens on.
your mittensa load on.FIFY
Sounds like a really iStevey kind of guy.
OT, but gangs of African immigrants robbing English and Spanish tourists with impunity at Europe‘s premier sporting event in a former cradle of Western Civilization seems like a harbinger:
Shame on the modern French betraying their brave ancestors, they couldn’t even be bothered to vote for Le Pen.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8183688/charles_of_the_franksReplies: @Alden, @Anonymous
Locals,eh?
The local Africans just figured ... hey, they love us and like sharing their stuff with us.
Serve's 'em right.Replies: @bomag, @Anonymous
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were 'based in New York' like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were 'based in Moscow' when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren't a first hand reporter.
It's such a manifestation of 'Anywhere-ness'. It reminds me of the whole 'Anywheres and Somewheres' proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto 'Anywheres and Somewheres') contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/Replies: @AndrewR, @Charles, @dearieme, @prosa123, @R.G. Camara
You confuse Jacobite with Jacobin.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1531241993053032449?s=21&t=jxNK3LtWH1XlAPqIY8mz9AReplies: @Hangnail Hans, @Pixo, @kaganovitch, @Peter Johnson, @AnotherDad
You could have called it a harbinger a generation or two ago. Now it’s just Who We Are. PS “locals” heh.
Mr. Sailer writes that “hefty folks of a certain age can blast it out better than good-l0oking young people.” Permit me to offer what might sound pedantic, but the last thing opera singers do is “blast.” Strength is indeed important, but good technique requires the opposite of blasting; it is a sort of balanced retention of breath under a good deal of pressure. In fact, one of the classic exercises is to learn to slowly expel your breath so that the outflow of air is hardly noticeable, even to a hand held in front of the mouth. Anything resembling blasting leads quickly to vocal ruin.
There’s certainly no “castrati” here:
Another great example of Sailer’s law that’s gone mostly unreported:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/27/alleged-attacker-with-an-ar-15-shot-dead-by-woman-with-pistol/
The initial shooter, an ADS, despite being armed with a deadly assault weapon
A woman, race unreportable and therefore (any takers?) certainly White, whipped out a pistol and shot him dead.
The Coda;
Cherubino, originally written for a female soprano, is now a signature trouser role — an often young male character performed by a mezzo-soprano
Often young or often male? I didn’t know he was ever not a young male character, but I’m sure someone has done a Lesbian “Figaro” just to be transgressive.
Just how much later in life did puberty occur in the 18th century?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nukZS61W8f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al6yn4xHOuY
That Marinyo guy just sounds like a really good countertenor to me.Replies: @Wendy NY. Kroy, @Wendy K. Kroy
I believe you are entirely right.
Or…
From Led Zep onward, male rock singers — especially old-school “power metal” frontmen — have already breached the high octave barrier, screeching to be heard above the wall of sound. Though of course the higher they go, the more they strut their “toxic masculinity” as compensation
Now as far as having a massive set of lungs or chest cavity, one rock singer often referred to as "operatic" was Ronnie James Dio -- and he was about as tiny and scrawny a little dude as you could imagine. (Dee Snider btw mentions being a classically trained counter-tenor before his Twisted Sister career)
They ruin their voices this way. The trained opera singers go until they die (maybe not professionally) but the rock stars are stuck with destroyed vocal chords and have to hire back up singers to hit their higher notes. Or, like Elton John, write new songs in his new lower, limited range.
The famed soprano Maria Callas lost a large amount of weight in a short time, and critics widely believed it affected her voice, although she continued to sing many great roles. It was claimed the weight loss made her high notes ragged, or she cracked on high notes, can’t remember. My theory is that in losing weight too fast, she also lost muscle, possibly in her diaphragm. Later photos show her with extremely narrow, sloping shoulders. I listened carefully on YouTube, and her earlier, “fat” voice really is silkier and smoother. There are a lot of really fat lady opera singers (as I discovered when I searched for “fat Maria Callas” recordings), and some of them really do have exceptional voices, with a quality I can only describe as like melted butter!
Take a look at this performance of Le Nozze di Figaro in 1976; the part of Cherubino, the Count’s page, is played by Maria Ewing. Skip to 27:15 to hear her sing; left alone, the video should start at one of my favorite arias: “Non più andrai” – “No more gallivanting” delivered by Figaro (45:00)
Beat me to it , Ross.
I remember seeing, as a young kid, a performance by a prominent male countertenor, with orchestra. This guy with a beard comes on stage to applause, opens his mouth, and…Judy Garland’s voice comes out. It was an experience of surpassing weirdness.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were 'based in New York' like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were 'based in Moscow' when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren't a first hand reporter.
It's such a manifestation of 'Anywhere-ness'. It reminds me of the whole 'Anywheres and Somewheres' proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto 'Anywheres and Somewheres') contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/Replies: @AndrewR, @Charles, @dearieme, @prosa123, @R.G. Camara
The late Revilo Oliver, in one of his commentaries, mentioned that Indo-Europeans have (or had) a very strong sense of “home”, even if a person lived in another part of the world their entire adult lives. Such stories were common among Whites generations ago.
It’s also Americans whose ancestors arrived 400 years ago who claim to be either Anglo Saxon Scotch or Scots Irish. Seldom English always Anglo Saxon. Never real Saxons from Germany but Saxons from the British kingdom that ceased to exist almost a thousand years ago.
Also known as Walter Scott novels disease.
People are always asking me if I’m Swedish or Irish. Like I just got off the plane. .
In classical and in disco.
It's mesmerising to watch this dude sing this bach:
https://youtu.be/ZwVW1ttVhuQ?t=832Replies: @anon, @Kylie
Thanks for posting this: as soon as I read Steve’s piece here, I thought of “All of Bach.” I discovered the channel about two years ago and for many weeks listened to the cantatas for hours every day, as I had previously been a fan of mainly instrumental JSB and known only the ‘famous few’ cantatas like Wachet Auf.
I have been aware of the period instrument movement for many years, but this series really put it into focus for me, eg watching the short Baroque violins bows, fretted bass and woodwinds of actual wood. Also, in the keyboard series it was interesting to hear the often very individual character of individual harpsichords -the instruments themselves.
Of course, period instruments are just part of period performance, so that the biggest questions are often items like ‘what speed did Bach take it at?’ and ‘how much accelerando and crescendo did he use?’
But what still leaves me wondering is the Netherlands Bach Society’s decision about sex roles for the vocal soloists. I did a little background reading and quickly confirmed what one would expect: the Lutheran choirs at the four Leipzig churches where the great majority of JSB’s cantatas were first sung were all-male affairs in his day, with boy sopranos (‘trebles’) and adult tenors and basses; I’m not sure whether altos were typically adults or boys, but based on the all-male high Anglican choir I sang in as a child, I suspect altos were also mostly boys.
It was a little more difficult to get to the heart of the modern male alto and soprano issue because of implied political correctness, but it seems to center around the fact highlighted in the NYT article: a small minority of adult men, presumably including Tim Mead who you referenced here, are natural altos who can sing that register without falsetto, but natural male sopranos are almost non-existent.
Of course, this would seem to be an absolutely key issue for the Netherlands Bach Society and period performance. It’s not that they are supreme dogmatists of period performance movement, but the All of Bach project has clearly been undertaken with that movement near the forefront. For most of the cantatas and oratorios they seem to have gone with a mixed response: all adult soloists, with female sopranos and male altos. There are several exceptions with female altos, but there seems to be little to no use of boy soprano soloists (there are boy choruses in some of the recordings).
It may be that all of this is explained in the multidinous interview videos that are part of the series, but I have to admit I haven’t listened to a single one: I have loathed most of that sort of dancing about architecture all my life, though I might make an exception for this wonderful series. If anyone knows more about these vocal choices made by the NBS, please post.
BTW, as above, my understanding is that Mead, like all the male altos in the series, is not singing in a falsetto here but has a naturally very high voice, but I could be wrong. I actually like his voice less than one or two of the other male altos in the series, probably because his size and power are why he is featured in the big oratorios, and I don’t like the attention drawn to these high-voiced men. A fantastic treat to me are the basses, eg Thomas Bauer in ‘Schlummert ein’ and Matthias Winckhler in ‘Ja ja ich kan.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUII8x_1AA&list=PLecKPCyj4yRMxTujJw1hSwtFK0-KiUTx1&index=20
Score for the Romantics!
Overall this points to the fact, that nationalism and “we are all this together” republicanism did engender some serious social progress. The destruction of the slavery, the most notable. But whacking these sort of disgusting “people as disposable toys of the elite” practices qualify as well.
Of course now we are saddled with a new anti-national, anti-republican elite that indeed sees all people–especially normal white working people–as disposable. And, of course, we are in a complete social/cultural backslide toward the dung heap.
Hopefully we will one day regard the chemical castration of boys to be as sick as the type done with a knife.
Development of control of the diaphragm is very important in singing. Perhaps being fat enlarges the diaphragm? Is it possible being a larger bag of fluid increases resonance?
A bit OT but still on the subject of deviancy and opera, read somewhere that the two greatest exponents of Wagner’s superhero, Siegfried–Lauritz Melchoir and Max Lorenz–were, respectively, “bi” and homo. To compound things, the latter was also married to a Jewess but evidently the Bohemian Corporal still gave him a pass.
You’re a funny guy. That must be why everyone in the world has heard of Jeff Mills and Carl Craig and various chart-topping polyphonic African singing tribes, while absolutely no one has heard of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Holst, Elgar, Ravel, or any of those other “grotesque” classical composers.
Rarely – very, very rarely – some truly African music will attract attention for a hot minute. Like a summer rainstorm, it disappears almost as quickly as it came. One of my older siblings had a Ladysmith Black Mambazo album that would be played occasionally, then was quickly forgotten. The stage version of “The Lion King” added some African music to the mix, which was nice in small amounts. But most of the music in “The Lion King” is still Western, as is pretty much all of the music in every other stage musical, in movie and television scores, in churches, bars, pubs, elevators, kindergarten concerts, and pretty much everywhere else. It’s the soundtrack of our lives, and few people would ever care to change that.
“Black music” (the kind that’s actually popular, which is never even close to purely African) relies far more on Western elements than the Woke care to admit, and white music hasn’t been influenced nearly as much by genuinely African music as some would have you believe.
And rap music’s popularity is a bit of an illusion, as well, given that young blacks listen to rap almost exclusively while the white music scene is shattered into so many disparate forms that few can be as popular.
Book recommendation: The Alteration, by Kingsley Amis. On an alternative timeline where the Reformation was resolved by Martin Luther becoming Pope and the Catholic Church is still politically dominant into the 1970’s, the hero, a young choirboy, is being made an offer he can’t refuse. Has become strangely relevant over the past few years.
Amis apparently couldn’t decide how to end the book. Amis set things up to give the young protagonist a choice. Should he accept exile to a backwater (though with a pretty girlfriend in the offing) as the price of saving his gonads? Or should he trade away his manhood for the reward of acceptance and professional success in the powerful society of his nativity?Perhaps (I don’t know) Amis thought ending the book either way would provoke too much criticism.If the boy escaped castration, well, that would have been much too happy an ending for many pseudo-intellectual critics. They would have labeled the book “trite” and worse, and would have unfairly belittled everything else in the book to justify denouncing Amis for having a boy character choose a modest but full life over a splendid but sterile one “just to make the reader feel better.”On the other hand, if the boy agreed to be sterilized, many reviewers (including some who would have denounced a happy ending as well!) would have accused Amis of cowardice, expressed through the character of the boy, or worse, of secretly favoring the mutilation of children. “Obviously,” they would have written, “no boy would choose castration,” even though the truth is that a barely pubescent boy under extreme pressure from the authorities in his life and, to belabor the point, vulnerable precisely because he has not yet come into his manhood, might well choose to go along to get along. That ending would be a subtler commentary on evil, but at the price of upsetting the dim bulbs who want a happy ending.Whatever his thought process, in the end Amis didn’t let his protagonist make a choice. A deus ex machina, in the form of a testicular torsion, supervenes to castrate the boy without any need to answer the book’s big question. The protagonist neither submits nor escapes. Curiously, this gives the established church that is portrayed throughout as a nest of vipers a big boost: it appears to be God’s will that the boy should be castrated!That ending, as I have written here, is unsatisfactory—but also as I have written here, it leaves the reviewer to praise the rest of the book and just carp about the ending, not on the grounds that Amis caused his protagonist make the wrong choice (since either choice would have disappointed one or the other mob of critics), but on the grounds that Amis took both choices off the table at the last moment, leaving all readers equally annoyed and dissatisfied.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1531241993053032449?s=21&t=jxNK3LtWH1XlAPqIY8mz9AReplies: @Hangnail Hans, @Pixo, @kaganovitch, @Peter Johnson, @AnotherDad
That’s very sad. St. Denis is where Charles Martel is interred.
Shame on the modern French betraying their brave ancestors, they couldn’t even be bothered to vote for Le Pen.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8183688/charles_of_the_franks
Oh steward, I speak jive.
I doubt castrati were tall, as they would lose some of the advantage men have over women in height when they lost their balls.
A few years ago, there was a Christmas concert at the local college with a few hundred students participating in it. Most of the music was pretty standard, but there was one African piece that stood out to everyone. It was an all-male, a cappella Christmas hymn in an East African language, maybe Swahili. The deep male harmony and percussion instruments made for a very enjoyable five minutes or so. I think that they immediately switched to the Peanuts theme afterwards.
Perhaps I only feel that way because that is the music I was raised with, but I don’t think so. Western music just seems to travel better.
Good one.
Does being fat really confer an advantage at singing? Physically, there are two components: the lungs which supply the air flow, and the throat+mouth+nose that shape that air flow.
I’m friendly with a professional cantor who is a tenor and lost 60-70 lbs. and he said he lost a lot of timbre from his voice. If I remember correctly he said it has to do with resonance in the diaphragm.
When it comes to hitting the high notes, I should also mention Frankie Valli of The Four Seasons.
Now as far as having a massive set of lungs or chest cavity, one rock singer often referred to as “operatic” was Ronnie James Dio — and he was about as tiny and scrawny a little dude as you could imagine. (Dee Snider btw mentions being a classically trained counter-tenor before his Twisted Sister career)
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1531241993053032449?s=21&t=jxNK3LtWH1XlAPqIY8mz9AReplies: @Hangnail Hans, @Pixo, @kaganovitch, @Peter Johnson, @AnotherDad
Spanish Real Madrid supporter robbed by a large group of locals in Saint Denis after the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
Locals,eh?
Does being fat really confer an advantage at singing? Physically, there are two components: the lungs which supply the air flow, and the throat+mouth+nose that shape that air flow. Being fat (and inevitably out of shape) can only weaken the lungs piece of it. As for the throat+mouth+nose piece, that’s probably unaffected but certainly not improved by being fat.
I was hoping for a comment from Pat Boyle/Albertosaurus to shed some light on the issue but then I remembered he’s no longer with us. RIP big guy.
Albertosaurus’s comments were bullshit, but I do have to admit that they were some of the best bullshit I have ever read.Replies: @kaganovitch
Never mind the fluid future, The Grauniad is fluidizing the past.
All the troubles in the world are Trumps fault acting on behalf of his boss; Putin.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/29/donald-trump-toxic-legacy-helps-putin-ukraine-afghanistan-korea#comments
While clowns like this abound, the West is fucked, and deservedly so.
This may explain Steve’s bizarre Russia claims ; There may be a Grauniad job in his future!
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were 'based in New York' like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were 'based in Moscow' when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren't a first hand reporter.
It's such a manifestation of 'Anywhere-ness'. It reminds me of the whole 'Anywheres and Somewheres' proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto 'Anywheres and Somewheres') contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/Replies: @AndrewR, @Charles, @dearieme, @prosa123, @R.G. Camara
“spiritual but not religious”
The opposite of a Pope, perhaps.
The most perceptive White artists agree with you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=diAwPLqwkyk
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=diAwPLqwkyk
‘I hope, and a piece of me believes, that this may be the Bridge Too Far that Wokelism dies upon.’
Ever notice how that bridge keeps moving farther away?
O/T. Taps at Normandy cemetery. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6G21tC_O_U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HhKQ_xzXnM
I was hoping for a comment from Pat Boyle/Albertosaurus to shed some light on the issue but then I remembered he's no longer with us. RIP big guy.Replies: @Wilkey
Did he actually die, or did he just kill off his pseudonym? And if he did die, did he personally post his own obituary?
Albertosaurus’s comments were bullshit, but I do have to admit that they were some of the best bullshit I have ever read.
Pretty sure I remember a commenter saying he actually passed awayReplies: @International Jew, @Corn
In elementary school, one Christmas the nice old lady teachers showed us the Disney movie “Almost Angels,” where the kid is going to have to quit the Vienna Boys’ Choir because his voice is breaking. Some of the teachers were really touched by the movie and I may have seen a few eyes being dabbed.
This was a pretty blue-collar/rural town, so of course during the movie all us boys whispered, “Get a load of those faggots!”
I am sorry for having used a slur, but it really was an extremely gay movie and the teachers should have thought through it a little better. They should have shown “Herbie Rides Again” or something like that.
In classical and in disco.
It's mesmerising to watch this dude sing this bach:
https://youtu.be/ZwVW1ttVhuQ?t=832Replies: @anon, @Kylie
“I for some reason prefer falsetto to the real deal.
In classical and in disco.”
I tend to agree. I prefer Andreas Scholl to Tim Mead, though.
And for pop music, Matt Bellamy, above all, though he’s not taken care of his voice. His earlier work is marvelous.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UkbAiUXvVdY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JW5yDQcfsbMReplies: @Kylie
The Hot Air website has an interesting piece today by Jazz Shaw, linking to an (unfortunately paywalled) article in the NY Times. Enough of the article is quoted, however, to make it arguable that the Times may be drawing back from this transman thing in women’s sports. My guess is that the Party has observed that the issue is not polling well, and that it may cause problems in the midterms with the Birthing People.
As the Party organ, the Times is sending a message to the faithful.
In a way, that wascally wabbbit Lia Thomas may have done society a favor by demonstrating just how f–ing ludicrous this whole tranny thing can be.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7TxjVqcxYReplies: @Joe Stalin, @Bill Jones, @vinteuil
That Lorenzo da Ponte seems quite a character. He was both a Catholic priest AND an opera librettist, but he was definitely not gay! A different era.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7TxjVqcxYReplies: @Joe Stalin, @Bill Jones, @vinteuil
I give thanks to the soldiers of the South for their rebellion against the fascist North.
Quack
Stop trying to type with
your mittensa load on.FIFY
My wife’s great grandmother ( a contralto) regularly sang the male role of Orpheus in the opera Orpheus and Eurydice at the Met. The male part was traditionally sung by a female contralto. She also got the wicked woman parts in other operas (like the bad guys in East Asian dramas who always have deep voices).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe4Vpm8DpH0
Again, a normal sized woman with a big voice. It also helps that she's gorgeous.
Watch the phrasing and breath control starting at 2:12.
I saw this live and it was great.
OT – Possible tranny climate change freak attempts to vandalize the Mona Lisa :
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-climate-activist-smashes-cake-mona-lisa-louvre
What is a transsexual climate change activist’s biggest dilemma?
Which first to tell someone they just met; that they are trans, or that they are fighting climate change.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were 'based in New York' like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were 'based in Moscow' when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren't a first hand reporter.
It's such a manifestation of 'Anywhere-ness'. It reminds me of the whole 'Anywheres and Somewheres' proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto 'Anywheres and Somewheres') contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/Replies: @AndrewR, @Charles, @dearieme, @prosa123, @R.G. Camara
This never ceases to annoy me. You mean he lives in Berlin. Journalists started using this language as self-promotion through social media began.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were ‘based in New York’
In April 2020, at the height of Covid panic, I was driving home from work at 3 or 4am when I tuned into CBS national news on the radio. The anchorwoman announced that she was “based in Westchester County, New York.” It took me a few moments to figure out. Almost certainly, the anchorwoman was virtue signalling, by wanting listeners to know she was working from home rather than going into the CBS News studios in Manhattan.
Note: members of the news media were exempt from stay-at-home orders.
I call bullshit on this story. Given its the NY Times, and the arts section no less, the amount of investigating done on Mariño’s tall tale is nil.
Two bets:
1. Mariño is actually a woman, but pretending to be a man with a girl’s voice, all to get attention; see Victor/Victoria or TJ Leroy.
2. Mariño is a dude who takes hormone blockers and had his testes surgically altered/removed to keep his voice high, but is pretending its all natural.
I’m betting #2, since faking a man’s pipes is way harder for a woman.
Love the “5 o’clock” shadow stuff the Times puts in as proof. As if a showbiz-folks desperate for attention wouldn’t try a fake beard to fool a credulous, I -want-to-believe Times woke staff member.
Jussie Smollett, call your office! You went the wrong route! Lying is ok, but you should’ve tried opera, not hate crimes!
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1531241993053032449?s=21&t=jxNK3LtWH1XlAPqIY8mz9AReplies: @Hangnail Hans, @Pixo, @kaganovitch, @Peter Johnson, @AnotherDad
Take it from someone who has been visiting France for 30+ years: it has gone sharply downhill in public space amenities, due to what seems an explosive growth in the African immigrant population. It is explicitly illegal to count people by ethnic group, so there are no reliable figures. Paris public spaces are almost all permanently ruined compared to what they were 30 years ago. The same holds in many other parts of France. The decay does not seem reversible.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Reconquista
https://infogalactic.com/info/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians
https://infogalactic.com/info/Operation_Wetback
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews
Those who talk of a demographic influx being inevitable and/or irreversible are either historically ignorant or trying to demoralize you with lies.
No longer was a journalist who was born in NYC, was educated and worked there their whole life a New Yorker or living in NYC, now they were 'based in New York' like they were a foreign correspondent expected to show up and cover events over a whole continent or large parts of it or unable to reach the site of the event but still the closest they have and so it would be mentioned they were 'based in Moscow' when reporting on anything happening in Russia to make clear to the audience they weren't a first hand reporter.
It's such a manifestation of 'Anywhere-ness'. It reminds me of the whole 'Anywheres and Somewheres' proxy of (Acceptable, no mentions of ethnicity mapping onto 'Anywheres and Somewheres') contemporary political realignments made famous by David Goodhart.
This Jacobin (Which is itself headed into Anywhereland madness) article from some years ago is a good take on it.
https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/13/the-ikea-humans-the-social-base-of-contemporary-liberalism/Replies: @AndrewR, @Charles, @dearieme, @prosa123, @R.G. Camara
I think woketard reporters say “based” because they want to sound like some tough war correspondents in the past, who were said to be “based” in war zones, i.e. they were in some area they didn’t live, but for the story and danger were staying there.
It’s pathetic, like some lifetime desk generals who get the same awards as Eisenhower or Patton and think they’re equal to them.
So odd that the word “trans” or “transsexual” hasn’t come up in this discussion of castrati.
Surely the ability (for a very few) to sing high operatic parts as a (somewhat) male would merit some mention. Probably the only actual benefit of male organ removal and puberty blockers. (Female commentators, please hold your snarky comments…)
I have noted that nearly all Boy Band front “men” and young male pop stars sing in high tenor voices (or whatever, I have zero musical knowledge.).
So singing higher than most males, in key and pitch, is a great advantage for a young pop star. Though some are gay I don’t think any are ex-men. Most aren’t gay either.
I have assumed that for the pop audience, you want to penetrate the sound mix which is often in lower registers. The instrumental or choral “wall of sound.” Women singers can usually do this naturally but few males can sing tenor or close to it.
Somewhat odd since lower singing voices are usually seen as more “masculine.” But deep voicing isn’t that common in sung music.
Though it is often said that for young girls and teen females, a boyish looking (and perhaps sounding) male is more “sexy” or just seen as safer. Not as male-threatening as a harder sounding guy who isn’t wispy and thin. I.e. Justin Bieber, etc. Young girls feel safer around males who resemble young females to a degree. “Cute.”
Someone here undoubtedly knows why higher registers in singing voices are easier to hear and incorporate in vocal music. Maybe it is primordial nature. Birds and other animals give out warning signals, calls, warbles and screeches and even threat sounds in high pitched noises.
When you hear that low growl, you are already lunch…
I am not sure, but I think post puberty castration doesn’t raise a male voice much in pitch.
Back in my 20’s I briefly dated a young woman who was an aspiring opera singer. She was a bit chubby, as one would expect, but her most salient feature was an enormous rack. I’d guess a G cup at least. Knowing that a human can survive six minutes without oxygen, it was my supreme fantasy to bury my face between her gigantic bare teats for 5:59.
I’ve Googled her somewhat unusual name a few times, but alas her operatic career probably didn’t become reality. No hits for [Mary Smith] + opera.
It is reversible, and has been done in the past. It’s just not pretty or easy; its usually pretty messy and violent.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Reconquista
https://infogalactic.com/info/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians
https://infogalactic.com/info/Operation_Wetback
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews
Those who talk of a demographic influx being inevitable and/or irreversible are either historically ignorant or trying to demoralize you with lies.
I worked with a fat girl singer for years and she was def loud, speaking or singing. Lost a lot of my hearing to her.
It seemed like the fat helped her support? It’s definitely a factor. In Mildred Pierce the author James Cain seems to suggest a decent pair of breasts would have the same effect, due to resonance.
Prosa123 above seems to have the same impression so.
Albertosaurus’s comments were bullshit, but I do have to admit that they were some of the best bullshit I have ever read.Replies: @kaganovitch
Did he actually die, or did he just kill off his pseudonym? And if he did die, did he personally post his own obituary?
Pretty sure I remember a commenter saying he actually passed away
That sounds like a pretty good opera plot right there. Do they still make operas? Or do they just call them “musicals” now.
https://ew.com/music/2018/07/11/michael-jackson-chemically-castrated-joe-jackson-conrad-murray/Replies: @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar
“
Does that cause permanent sterility if it’s done during puberty? It is true that his kids had to be conceived with donor sperm. Poor guy never stood a chance to be halfway normal.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10868359/Sperm-donor-incurable-condition-fathered-15-children-lesbian-mothers.html
It’s sad. So sad. It’s a sad, sad situation...Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Nancy Cartwright, who joined Scientology in 1991 and got herself into a bit of hot water by performing the Bart Simpson voice on some of their promotional materials. She also donated $10 million to the church in 2007.
When The Simpsons first came out, they went to great lengths to hide who voiced what character, so it wasn’t well known that Bart was voiced by a woman. It helped that most of the cast was relatively unknown, with Harry Shearer being the most famous, and he doesn’t voice any Simpsons per se. To this day Julie Kavner (Rhoda’s sister) won’t voice any of her characters while being video recorded. Even on Inside The Actors’ Studio she used a mask-on-a-stick to hide herself. Coincidentally, Rhoda’s doorman went on to greater fame by voicing Garfield.
Think about it.
seconded.
No it never does. The HPTA axis restarts itself and this can be sped up with HCG. If Jackson was strile it was because he was still taking the anti-androgens (in addition to his other drug habits).
When The Simpsons first came out, they went to great lengths to hide who voiced what character, so it wasn't well known that Bart was voiced by a woman. It helped that most of the cast was relatively unknown, with Harry Shearer being the most famous, and he doesn't voice any Simpsons per se. To this day Julie Kavner (Rhoda's sister) won't voice any of her characters while being video recorded. Even on Inside The Actors' Studio she used a mask-on-a-stick to hide herself. Coincidentally, Rhoda's doorman went on to greater fame by voicing Garfield.Replies: @middle-aged vet
The Simpsons had a few good scripts, back in the day, but the show itself is generally a total cluster of mediocrity covering up levels of mediocrity supported by rich people.
Think about it.
It's pathetic, like some lifetime desk generals who get the same awards as Eisenhower or Patton and think they're equal to them.Replies: @middle-aged vet
Eisenhower never came close to being wounded in battle.
People make fun of John Wayne for not signing up as a grunt, but if you know your history, you understand that the guy who took hundreds of USO flights in second-rate planes throughout the Pacific took a lot more risks during WWII than Eisenhower.
Nothing wrong with Eisenhower, it is just he happened to be “a great general” when you could be a great general spending most of the war in an office building or on highly protected jaunts to somewhere near the front.
The generals who deserve the most medals are any and all generals who told us not to go into Iraq, or who told us to get the hell out once they realized that Afghanistan and Iraq were lost causes.Replies: @middle-aged vet
In classical and in disco."
I tend to agree. I prefer Andreas Scholl to Tim Mead, though.
https://youtu.be/y5Xuc_Q4IW4
And for pop music, Matt Bellamy, above all, though he's not taken care of his voice. His earlier work is marvelous.Replies: @Stan Adams
I’ve met this guy in person. He’s a tenor from Miami who’s released some pop albums. I’m not overly fond of his cover of “Take on Me”:
Why not? There are probably more castrated males around now than at any time since the fall of Byzantium.
Gotta admit – that vid’s kind of fascinating. Combined with just the right narcotics? – easeful death, here I come.
You have a very vivid imagination!
My sister is a volunteer seamstress for a charity that collects donated prom dresses and gives them to classical music students who can’t afford gowns to wear at recitals. And, yes, her work is mainly letting out the busts for singers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VL7TxjVqcxYReplies: @Joe Stalin, @Bill Jones, @vinteuil
Ignorant American sanctimony about their stupid intrusion into WWI – what can you do?
All those NATO wunderwaffen will be of limited help if there aren’t any Ukrainian soldiers left to employ them.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1531177511459205123?cxt=HHwWhsC9qbH16r8qAAAA
Yelling in key.
They ruin their voices this way. The trained opera singers go until they die (maybe not professionally) but the rock stars are stuck with destroyed vocal chords and have to hire back up singers to hit their higher notes. Or, like Elton John, write new songs in his new lower, limited range.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1531241993053032449?s=21&t=jxNK3LtWH1XlAPqIY8mz9AReplies: @Hangnail Hans, @Pixo, @kaganovitch, @Peter Johnson, @AnotherDad
These fans came to cheer on teams chock full of a bunch of Africans.
The local Africans just figured … hey, they love us and like sharing their stuff with us.
Serve’s ’em right.
They've been badly lied to by their leadership and authority figures.Replies: @AnotherDad
Zero hedge has this piece,
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/how-cut-crime-murder-capital-americaA search of the article discovers one word missing.
A 5 second scan at this page tells you everything you need to know.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymississippi/BZA115220Replies: @Wendy NY. Kroy
Answer to “In the first week”, etc.: Assuming the rate remained steady until today and will through tomorrow, I get 24.5 murders for the month. I’m still working out whether the .5 is an unborn victim, a bisected one, a cat, or something else.
However, I suspect that the second sentence in the quotation is an ancient trick which the writer must think is still clever: It doesn’t read “how many more will there be IN JACKSON before the end of the month”. The “out-of-envelope” figure they’re looking for adds in the rest of the world — so let’s answer “at least in the thousands.”
It’s not just the descendants of 19th century early 20th immigrants who claim to be German Italian Serbian Bulgarian Polish Irish Czech etc.
It’s also Americans whose ancestors arrived 400 years ago who claim to be either Anglo Saxon Scotch or Scots Irish. Seldom English always Anglo Saxon. Never real Saxons from Germany but Saxons from the British kingdom that ceased to exist almost a thousand years ago.
Also known as Walter Scott novels disease.
People are always asking me if I’m Swedish or Irish. Like I just got off the plane. .
After everything that’s happened since 2016 (or indeed since 2000), including Jussie Smollett, why is this far fetched?
Oh wait, you’re the moron who didn’t think car dealerships were useful for drug money laundering, didn’t bother to google it, and then when I found 10,000 articles proving it, you moved the goal posts.
So you’re exactly the kind of moron who would never question the narrative.
Shame on the modern French betraying their brave ancestors, they couldn’t even be bothered to vote for Le Pen.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8183688/charles_of_the_franksReplies: @Alden, @Anonymous
Cathedral of St Denis named for one of the first Christian missionaries martyred when France was still Roman territory. Where most of the royals of France were buried. Tombs destroyed and bones thrown away during the Masonic revolution. Now surrounded by one of the nastiest high crime Muslim African neighborhoods in Europe. A no go zone for Europeans including police.
Judging by the “ high energy” of the Jackson 5’s singing and dancing I’m sure Joe injected all his sons with amphetamines or worse when they were kids. As well as regularly having sex with the girls.
Correct. But remember the Ancient Chinese Proverb: If the Enemy is in Range, then so are You also applies to Russkies.
I’m glad you mentioned Kingsley Amis’ book The Alteration. I had been dithering over whether to bring it up myself. That book has quite a lot to recommend it; not for nothing was it a good seller over forty years ago. Yet it has one substantial flaw… [spoiler alert!]
Amis apparently couldn’t decide how to end the book. Amis set things up to give the young protagonist a choice. Should he accept exile to a backwater (though with a pretty girlfriend in the offing) as the price of saving his gonads? Or should he trade away his manhood for the reward of acceptance and professional success in the powerful society of his nativity?
Perhaps (I don’t know) Amis thought ending the book either way would provoke too much criticism.
If the boy escaped castration, well, that would have been much too happy an ending for many pseudo-intellectual critics. They would have labeled the book “trite” and worse, and would have unfairly belittled everything else in the book to justify denouncing Amis for having a boy character choose a modest but full life over a splendid but sterile one “just to make the reader feel better.”
On the other hand, if the boy agreed to be sterilized, many reviewers (including some who would have denounced a happy ending as well!) would have accused Amis of cowardice, expressed through the character of the boy, or worse, of secretly favoring the mutilation of children. “Obviously,” they would have written, “no boy would choose castration,” even though the truth is that a barely pubescent boy under extreme pressure from the authorities in his life and, to belabor the point, vulnerable precisely because he has not yet come into his manhood, might well choose to go along to get along. That ending would be a subtler commentary on evil, but at the price of upsetting the dim bulbs who want a happy ending.
Whatever his thought process, in the end Amis didn’t let his protagonist make a choice. A deus ex machina, in the form of a testicular torsion, supervenes to castrate the boy without any need to answer the book’s big question. The protagonist neither submits nor escapes. Curiously, this gives the established church that is portrayed throughout as a nest of vipers a big boost: it appears to be God’s will that the boy should be castrated!
That ending, as I have written here, is unsatisfactory—but also as I have written here, it leaves the reviewer to praise the rest of the book and just carp about the ending, not on the grounds that Amis caused his protagonist make the wrong choice (since either choice would have disappointed one or the other mob of critics), but on the grounds that Amis took both choices off the table at the last moment, leaving all readers equally annoyed and dissatisfied.
I also doubt being a 52-year-old woman helps, either. There are females singers who do quite well past fifty, but menopause does a number on the pipes, generally, making the voice quavery and thin. It’s not quite an “old woman” voice at 52, generally, but not supple and resonant like a young woman’s voice, and usually not Met-worthy.
But castration retards completion of growth, allowing eunuchs to continue growing for a longer time span, making them, indeed, generally taller than average. It’s science, or something.
The gap between operas and stage musicals is so large that they are pretty much completely different art forms. They vary in a lot of different ways, but essentially they all relate to the fact that stage musicals are generally much more interested in pleasing the audience than operas are.
Little or no dancing and spoken dialogue in most operas, and stage musicals are almost always in the audience’s native language. The music of most stage musicals is much more likely to be popular forms than classical. There are plenty of people who love stage musicals but can’t stand opera, and a few snobs who love opera but not musicals.
And yes, they are still writing new operas.
Also, Gilbert gets equal billing along with Sullivan. (I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it.)Replies: @Wilkey
https://miro.medium.com/max/630/0*DrX3r_bDabshBiEd.png
https://frankloesser.com/library/most-happy-fella-the/
One of my favorite operas is The Merry Widow. It is a musical comedy with lots of singing and dancing, plus Renee Fleming in some of the most gorgeous clothes you have ever seen. The production designer was a Broadway vet and said a Broadway problem she didn't miss was how to hide microphones on the performers. No mikes in opera.
You can watch it on demand for $5. https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357017746Replies: @Steve Sailer
When Handel composed Rinaldo, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Mozart composed Don Giovanni, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Rossini composed Il barbiere di Siviglia, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Verdi composed La Traviata...
When Puccini composed ...
...and so on and so forth.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Eisenhower was quickly recognized early in his career as a really good man to have behind a desk.
Managing a global war requires a very high level of administrative competence and big picture thinking leavened with an accurate view and understanding of the accompanying details.
Doesn't mean you will always make the best decisions, and that things will always work out, but you have a better shot at it than most.
The 1994 movie “Farinelli,” about a hunky operatic castrato and his less appealing but always-horny brother, is a lot of campy and sexy costume-movie fun. Amazon sells a Blu-Ray disc of it. Plus: Elsa Zylberstein! Why didn’t she become a big art-house star???
Insufficient Jewish privilege. Only her father is Jewish.
I think the real reason is her English isn't great and she was happy enough in France not to do anything about it. She seems to have worked steadily in France for 30+ years without any real dry spells.
I’m sure there are plenty of beautiful African songs, but an entire evening of purely African music would probably grow wearisome in a way that an entire evening of European Christmas carols would not – for most people, anyway.
Perhaps I only feel that way because that is the music I was raised with, but I don’t think so. Western music just seems to travel better.
breaking when he was in the Sängerknaben).
But it would leave precious few female (TERF) singers - doesn´t this amount
to
culturalgenderoid (sp?) appropriation?Replies: @telemachosThe castrati of Handel’s time sang male roles. In the typical Handel opera there are two women, both sung by women singers, and four men, often sung by three castrati and one baritone.
I think what the commenter meant was how many modern generals have never commanded units during a war, whether or not they ever came close to seeing combat themselves; more importantly that, unlike Eisenhower and Patton, they never lead us in a war we actually won.
The generals who deserve the most medals are any and all generals who told us not to go into Iraq, or who told us to get the hell out once they realized that Afghanistan and Iraq were lost causes.
Also, I feel bad that people who know a lot less about American generals of the day might have misconstrued what I said as a criticism of Eisenhower - I am sure he would have preferred to be leading a platoon near the front lines (or doing the closest equivalent a light colonel could have, circa 42....). But ..... He knew his strengths, and lots of people alive today would not be alive today if he had just done what he wanted and volunteered for a front-line command. Nobody - no military historian I am aware of, anyway - has ever suggested that someone else could have done a better job in 43 and 44.
that being said, i have been on very bad airplanes with very bad pilots, so if anyone criticizes John Wayne for spending half the war flying on those flying coffins, instead of signing up as a publicity GI like Elvis did, I am gonna disagree. That topic has come up a few times on Unz and it actually makes me want to publicly disagree everytime with the people who have no idea what they are talking about.Replies: @Steve Sailer
A gay in the role of Cherubino? Appropriation!
Not only is Cherubino not gay, he is so hetero that the hugely popular Non più andrai is one long joke about finally ending his girl-chasing lifestyle to become A Real Man in the army.
The Bordeaux National Opera staged one with long stretches of total nudity. These were dancers without vocal parts, but the lead soprano wore a diaphanous tunic and tape underneath that suggested her own nudity. She is slight-of-build and of Arab descent.
And half the age and weight you give.
The software program that is Tiny Duck malfunctioned and the tech that maintains it has Memorial Day off.
With Gilbert & Sullivan being a midway position between opera and musicals.
Also, Gilbert gets equal billing along with Sullivan. (I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it.)
https://ew.com/music/2018/07/11/michael-jackson-chemically-castrated-joe-jackson-conrad-murray/Replies: @Hypnotoad666, @Reg Cæsar
Walter Tetley (né Tetzlaff) is thought to have had Kallmann’s syndrome, where one never quite completes puberty. (John Randolph had something similar.)
Tetley had a long career doing little-boy voices, most notably Sherman. Bill Scott, who voiced Mr Peabody, joked that his mother had had him castrated to keep the money coming in. At least one hopes it was a joke– Tetley had a classic stage mother.
Not so large that it cannot be bridged:
https://frankloesser.com/library/most-happy-fella-the/
Pretty sure I remember a commenter saying he actually passed awayReplies: @International Jew, @Corn
I wonder how often iSteve commenters die, and no one realizes it?
As to the second, other than perhaps iSteve, unless you know the person's handle here, no one.
Steve may notice the absence of financial support from some former commentators. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they are dead.
He might be privately notified in a few cases. Or if the paper check deposited comes back, "account closed - death."
Fred Reed (of Mexico) used to regularly have columns on Unz. Doesn't seem to be here any longer.
Dead?Replies: @AnotherDad
Are you still with us, BJ?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UkbAiUXvVdY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JW5yDQcfsbMReplies: @Kylie
He has a “big” voice and doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with all that power. So he does that breathy thing in pop songs. He doesn’t seem to know how to put a song across. It’s too bad because he has a nice voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_5DG9BD-SU&list=PLecKPCyj4yRMxTujJw1hSwtFK0-KiUTx1&index=16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUII8x_1AA&list=PLecKPCyj4yRMxTujJw1hSwtFK0-KiUTx1&index=20Replies: @Frau Katze
Castratos lasted much longer in Catholic church singing. I guess they were more conservative. Eventually they dropped it too. In the Anglican church, they still use boy choirs.
The operatic style of singing was designed to enable the singers to be heard throughout the theatre.
With the invention of electronic amplifiers, singing changed completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nukZS61W8f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al6yn4xHOuY
That Marinyo guy just sounds like a really good countertenor to me.Replies: @Wendy NY. Kroy, @Wendy K. Kroy
Je this love bien.
Historically informed performances of Shakespeare are ripe for the tranny treatment too, with roles such Rosalind in As You Like It and Viola in Twelfth Night: IRL men pretending to be women who are pretending to be men. There’s a video recording from the Globe Theatre of an authentic all-male production of Twelfth Night, which is filled with all kinds of amusing gender bending.
The “fat lady sings” stereotype is over, BTW. Opera audiences are more frequently down with Wagner’s opera-as-drama model now, which means that the singers, ideally, have to be the right physical type for the character. The American soprano Deborah Voight, who weighed 350 pounds at one time, was fired from a role for being too fat.
The "fat lady sings" stereotype is over, BTW. Opera audiences are more frequently down with Wagner's opera-as-drama model now, which means that the singers, ideally, have to be the right physical type for the character. The American soprano Deborah Voight, who weighed 350 pounds at one time, was fired from a role for being too fat.Replies: @Steve Sailer
Of course, Wagner then wrote gigantic roles for sopranos like Isolde that few slips of a girl could sing. Perhaps singers have become more athletic over time so a smaller soprano can carry it off?
Here’s a cheery story about sperm donations:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10868359/Sperm-donor-incurable-condition-fathered-15-children-lesbian-mothers.html
It’s sad. So sad. It’s a sad, sad situation…
Even going through a "clinic" would have been irresponsible.
Tetley had a long career doing little-boy voices, most notably Sherman. Bill Scott, who voiced Mr Peabody, joked that his mother had had him castrated to keep the money coming in. At least one hopes it was a joke-- Tetley had a classic stage mother.Replies: @Red Pill Angel
Speaking of Kallman’s Syndrome, I always wondered about Ralph Macchio and Wayne Newton. Newton’s physique seemed oddly similar to descriptions of castrati, tall with a barrel chest. Macchio finally began to look more mature in his thirties, but he looked fourteen for a full decade too long. Speaking of which, has anybody seen “child activist” Greta Thunberg? She ought to be going on 20 now, and I can’t find any recent photos of her.
A nice fellow, and obviously proud of his famous son.
Also, Gilbert gets equal billing along with Sullivan. (I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it.)Replies: @Wilkey
Yep, that seems to be the point where the two forms branched off. Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are the only shows I can think of that are routinely performed by both opera companies and musical theatre companies.
Steve,
You look at the cultural life on occasion so here is an article to ponder.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/great-debasement-art
The local Africans just figured ... hey, they love us and like sharing their stuff with us.
Serve's 'em right.Replies: @bomag, @Anonymous
I have a bit more sympathy for them.
They’ve been badly lied to by their leadership and authority figures.
But I--rightly--bash women for their misplaced (treasonous) nurturing instinct and narrative compliance.
This sports team fetish crap is misplaced male loyalty--which belongs to your people, community, nation--and narrative compliance. Rooting for a Liverpool or Madrid team that is full of people who aren't even English or Spanish, and a bunch of whom are invaders from a completely different race and civilization is foul garbage.
How can Western civilization survive if that is what its males are loyal to?Replies: @Muggles
A Juilliard education can only take one so far, it would seem.
I'm an old movie buff (in both senses). It's always amazed me how so many extremely pretty starlets never went anywhere in their acting careers. Like this guy, they had a lot going for them. But it didn't seem to be enough to get them going.Replies: @Stan Adams
Pretty sure I remember a commenter saying he actually passed awayReplies: @International Jew, @Corn
Sad to hear that. Sometimes I agreed with him, sometimes I didn’t, but his posts were never boring. RIP
This was a pretty blue-collar/rural town, so of course during the movie all us boys whispered, "Get a load of those faggots!"
I am sorry for having used a slur, but it really was an extremely gay movie and the teachers should have thought through it a little better. They should have shown "Herbie Rides Again" or something like that.Replies: @Dutch Boy
The great composer Haydn was tossed out on the street when his voice changed by the boys choir he belonged to.
And…
My parents were among the undergraduates who along with Peter Yarrow and others built the Cornell Folk Song Society, which brought in acts like The Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, and this man, their favorite countertenor (and mine):
I often find the female operatic voice grating, but the definitely hefty Jane Eaglen has a wonderful voice. Perhaps carrying the fat on the chest strengthens the muscles, but that is just guessing.
Sorry, meant to hit the Agree button. As I said, he has a nice voice. I should have added, and it’s obviously a trained voice. But he doesn’t seem to have what I would call innate musicality or maybe just that indefinable star quality.
I’m an old movie buff (in both senses). It’s always amazed me how so many extremely pretty starlets never went anywhere in their acting careers. Like this guy, they had a lot going for them. But it didn’t seem to be enough to get them going.
I also learned that there are people who do have the talent and drive to succeed who, for a variety of reasons (such as ticking off the wrong person), are prevented from advancing beyond a certain point in their careers.
(I'm not suggesting that this guy is one of the latter.)
When I was a bit older I rode the bus after school to meet my mother at the community college where she taught freshman composition. Since her classes often ran late into the evening, I had the opportunity to hear her lecture about such works as Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" two or even three times in a row.
This quote always stuck with me:
"To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.... The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
I have met people who possess such souls who do not derive any worldly benefit from their gifts. For whatever reason - bad timing, bad luck, political BS - they languish in obscurity while talentless hacks wallow in fame and glory. It's demoralizing and infuriating, but nobody ever said life was fair.
*My mother, despite her faults, did expose me to a broad swath of the wider world in my youth. My grandparents never took her anywhere when she was growing up, but she brought me along on her frequent weekend jaunts up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I met a lot of unusual people and saw some interesting places. (I also learned how to wring a dollar's worth of vacation out of a dime, or even a penny.)Replies: @Kylie
Plus: Elsa Zylberstein! Why didn’t she become a big art-house star???
Insufficient Jewish privilege. Only her father is Jewish.
Interesting question.
Elsa Zylberstein! Why didn’t she become a big art-house star???
I think the real reason is her English isn’t great and she was happy enough in France not to do anything about it. She seems to have worked steadily in France for 30+ years without any real dry spells.
As to the first part of your question, always and eventually.
As to the second, other than perhaps iSteve, unless you know the person’s handle here, no one.
Steve may notice the absence of financial support from some former commentators. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are dead.
He might be privately notified in a few cases. Or if the paper check deposited comes back, “account closed – death.”
Fred Reed (of Mexico) used to regularly have columns on Unz. Doesn’t seem to be here any longer.
Dead?
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2022/05/fun-with-race-for-a-while-anyway/
~~~
Some commenters just fade out. Lot is a guy I've noticed has left us, whom I wish was still commenting. But, from his comments I pegged him a couple decades younger than me, so I very much doubt he's dead. Perhaps just busy with career and raising his family. Or perhaps his wife turned into a pillar of salt? But I doubt that also.Replies: @kaganovitch, @Jim Don Bob
Although probably not opera quality, the pop sing Adele strikes me as probably the best well known female popular singer you hear regularly today.
Initially she sounded like an opera quality voice (to my untrained ear.) Back then in the early teens she was much heavier than she is now.
She can sing well without a lot of production magic.
A nice change.
They've been badly lied to by their leadership and authority figures.Replies: @AnotherDad
bomag, no argument on badly led.
But I–rightly–bash women for their misplaced (treasonous) nurturing instinct and narrative compliance.
This sports team fetish crap is misplaced male loyalty–which belongs to your people, community, nation–and narrative compliance. Rooting for a Liverpool or Madrid team that is full of people who aren’t even English or Spanish, and a bunch of whom are invaders from a completely different race and civilization is foul garbage.
How can Western civilization survive if that is what its males are loyal to?
In both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires chariot racing was a huge sport enjoyed by the masses. Very competitive and well known teams had large fan bases.
Both of these imperial capitals had large numbers, if not outright majorities, of residents (if not always official citizens) who weren't born there or originally from there. Romans were always very elastic about citizenship or residency (even for non slaves) so long as you provided needed services, goods or had means to support yourself.
So non locals rooting for the local teams -- in this case charioteers -- has been going on for millennia. Nor were the chariot drivers local "Romans" either (recall Ben Hur?)
Even farther back in Greece excellent athletes were recruited far and wide and often had large followings from outside of a particular city-state. "Foreign" athletes and fans is as old as competitive sports.
"Western civilization" didn't crumble because Spanish charioteers raced for Constantinople Team Blue. No one has ever claimed that.
In the US/Canada you have local teams with non local players and for successful teams, non local fans. Dallas Cowboys (ugh) and similar.
The "foul garbage" you dislike seems to be baked into human nature for sports competition and fans. "NY Yankees" or "Man U" tee shirts are seen around the globe for example.
Most people grow out of athletic localism after high school. The jocks you know personally are seldom, if ever, the pick of the national or international litter.
If you believe in merit, you need to overcome bigotry.Replies: @telemachos, @bomag
As to the second, other than perhaps iSteve, unless you know the person's handle here, no one.
Steve may notice the absence of financial support from some former commentators. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they are dead.
He might be privately notified in a few cases. Or if the paper check deposited comes back, "account closed - death."
Fred Reed (of Mexico) used to regularly have columns on Unz. Doesn't seem to be here any longer.
Dead?Replies: @AnotherDad
Muggles, Fred’s not dead–unless in just the last couple weeks:
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2022/05/fun-with-race-for-a-while-anyway/
~~~
Some commenters just fade out. Lot is a guy I’ve noticed has left us, whom I wish was still commenting. But, from his comments I pegged him a couple decades younger than me, so I very much doubt he’s dead. Perhaps just busy with career and raising his family. Or perhaps his wife turned into a pillar of salt? But I doubt that also.
What are you suggesting? Are you saying that Unz is not the first place he'd go for a second wife?Replies: @Muggles
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10868359/Sperm-donor-incurable-condition-fathered-15-children-lesbian-mothers.html
It’s sad. So sad. It’s a sad, sad situation...Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Perhaps he should not have rights to them, but it is difficult, to say the least, to see why he should not have responsibility for the children he so irresponsibly sired. Though shotgun polygamy isn’t the answer either.
Even going through a “clinic” would have been irresponsible.
Fluids are fine, as long as you don’t exchange them.
Shame on the modern French betraying their brave ancestors, they couldn’t even be bothered to vote for Le Pen.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8183688/charles_of_the_franksReplies: @Alden, @Anonymous
The French dislike both the English and Spanish and so probably found this spectacle entertaining.
First, the Met Opera is about as woke as can be and does everything short of giving POCs singing lessons. Their patrons generally agree with this stance, but demand excellence above all else because they are pay $400 a seat. I saw Alyn Perez in Romeo and Juliet, Lawrence Brownlee in La Cerontola (Cinderella), Pretty Yende in Daughter of the Regiment, and they were all good.
Soprano Stephanie Blythe wears a size 30 and looks the caricature of an opera singer. But I saw Nadine Sierra in Lucia di Lammermoor last week and she looks like a normal woman. So does Renee Fleming, Susan Graham, and others. But Wagnerian tenor Ben Hefner was told by Beverly Sills not to lose weight, so the myth persists.
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2022/05/fun-with-race-for-a-while-anyway/
~~~
Some commenters just fade out. Lot is a guy I've noticed has left us, whom I wish was still commenting. But, from his comments I pegged him a couple decades younger than me, so I very much doubt he's dead. Perhaps just busy with career and raising his family. Or perhaps his wife turned into a pillar of salt? But I doubt that also.Replies: @kaganovitch, @Jim Don Bob
Perhaps just busy with career and raising his family. Or perhaps his wife turned into a pillar of salt? But I doubt that also.
What are you suggesting? Are you saying that Unz is not the first place he’d go for a second wife?
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/27/alleged-attacker-with-an-ar-15-shot-dead-by-woman-with-pistol/
The initial shooter, an ADS, despite being armed with a deadly assault weaponA woman, race unreportable and therefore (any takers?) certainly White, whipped out a pistol and shot him dead.
The Coda;Replies: @Jim Don Bob
It was in Charleston, WV so the hero woman was almost certainly white. Police are not pressing charges. It takes pretty large cojones to go after a guy with a long gun with just a pistol.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/05/west-virginia-legally-armed-woman-saves-lives-by-shooting-would-be-mass-shooter/
Most of the ~378 blacks in WV are well behaved because they know that the white people, always pleasant, are armed to the teeth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_kQ-_w1C8&ab_channel=SunRecordsReplies: @Joe S.Walker, @Joe S.Walker
Even better…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_kQ-_w1C8&ab_channel=SunRecordsReplies: @Joe S.Walker, @Joe S.Walker
Even better:
But I--rightly--bash women for their misplaced (treasonous) nurturing instinct and narrative compliance.
This sports team fetish crap is misplaced male loyalty--which belongs to your people, community, nation--and narrative compliance. Rooting for a Liverpool or Madrid team that is full of people who aren't even English or Spanish, and a bunch of whom are invaders from a completely different race and civilization is foul garbage.
How can Western civilization survive if that is what its males are loyal to?Replies: @Muggles
While I can understand your sentiment here, you may be making far too much of this.
In both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires chariot racing was a huge sport enjoyed by the masses. Very competitive and well known teams had large fan bases.
Both of these imperial capitals had large numbers, if not outright majorities, of residents (if not always official citizens) who weren’t born there or originally from there. Romans were always very elastic about citizenship or residency (even for non slaves) so long as you provided needed services, goods or had means to support yourself.
So non locals rooting for the local teams — in this case charioteers — has been going on for millennia. Nor were the chariot drivers local “Romans” either (recall Ben Hur?)
Even farther back in Greece excellent athletes were recruited far and wide and often had large followings from outside of a particular city-state. “Foreign” athletes and fans is as old as competitive sports.
“Western civilization” didn’t crumble because Spanish charioteers raced for Constantinople Team Blue. No one has ever claimed that.
In the US/Canada you have local teams with non local players and for successful teams, non local fans. Dallas Cowboys (ugh) and similar.
The “foul garbage” you dislike seems to be baked into human nature for sports competition and fans. “NY Yankees” or “Man U” tee shirts are seen around the globe for example.
Most people grow out of athletic localism after high school. The jocks you know personally are seldom, if ever, the pick of the national or international litter.
If you believe in merit, you need to overcome bigotry.
Could live with importing a few star athletes. That it becomes an excuse for the millions filing in is rather galling.
What are you suggesting? Are you saying that Unz is not the first place he'd go for a second wife?Replies: @Muggles
I think Alden is already spoken for.
Often young or often male? I didn't know he was ever not a young male character, but I'm sure someone has done a Lesbian "Figaro" just to be transgressive.
Just how much later in life did puberty occur in the 18th century?Replies: @telemachos
The subject is not Cherubino but ‘the trouser role’: a male role, often young, sung by a woman. Cherubino is the most famous example; Sesto in Handel’s Julius Caesar is another.
As for puberty, in 19th C. England it’s often described as occurring at 16, which confuses me; in Romeo and Juliet it seems to be assumed to start very young indeed– “Younger than she are happy mothers made”.
In America boys’ choirs have gotten younger and younger as puberty begins earlier and earlier.
When I was a young fellow back in the eighties, I was attending a wedding at which the late Paul Reichmann(then one of the world’s wealthiest men) was a guest. I was standing next to a Hungarian-Jewish ‘woman of a certain age’ when a passerby asked her if she was by any chance, Mrs. Reichmann? She replied in a very Zsa Zsa Gabor accent “No, but I still could be.”
In both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires chariot racing was a huge sport enjoyed by the masses. Very competitive and well known teams had large fan bases.
Both of these imperial capitals had large numbers, if not outright majorities, of residents (if not always official citizens) who weren't born there or originally from there. Romans were always very elastic about citizenship or residency (even for non slaves) so long as you provided needed services, goods or had means to support yourself.
So non locals rooting for the local teams -- in this case charioteers -- has been going on for millennia. Nor were the chariot drivers local "Romans" either (recall Ben Hur?)
Even farther back in Greece excellent athletes were recruited far and wide and often had large followings from outside of a particular city-state. "Foreign" athletes and fans is as old as competitive sports.
"Western civilization" didn't crumble because Spanish charioteers raced for Constantinople Team Blue. No one has ever claimed that.
In the US/Canada you have local teams with non local players and for successful teams, non local fans. Dallas Cowboys (ugh) and similar.
The "foul garbage" you dislike seems to be baked into human nature for sports competition and fans. "NY Yankees" or "Man U" tee shirts are seen around the globe for example.
Most people grow out of athletic localism after high school. The jocks you know personally are seldom, if ever, the pick of the national or international litter.
If you believe in merit, you need to overcome bigotry.Replies: @telemachos, @bomag
I don’t know, I too would prefer it if the ‘home-town team’ actually consisted of people native to the home town. A NY vs Boston game, if the teams were composed of men born and bred in the respective cities, would seem like a genuine competition between the people of two towns. I would find that more interesting than just “who can pay the best professionals from anywhere”.
Women singing male roles are known as trouser roles and many mezzo sopranos, Isabelle Leonard for example, make a career out of playing them. Here she is as Cherubino:
Again, a normal sized woman with a big voice. It also helps that she’s gorgeous.
Watch the phrasing and breath control starting at 2:12.
I saw this live and it was great.
Most new operas are crap. Nixon Goes to China, anyone?
One of my favorite operas is The Merry Widow. It is a musical comedy with lots of singing and dancing, plus Renee Fleming in some of the most gorgeous clothes you have ever seen. The production designer was a Broadway vet and said a Broadway problem she didn’t miss was how to hide microphones on the performers. No mikes in opera.
You can watch it on demand for $5. https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357017746
https://www.amren.com/commentary/2022/05/fun-with-race-for-a-while-anyway/
~~~
Some commenters just fade out. Lot is a guy I've noticed has left us, whom I wish was still commenting. But, from his comments I pegged him a couple decades younger than me, so I very much doubt he's dead. Perhaps just busy with career and raising his family. Or perhaps his wife turned into a pillar of salt? But I doubt that also.Replies: @kaganovitch, @Jim Don Bob
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. I will let you know.
I'm an old movie buff (in both senses). It's always amazed me how so many extremely pretty starlets never went anywhere in their acting careers. Like this guy, they had a lot going for them. But it didn't seem to be enough to get them going.Replies: @Stan Adams
My mother used to be into ballroom dancing, so as a kid I spent a lot of time around performers*. At an early age I came to understand that there are many talented and attractive people who work long and hard who never progress beyond a certain point in the pursuit of their dreams. They lack that certain je ne sais quoi.
I also learned that there are people who do have the talent and drive to succeed who, for a variety of reasons (such as ticking off the wrong person), are prevented from advancing beyond a certain point in their careers.
(I’m not suggesting that this guy is one of the latter.)
When I was a bit older I rode the bus after school to meet my mother at the community college where she taught freshman composition. Since her classes often ran late into the evening, I had the opportunity to hear her lecture about such works as Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” two or even three times in a row.
This quote always stuck with me:
“To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts – absolute gifts – which have not been acquired by one’s own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul…. The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.”
I have met people who possess such souls who do not derive any worldly benefit from their gifts. For whatever reason – bad timing, bad luck, political BS – they languish in obscurity while talentless hacks wallow in fame and glory. It’s demoralizing and infuriating, but nobody ever said life was fair.
*My mother, despite her faults, did expose me to a broad swath of the wider world in my youth. My grandparents never took her anywhere when she was growing up, but she brought me along on her frequent weekend jaunts up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I met a lot of unusual people and saw some interesting places. (I also learned how to wring a dollar’s worth of vacation out of a dime, or even a penny.)
"My mother, despite her faults, did expose me to a broad swath of the wider world in my youth."
For me, it was my father. Old movies from Hollywood's Golden Age, Japanese art films, birdwatching, classical music (heavy on the Russian Late Romantics), ballet. I've had a very rich inner life, thanks to him. I don't regret using his photo down at the firing range, though. As a teacher, he was superb. As a father, he was an almost complete failure.
As Hitler once said:
I’m not making that up, by the way (go to 1:25):
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wilkey.
When Handel composed Rinaldo, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Mozart composed Don Giovanni, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Rossini composed Il barbiere di Siviglia, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Verdi composed La Traviata…
When Puccini composed …
…and so on and so forth.
Composer Erik Satie Was So Much Weirder Than You Realize
Satie inspired Brian Eno's wonerfully-titled Music for Airports.Replies: @bomag
Most modern, professional musicals use amplification, opera doesn’t.
The charts don’t lie, “black” music is 90% or more dependent on Western music theory and instruments, as sampled and sequenced by Western and Asian technology.
And, more often than not, written and produced by guys with names like Levine and Rubin…
Something doesn't add up here. I thought black people were hopelessly dumbReplies: @Sollipsist
The generals who deserve the most medals are any and all generals who told us not to go into Iraq, or who told us to get the hell out once they realized that Afghanistan and Iraq were lost causes.Replies: @middle-aged vet
Wilkey – I could not agree more. The point you are making is more important than the point I was making.
Also, I feel bad that people who know a lot less about American generals of the day might have misconstrued what I said as a criticism of Eisenhower – I am sure he would have preferred to be leading a platoon near the front lines (or doing the closest equivalent a light colonel could have, circa 42….). But ….. He knew his strengths, and lots of people alive today would not be alive today if he had just done what he wanted and volunteered for a front-line command. Nobody – no military historian I am aware of, anyway – has ever suggested that someone else could have done a better job in 43 and 44.
that being said, i have been on very bad airplanes with very bad pilots, so if anyone criticizes John Wayne for spending half the war flying on those flying coffins, instead of signing up as a publicity GI like Elvis did, I am gonna disagree. That topic has come up a few times on Unz and it actually makes me want to publicly disagree everytime with the people who have no idea what they are talking about.
I met Macchio’s father years ago, he ran a waste disposal (or sewage transportation, can’t remember which) business on Long Island. Like his son, he was slight, and looked quite young, except for the bushy mustache that Italian-Americans seem to favor. Perhaps the youthful appearance is just a family trait.
A nice fellow, and obviously proud of his famous son.
Serendipitously, the Army never found out that, while at West Point, Eisenpower played a few games of semi-pro baseball. That would have immediately gotten him kicked out of West Point, destroying his military career, and likely his political one too, as it was built on his military victory, and this was a time when disgrace at West Point and breaking the rules about amateur/professional would have been a big issue amongst most American voters.
Imagine if Eisenhower had been caught.
No D-Day victory, possibly a stalemate in Western Europe. Maybe Stalin and Hitler make a separate peace, or maybe Stalin sweeps all the way to Paris. Or maybe Patton is given freer reign in his actions, and winds up doing what he said we should do and starts butting directly against the Red Army in a race to Berlin.
Meanwhile, no Eisenhower presidency. In the U.S., thus no federal highway system—an accomplishment of Ike’s that even today is far underappreciated at is scope and accomplishment.
And if some hotter head is in charge in the 1950s—-a continuation of the Korean war to a serious wart with China? A nuclear war with the Soviets over U-2 or some other cold-war scandal? A new civil war over segregation?
It’s a great what if, and worthy of an alternate history by Harry Turtledove.
Greta Thunberg looks like she had fetal alcohol syndrome combined with the brainwashing from her ANTIFA-loving parents.
I still want to fix Greta up with Kyle Rittenhouse. He'd never forget her birthday. Both turn 20 next January 3rd.Replies: @Stan Adams
When Handel composed Rinaldo, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Mozart composed Don Giovanni, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Rossini composed Il barbiere di Siviglia, pleasing the audience was his number one aim.
When Verdi composed La Traviata...
When Puccini composed ...
...and so on and so forth.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
When Erik Satie composed Tenture de cabinet préfectoral (“Wallpaper in a bureaucrat’s office”), pleasing the audience was not his number-one aim. It was the culmination of an effort exemplified by his chewing out an audience at a 1902 premiere for listening too intently. His music was meant as “furniture”.
Composer Erik Satie Was So Much Weirder Than You Realize
Satie inspired Brian Eno’s wonerfully-titled Music for Airports.
She does look like her “fellow squarehead” Soph– whatever happened to her?
I still want to fix Greta up with Kyle Rittenhouse. He’d never forget her birthday. Both turn 20 next January 3rd.
https://i.servimg.com/u/f33/18/88/87/60/oq6x6c10.jpg
https://i.servimg.com/u/f33/18/88/87/60/greta10.jpg
https://i.servimg.com/u/f33/18/88/87/60/gerber10.jpg
Also, I feel bad that people who know a lot less about American generals of the day might have misconstrued what I said as a criticism of Eisenhower - I am sure he would have preferred to be leading a platoon near the front lines (or doing the closest equivalent a light colonel could have, circa 42....). But ..... He knew his strengths, and lots of people alive today would not be alive today if he had just done what he wanted and volunteered for a front-line command. Nobody - no military historian I am aware of, anyway - has ever suggested that someone else could have done a better job in 43 and 44.
that being said, i have been on very bad airplanes with very bad pilots, so if anyone criticizes John Wayne for spending half the war flying on those flying coffins, instead of signing up as a publicity GI like Elvis did, I am gonna disagree. That topic has come up a few times on Unz and it actually makes me want to publicly disagree everytime with the people who have no idea what they are talking about.Replies: @Steve Sailer
At least two celebrities died during WWII in plane crashes of flights made for the war effort — Carole Lombard and Glenn Miller.
One of my favorite operas is The Merry Widow. It is a musical comedy with lots of singing and dancing, plus Renee Fleming in some of the most gorgeous clothes you have ever seen. The production designer was a Broadway vet and said a Broadway problem she didn't miss was how to hide microphones on the performers. No mikes in opera.
You can watch it on demand for $5. https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357017746Replies: @Steve Sailer
For some reason, I like the “Nixon Goes to China” opera.
In the 1960s, Adolph Rupp imposed a rule on himself that he’d only recruit 3 out of staters for each Kentucky basketball team and 9 Kentuckians.
Opera need Auto-Tune.
In both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires chariot racing was a huge sport enjoyed by the masses. Very competitive and well known teams had large fan bases.
Both of these imperial capitals had large numbers, if not outright majorities, of residents (if not always official citizens) who weren't born there or originally from there. Romans were always very elastic about citizenship or residency (even for non slaves) so long as you provided needed services, goods or had means to support yourself.
So non locals rooting for the local teams -- in this case charioteers -- has been going on for millennia. Nor were the chariot drivers local "Romans" either (recall Ben Hur?)
Even farther back in Greece excellent athletes were recruited far and wide and often had large followings from outside of a particular city-state. "Foreign" athletes and fans is as old as competitive sports.
"Western civilization" didn't crumble because Spanish charioteers raced for Constantinople Team Blue. No one has ever claimed that.
In the US/Canada you have local teams with non local players and for successful teams, non local fans. Dallas Cowboys (ugh) and similar.
The "foul garbage" you dislike seems to be baked into human nature for sports competition and fans. "NY Yankees" or "Man U" tee shirts are seen around the globe for example.
Most people grow out of athletic localism after high school. The jocks you know personally are seldom, if ever, the pick of the national or international litter.
If you believe in merit, you need to overcome bigotry.Replies: @telemachos, @bomag
We are in the era of the welfare state and make-work jobs; the current mass immigration just sinks the boat a little lower.
Could live with importing a few star athletes. That it becomes an excuse for the millions filing in is rather galling.
Composer Erik Satie Was So Much Weirder Than You Realize
Satie inspired Brian Eno's wonerfully-titled Music for Airports.Replies: @bomag
I guess the audience he wanted to please was himself; or his fellow crabs down at the coffee shop.
I still want to fix Greta up with Kyle Rittenhouse. He'd never forget her birthday. Both turn 20 next January 3rd.Replies: @Stan Adams
They’d make a cute couple.
And, more often than not, written and produced by guys with names like Levine and Rubin...Replies: @Anon
So you’re telling me kids from the ghetto learned music theory to create hip hop and Detroit techno, even though most of them never even graduated high school?
Something doesn’t add up here. I thought black people were hopelessly dumb
I'm not saying anybody's dumb, I'm just saying that if you're going to be blatantly derivative, it's hypocritical to spread the myth that you're uniquely creative and original. It's like trying to get people to believe that Andy Warhol designed the Campbell's soup can.Replies: @Anon
George Marshall, arguably one of the greatest administrators ever to sit in the Pentagon, or elsewhere for that matter, recognized Eisenhower’s talents very early. IIRC, one of Eisenhower’s first reports that landed on Marshall’s desk was so impressive in its clarity that Marshall knew Eisenhower was a talent to nurture.
Managing a global war requires a very high level of administrative competence and big picture thinking leavened with an accurate view and understanding of the accompanying details.
Doesn’t mean you will always make the best decisions, and that things will always work out, but you have a better shot at it than most.
I also learned that there are people who do have the talent and drive to succeed who, for a variety of reasons (such as ticking off the wrong person), are prevented from advancing beyond a certain point in their careers.
(I'm not suggesting that this guy is one of the latter.)
When I was a bit older I rode the bus after school to meet my mother at the community college where she taught freshman composition. Since her classes often ran late into the evening, I had the opportunity to hear her lecture about such works as Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" two or even three times in a row.
This quote always stuck with me:
"To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.... The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
I have met people who possess such souls who do not derive any worldly benefit from their gifts. For whatever reason - bad timing, bad luck, political BS - they languish in obscurity while talentless hacks wallow in fame and glory. It's demoralizing and infuriating, but nobody ever said life was fair.
*My mother, despite her faults, did expose me to a broad swath of the wider world in my youth. My grandparents never took her anywhere when she was growing up, but she brought me along on her frequent weekend jaunts up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I met a lot of unusual people and saw some interesting places. (I also learned how to wring a dollar's worth of vacation out of a dime, or even a penny.)Replies: @Kylie
Yes, I think being an artist must be like being a detective. A detective was once asked if he’d rather be really good at his job or lucky. Even I, with my fixation on excellence, guessed he’d say lucky, which he did. Sure, a certain amount of talent, hard work, etc. is usually necessary in becoming known as an artist. But luck plays a big part, too. Not just in who gives you breaks starting out but if you just happen to capture and hold the fickle public’s interest.
“My mother, despite her faults, did expose me to a broad swath of the wider world in my youth.”
For me, it was my father. Old movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Japanese art films, birdwatching, classical music (heavy on the Russian Late Romantics), ballet. I’ve had a very rich inner life, thanks to him. I don’t regret using his photo down at the firing range, though. As a teacher, he was superb. As a father, he was an almost complete failure.
I died inside a long time ago.
I hope that is an example of your dark, deadpan humor. Otherwise, it's the most terrible thing I've ever read here.
You died inside and yet here you are. So there must be some spark of life left in you. We often hear about "the gift of life" and indeed life is a gift. We seldom hear about "a gift for life", that quality that makes makes us want to enjoy the gift of life we have been given. Not everyone has this gift in equal measure. Some don't have it at all, these are the people who choose to end their lives.
The person who was the most alive, the most passionate about enjoying her gift of life of anyone I've ever known was my Facebook friend, Diane. She died after a 6 year long battle with colon, rectal, liver and finally lung cancer. Being able to enjoy a cocktail at sunset thrilled her, later being able to eat solid food in the hospital was an equal thrill. For the first 5 3/4 years of her illness, she was so alive that I nicknamed her "my zesty friend". It was only in the last few months that her courage failed her, the years of pain and illness and invasive procedures just wore her out.
She had an abundant supply of what others lack, somewhat or entirely. Everyone is different and I assign no fault or blame. But I would urge anyone who has enough life left in him to wake up without plans of immediate suicide to cultivate what enjoyment of life he can. It is all we have but it is enough. I say this as a survivor of a lifetime of domestic violence. I can't look back at many happy memories. But I have the gift of life denied Diane.
Dum vivimus vivamus.Replies: @Stan Adams
Something doesn't add up here. I thought black people were hopelessly dumbReplies: @Sollipsist
Detroit techno was a bad example. It’s as short a step as possible from German synth groups and almost exclusively uses Japanese drum machines.
I’m not saying anybody’s dumb, I’m just saying that if you’re going to be blatantly derivative, it’s hypocritical to spread the myth that you’re uniquely creative and original. It’s like trying to get people to believe that Andy Warhol designed the Campbell’s soup can.
Funny that I was thinking the very same thing, as it’s been a while since I’ve seen Buffalo Joe’s byline.
Are you still with us, BJ?
I remember being assigned The Little Prince to read in high school by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
I'm not saying anybody's dumb, I'm just saying that if you're going to be blatantly derivative, it's hypocritical to spread the myth that you're uniquely creative and original. It's like trying to get people to believe that Andy Warhol designed the Campbell's soup can.Replies: @Anon
German synth pop is derived from New Wave music which ultimately traces its origin to electric blues music invented by African Americans. I never said Neanderthal-introgressed populations didn’t invent the hardware. Also, I am white and of Northern European ancestry with no Levantine DNA. I just speak pure truth instead of trying to beat black people at their own game (music, dancing, etc). They created that and it shows in their talents.
I've been hearing all my life how the blues somehow arrived straight from Africa, despite the fact that it's one of the most clear examples of a creole synthesis in music history. You hear more ancestry of the blues in the folk music of the British Isles than you do in any music native to Africa. The blues is merely a fork of the same tradition that produced bluegrass, and then classic country music. There was very good reason to name the bar CBGB...
Gospel has a little more identifiable relationship to the traditional vocal harmonies of sub-Saharan Africa, but even so the main component is Christian hymns, and the main instrumentation is piano and organ. Even modern gospel ends up sounding like a distant second cousin to traditional African singing, but a direct descendant of 18th/19th Century American church music.
Jazz started with the early 19th Century touring and 'parade' bands whose repertoire was originally a mix of show tunes, hymns and patriotic songs. We're talking 99% white guys playing songs by 99% white composers. It was only after it took a few turns in places like New Orleans -- the epicenter of American creole synthesis -- that these bands started to feature any distinctive 'black flavor' that wasn't simply minstrel caricatures.
Of course it was largely that flavor that took over the jazz evolution and gave it it's name, but even well into the Big Band era it was still mostly white and Jewish guys composing or playing songs from the Great American Songbook, increasingly but not always with a featured black singer or soloist. It wasn't until people like Coltrane and Miles Davis came on the scene that black artists really started to be the rule rather than the exception as far as composition and innovation.
Don't get me wrong, countless black performers put their unmistakable mark on any style of music they chose. Some of the most talented even inspired entire distinct lines of musical development. But every existing style of music is a synthesis and/or development of styles that preceded it. Focusing on only part of the inspiration to the point of obscuring or denying the vast weight of the tradition that it builds upon is the result of either ignorance or an agenda, or both.
Whoever came up with the idea of putting hot fudge on vanilla ice cream was brilliant. But you gotta be suspicious when someone keeps telling you that the 90% of the sundae that is ice cream doesn't exist or doesn't matter.Replies: @Anonymous
A related question is, does cognitive decline cause people to post more often, or less?
“I died inside a long time ago.”
I hope that is an example of your dark, deadpan humor. Otherwise, it’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever read here.
You died inside and yet here you are. So there must be some spark of life left in you. We often hear about “the gift of life” and indeed life is a gift. We seldom hear about “a gift for life”, that quality that makes makes us want to enjoy the gift of life we have been given. Not everyone has this gift in equal measure. Some don’t have it at all, these are the people who choose to end their lives.
The person who was the most alive, the most passionate about enjoying her gift of life of anyone I’ve ever known was my Facebook friend, Diane. She died after a 6 year long battle with colon, rectal, liver and finally lung cancer. Being able to enjoy a cocktail at sunset thrilled her, later being able to eat solid food in the hospital was an equal thrill. For the first 5 3/4 years of her illness, she was so alive that I nicknamed her “my zesty friend”. It was only in the last few months that her courage failed her, the years of pain and illness and invasive procedures just wore her out.
She had an abundant supply of what others lack, somewhat or entirely. Everyone is different and I assign no fault or blame. But I would urge anyone who has enough life left in him to wake up without plans of immediate suicide to cultivate what enjoyment of life he can. It is all we have but it is enough. I say this as a survivor of a lifetime of domestic violence. I can’t look back at many happy memories. But I have the gift of life denied Diane.
Dum vivimus vivamus.
My comments have been weirder than usual lately.
Last week was the first anniversary of my grandmother's death. I tried to put it out of my mind but it kept creeping up on me. One morning I had a dream that it was my birthday and I was at her house and she was slumped over in her chair. I was trying to wake her up and she just wouldn't respond. Then I went in the kitchen and found my half-eaten birthday cake in the fridge. I said, "I guess they had the party without me." Then I woke up.
I guess I was remembering all the big birthday parties my cousin and I had at my grandparents' house when we were kids. My grandfather always baked our cakes. (Truth be told, he was a better cook than my grandmother.) The year he died of lung cancer, my cousin and I had a consolidated party because he was too weak from the chemo to bake two cakes. (Her birthday is in late July and mine is in mid-August. We're both Leos.)
On the anniversary itself I got angry with my mother because she kept going on and on and on about how horrible it was that Grandma allowed my aunt to take charge of her affairs.
"Grandma never did anything for me," she said.
I snapped at her: "How can you say that? Grandma gave you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. She gave me hundreds of thousands of dollars. She paid for your car. She paid off both of your houses. You'd be living under a bridge if it weren't for her."
"She gave [my aunt and my uncle] much more."
"And you're never going to forgive her for that, are you?"
"I don't want to talk about it. I just think it's a shame that [my aunt] ended up putting her in a home. Grandma really got screwed at the end."
"It was too hard to keep her at home," I said. "We tried. I tried. I spent a lot more time with her than you ever did. You weren't the one who had to sit with her all night long listening to her scream about the giant bugs she saw flying around the room. You weren't the one who ended up getting scratches all over your hands because she was having paranoid delusions that I was some kind of robber or rapist."
"I know," my mother said. "I still think it's a shame that she had to suffer like that."
"We all suffered," I said. "People get old and die. It happens. But Grandma had a long, full life. She had a much better life than you or I ever will. Grandma won the lottery."
(Not literally, but figuratively. She was born into poverty and she got knocked up by a guy who ended up making a pretty nice bundle of money.)
"I'm 36 and I don't see much hope that I'm ever going to have any kids," I continued. "You're probably never going to have any grandchildren. And you don't seem to give a s**t about that. You just keep going on and on about Grandma and you keep living in the past. You only talk about the past because you know I have no future."
She sighed and said, "Oh, [Stan], you'll have your future. Just be patient."
I snorted. Then I ended the conversation on this note: "When you're gone, I'm not going to waste my time sitting around feeling sorry for you. You made your bed, and you can rot in it for all I care."
I guess I was a bit hard on my mother, but sometimes I really resent her sense of entitlement. All my life she's complained about my grandparents' supposed habit of giving her siblings preferential treatment.
My grandfather was always wonderful to me, but my mother always made sure to tell me the alleged horror stories from her youth.
I always knew Grandpa as a functional alcoholic. When he drank his Scotch, he always got really mellow and affectionate. But my mother complained that, when he got drunk in her youth, he used to beat the crap out of her.
She complained about the clothes that my grandmother bought her for her birthday or Christmas: "She always buys such dumpy things for me. I know I'm a bit overweight" - i.e., 5'6" and well over 200 pounds - "but you'd think she could find something a bit more stylish. The crap she buys indicates that she has no real understanding of my personality."
One time my grandmother took her on a day cruise for her birthday, and all she did was sit in the lounge and complain about what a lousy time she was having.
Now all she does is sit in front of the TV and complain that I never do anything for her, even though my whole life is devoted to making sure she has what she needs.
She demands that I arrange to have expensive meals delivered to her house. If I refuse, she claims that I am trying to starve her to death, even though she is a morbidly-obese diabetic. Invariably, the restaurant makes some kind of grievous error - they forget to put blue-cheese sprinkles on her salad or something - and she makes a big show of calling the manager to express her outrage. Then she starts complaining that she never has any money.
Her not-so-subtle implication is that it is my fault that she doesn't have any money.
When I was a kid, my mother actively discouraged me from pursuing a degree in a lucrative field. "You're too lazy to become a doctor and you're too honest to become a lawyer. You're not aggressive enough to go into business."
She wanted to me to become an English professor. She spent decades in the salt mines of community-college composition; she never made tenure. She never finished her Ph.D. dissertation. ("It's not my fault! My mentor died!")
I told her that academia held no appeal for me, that it was a dumping ground that attracted ... well, basket cases like her. She didn't want to hear about it. She pushed me and pushed me.
I ended up getting degrees in journalism and creative writing. I never did much with either.
My grandparents, particularly my grandmother, indulged me and my cousin to the point that neither of us ever had to work for a living. We were both spoiled rotten as children and we both ended up as lazy, directionless adults. We both have spotty, lackadaisical, on-again-and-off-again employment histories. We both have addictive personalities. The main difference is that while I'm merely a fatty, my cousin is a drunk, an addict, and a chain-smoker.
My grandmother supported my mother, too, although my mother never displayed one iota of gratitude. All she ever did was complain about how little anyone ever did for her.
The highest praise she's ever given me is, "Sometimes you really do try to be a good son."
I could give her one of my kidneys and then the next morning she'd say, "You only gave me one kidney. How am I supposed to live on only one kidney? If you really loved me, you'd have given me both of your kidneys."
Next week is my father's birthday. (Incidentally, he was born on my maternal grandparents' fifth wedding anniversary. They only got married because my grandmother was already pregnant with my mother. So, yes, my mother is five years older than my father.)
My father is a whole other can of worms. My mother never had a kind word to say about him. I have a handful of memories from the few times that we met. I have a handful of pictures of him and sometimes I find myself staring at them, wondering what might have been.
My mother has never taken any responsibility for denying me a stable home life. At most, she'll say something like, "I'm sorry that your father ended up being such a horrible person. Fortunately, I don't think you inherited his worst tendencies. You got your good parts from me."
A girl I knew once told me that my family was evil. I thought she was being a bit harsh. But sometimes I wonder if she didn't have a point.
I hope that is an example of your dark, deadpan humor. Otherwise, it's the most terrible thing I've ever read here.
You died inside and yet here you are. So there must be some spark of life left in you. We often hear about "the gift of life" and indeed life is a gift. We seldom hear about "a gift for life", that quality that makes makes us want to enjoy the gift of life we have been given. Not everyone has this gift in equal measure. Some don't have it at all, these are the people who choose to end their lives.
The person who was the most alive, the most passionate about enjoying her gift of life of anyone I've ever known was my Facebook friend, Diane. She died after a 6 year long battle with colon, rectal, liver and finally lung cancer. Being able to enjoy a cocktail at sunset thrilled her, later being able to eat solid food in the hospital was an equal thrill. For the first 5 3/4 years of her illness, she was so alive that I nicknamed her "my zesty friend". It was only in the last few months that her courage failed her, the years of pain and illness and invasive procedures just wore her out.
She had an abundant supply of what others lack, somewhat or entirely. Everyone is different and I assign no fault or blame. But I would urge anyone who has enough life left in him to wake up without plans of immediate suicide to cultivate what enjoyment of life he can. It is all we have but it is enough. I say this as a survivor of a lifetime of domestic violence. I can't look back at many happy memories. But I have the gift of life denied Diane.
Dum vivimus vivamus.Replies: @Stan Adams
I’m sorry to hear about your friend.
My comments have been weirder than usual lately.
Last week was the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death. I tried to put it out of my mind but it kept creeping up on me. One morning I had a dream that it was my birthday and I was at her house and she was slumped over in her chair. I was trying to wake her up and she just wouldn’t respond. Then I went in the kitchen and found my half-eaten birthday cake in the fridge. I said, “I guess they had the party without me.” Then I woke up.
I guess I was remembering all the big birthday parties my cousin and I had at my grandparents’ house when we were kids. My grandfather always baked our cakes. (Truth be told, he was a better cook than my grandmother.) The year he died of lung cancer, my cousin and I had a consolidated party because he was too weak from the chemo to bake two cakes. (Her birthday is in late July and mine is in mid-August. We’re both Leos.)
On the anniversary itself I got angry with my mother because she kept going on and on and on about how horrible it was that Grandma allowed my aunt to take charge of her affairs.
“Grandma never did anything for me,” she said.
I snapped at her: “How can you say that? Grandma gave you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. She gave me hundreds of thousands of dollars. She paid for your car. She paid off both of your houses. You’d be living under a bridge if it weren’t for her.”
“She gave [my aunt and my uncle] much more.”
“And you’re never going to forgive her for that, are you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I just think it’s a shame that [my aunt] ended up putting her in a home. Grandma really got screwed at the end.”
“It was too hard to keep her at home,” I said. “We tried. I tried. I spent a lot more time with her than you ever did. You weren’t the one who had to sit with her all night long listening to her scream about the giant bugs she saw flying around the room. You weren’t the one who ended up getting scratches all over your hands because she was having paranoid delusions that I was some kind of robber or rapist.”
“I know,” my mother said. “I still think it’s a shame that she had to suffer like that.”
“We all suffered,” I said. “People get old and die. It happens. But Grandma had a long, full life. She had a much better life than you or I ever will. Grandma won the lottery.”
(Not literally, but figuratively. She was born into poverty and she got knocked up by a guy who ended up making a pretty nice bundle of money.)
“I’m 36 and I don’t see much hope that I’m ever going to have any kids,” I continued. “You’re probably never going to have any grandchildren. And you don’t seem to give a s**t about that. You just keep going on and on about Grandma and you keep living in the past. You only talk about the past because you know I have no future.”
She sighed and said, “Oh, [Stan], you’ll have your future. Just be patient.”
I snorted. Then I ended the conversation on this note: “When you’re gone, I’m not going to waste my time sitting around feeling sorry for you. You made your bed, and you can rot in it for all I care.”
I guess I was a bit hard on my mother, but sometimes I really resent her sense of entitlement. All my life she’s complained about my grandparents’ supposed habit of giving her siblings preferential treatment.
My grandfather was always wonderful to me, but my mother always made sure to tell me the alleged horror stories from her youth.
I always knew Grandpa as a functional alcoholic. When he drank his Scotch, he always got really mellow and affectionate. But my mother complained that, when he got drunk in her youth, he used to beat the crap out of her.
She complained about the clothes that my grandmother bought her for her birthday or Christmas: “She always buys such dumpy things for me. I know I’m a bit overweight” – i.e., 5’6″ and well over 200 pounds – “but you’d think she could find something a bit more stylish. The crap she buys indicates that she has no real understanding of my personality.”
One time my grandmother took her on a day cruise for her birthday, and all she did was sit in the lounge and complain about what a lousy time she was having.
Now all she does is sit in front of the TV and complain that I never do anything for her, even though my whole life is devoted to making sure she has what she needs.
She demands that I arrange to have expensive meals delivered to her house. If I refuse, she claims that I am trying to starve her to death, even though she is a morbidly-obese diabetic. Invariably, the restaurant makes some kind of grievous error – they forget to put blue-cheese sprinkles on her salad or something – and she makes a big show of calling the manager to express her outrage. Then she starts complaining that she never has any money.
Her not-so-subtle implication is that it is my fault that she doesn’t have any money.
When I was a kid, my mother actively discouraged me from pursuing a degree in a lucrative field. “You’re too lazy to become a doctor and you’re too honest to become a lawyer. You’re not aggressive enough to go into business.”
She wanted to me to become an English professor. She spent decades in the salt mines of community-college composition; she never made tenure. She never finished her Ph.D. dissertation. (“It’s not my fault! My mentor died!”)
I told her that academia held no appeal for me, that it was a dumping ground that attracted … well, basket cases like her. She didn’t want to hear about it. She pushed me and pushed me.
I ended up getting degrees in journalism and creative writing. I never did much with either.
My grandparents, particularly my grandmother, indulged me and my cousin to the point that neither of us ever had to work for a living. We were both spoiled rotten as children and we both ended up as lazy, directionless adults. We both have spotty, lackadaisical, on-again-and-off-again employment histories. We both have addictive personalities. The main difference is that while I’m merely a fatty, my cousin is a drunk, an addict, and a chain-smoker.
My grandmother supported my mother, too, although my mother never displayed one iota of gratitude. All she ever did was complain about how little anyone ever did for her.
The highest praise she’s ever given me is, “Sometimes you really do try to be a good son.”
I could give her one of my kidneys and then the next morning she’d say, “You only gave me one kidney. How am I supposed to live on only one kidney? If you really loved me, you’d have given me both of your kidneys.”
Next week is my father’s birthday. (Incidentally, he was born on my maternal grandparents’ fifth wedding anniversary. They only got married because my grandmother was already pregnant with my mother. So, yes, my mother is five years older than my father.)
My father is a whole other can of worms. My mother never had a kind word to say about him. I have a handful of memories from the few times that we met. I have a handful of pictures of him and sometimes I find myself staring at them, wondering what might have been.
My mother has never taken any responsibility for denying me a stable home life. At most, she’ll say something like, “I’m sorry that your father ended up being such a horrible person. Fortunately, I don’t think you inherited his worst tendencies. You got your good parts from me.”
A girl I knew once told me that my family was evil. I thought she was being a bit harsh. But sometimes I wonder if she didn’t have a point.
I’m sorry the anniversary of your grandmother’s death was so hard for you. I do understand, I don’t deal with loss well at all. When I was nine, I lost my grandmother and the only sense of security I ever had.
My mother was not as outrageous as yours and she prided herself on her tact and diplomacy. (Apparently telling me that, among other things, she wished she’d never had me was neither tactless nor undiplomatic.). But I definitely feel a sense of deja vu when you describe some of your conversations, not the words but the underlying sense of entitlement and the enormity of what she feels is owed her.
There really is no dealing with such people because it is their mission in life to feel entitled, put-upon, cheated and short-changed and to make sure you are aware 24/7 that it is all your fault. As you know.
I do have a fuller sense of your grandparents, though, and I’m glad they looked after you as well as they did. I had mistakenly thought they treated you the same way your mother does. I’m glad I was wrong, though I’m sure your grandmother’s final illness was miserable.
Anniversaries are just hard.
I always feel like I'm wasting people's time talking about personal stuff on iSteve, but I can justify it by pointing out that one of Steve's main themes is the dysfunction and malaise that permeate all aspects of American life in the early twenty-first century. And my family is nothing if not dysfunctional.
Steve likes to talk about family formation; we're a shining example of family *de*formation. (I was going to add "dysgenic fertility" to the mix, but that might be a bit harsh. Although it seems likely that I, personally, am an example of the deleterious effects of mutational load.)
Not to turn this thread into yet another Stan Adams photo album, but this is the only picture I have of me with both of my grandparents. This composition juxtaposes Silent Generation can-do with Millennial can't-do-anything:
https://i.ibb.co/D7W6jr0/1991-04.png
My grandmother always emphasized the need to maintain emotional self-control. She never raised her voice. If she was angry with you, she froze you out - she simply wouldn't look at you or speak to you, and if you spoke to her, she would ignore you and stare right through you as if you weren't even there.
My mother is the opposite. There's not a passive-aggressive bone in your body - if she decides she doesn't like you, she'll spit poison at you without apology or regret. She'll blow up at you over the tiniest little thing and blast you with hurricane force, sometimes for hours on end. But she can also be warm and affectionate in a way that my grandmother never was.
When I was a kid, my mother scared the hell out of me. The fear continued well into early adulthood. It took me many years to realize that I was a head taller than her and I didn't have to take crap from her anymore.
I used to cry myself to sleep a lot. I would pray to God to fix whatever was so desperately wrong with me that my mother would always be so angry at me. It took me many years - again, well into early adulthood - until I realized that it was not my fault, that while I was certainly not the perfect son, I had done nothing to deserve such treatment.
I still have PTSD from those days. When I see anger or disapproval flicker across her face, I instinctively steel myself for a confrontation. She is increasingly frail now, but in my mind I still see her as the wide-eyed monster looming over me, roaring with a primal ferocity that was never far beneath the surface.
One time she picked me up from school in the middle of a thunderstorm. She had a letter that she needed to mail out. When I opened the car door, a gust of wind blew the envelope outside, and it landed on the wet ground and got soaked.
My mother went into full-scale meltdown mode and threw a tantrum straight out of Mommie Dearest. I was trapped in the car with her and she wouldn't let up for a moment. She screamed at me at the top of her lungs for half an hour. I started crying after thirty seconds and didn't stop. I kept moaning, "I'm sorry, Mom! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" And she kept screaming, "Sorry isn't good enough! Do you understand? SORRY ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!"
We were due at my grandmother's house for dinner, and when we arrived there the tears were still streaming down my face. I ran inside and begged my grandmother to let me stay over, even though it was a school night. IIRC, she calmed me down to the point that I finally agreed to back home with my mother.
One of the most terrifying aspects of my mother's rage was that she always waited until she was alone with me to blow up. One time we were eating in a restaurant and one of her friends saw us and walked over to say hello, and I said something in the presence of the friend that displeased her. (I don't even remember what it was. It was extremely trivial, but evidently my mother felt that I'd embarrassed her.) My mother's friend left and the rest of the meal proceeded without incident. Then, as soon as we got in the car - total meltdown. I was a sobbing wreck within a minute.
This happened all the time. Not every day, but perhaps once or twice a week.
The only reason I have been able to forgive her is that, in early adulthood, I became just as abusive toward her as she was toward me. I inflicted at least as much misery on her as she ever did on me. I dislocated her shoulder once. So we're even now.
Of course, once I began stooping to her level, I gave her more ammunition to use for her constant guilt-trips.
"I never tell anyone how much of a raging asshole you really are," she said once. "Everyone thinks you're this sweet loving son, and they have no idea."
"I've done a lot for you," I said.
"You should never get married," she continued. "You'd probably just find some skinny bitch and sweet-talk her into doing everything for you. And if she ever stepped out of line, you'd beat the crap out of her."
"I'm never going to get married," I said. "I missed out on that opportunity, just as I missed out on so many other opportunities. I gave up my entire youth for you. All of my time and energy that should have gone into a career, into a wife, into a family, went into you. And you weren't worth any of it. You're not worth one minute of my life."
"Your time and energy went into taking care of Grandma," my mother said. "You've never done anything for me. It was all for her."
"Grandma did a lot more for me than you ever will. She was my real mother. You were just some flaky bitch who kept screwing me over. I owe her everything. You owe her everything. I owe you s**t."
"Why do you hate me so much?" she asked. "What have I ever done to you?"
"You never let me have a normal life," I said. "You never let me have any friends; you never let me go on dates; you didn't let me go away for college; you treated me like I was just your little slave boy. And I let you do it. I let you ruin my life. I could have walked out the door when I turned 18. I didn't. I can walk out the door right now. I can walk out the door and never look back and you will never hear from me again. You won't even know if I'm alive or dead. But I won't."
"You're very selfish," she said. "You know I need your help. You're a very heartless person if you can't see that a son has a responsibility to take care of his mother."
"You're trash," I said. "I have no interest in keeping trash alive."
"You wouldn't be alive if it weren't for me."
"I don't want to be alive," I said. "You never should have had me. You should have had an abortion." Then I stormed off.
But, yeah, nobody's perfect.
Thanks.
I always feel like I’m wasting people’s time talking about personal stuff on iSteve, but I can justify it by pointing out that one of Steve’s main themes is the dysfunction and malaise that permeate all aspects of American life in the early twenty-first century. And my family is nothing if not dysfunctional.
Steve likes to talk about family formation; we’re a shining example of family *de*formation. (I was going to add “dysgenic fertility” to the mix, but that might be a bit harsh. Although it seems likely that I, personally, am an example of the deleterious effects of mutational load.)
Not to turn this thread into yet another Stan Adams photo album, but this is the only picture I have of me with both of my grandparents. This composition juxtaposes Silent Generation can-do with Millennial can’t-do-anything:
He was a very good writer, even the titles of his books – for example, “Wind, Sands and Stars” – are amazingly eloquent.
I wish he had lived a lot longer and written more books.
By the way, not much frightens me – I have been in or near gang fights, I have had angry people try to kill me (fortunately incompetent people, but still, the fact remains, they were human, and they wanted me dead), and that sort of thing is just what it is, and I don’t really remember being afraid very much …. but flying an airplane at night during a war would probably frighten me a lot. Kudos to Mr Saint Exupery. A braver man than I ever was.
One final note, and then I’ll shut up about this:
My grandmother always emphasized the need to maintain emotional self-control. She never raised her voice. If she was angry with you, she froze you out – she simply wouldn’t look at you or speak to you, and if you spoke to her, she would ignore you and stare right through you as if you weren’t even there.
My mother is the opposite. There’s not a passive-aggressive bone in your body – if she decides she doesn’t like you, she’ll spit poison at you without apology or regret. She’ll blow up at you over the tiniest little thing and blast you with hurricane force, sometimes for hours on end. But she can also be warm and affectionate in a way that my grandmother never was.
When I was a kid, my mother scared the hell out of me. The fear continued well into early adulthood. It took me many years to realize that I was a head taller than her and I didn’t have to take crap from her anymore.
I used to cry myself to sleep a lot. I would pray to God to fix whatever was so desperately wrong with me that my mother would always be so angry at me. It took me many years – again, well into early adulthood – until I realized that it was not my fault, that while I was certainly not the perfect son, I had done nothing to deserve such treatment.
I still have PTSD from those days. When I see anger or disapproval flicker across her face, I instinctively steel myself for a confrontation. She is increasingly frail now, but in my mind I still see her as the wide-eyed monster looming over me, roaring with a primal ferocity that was never far beneath the surface.
One time she picked me up from school in the middle of a thunderstorm. She had a letter that she needed to mail out. When I opened the car door, a gust of wind blew the envelope outside, and it landed on the wet ground and got soaked.
My mother went into full-scale meltdown mode and threw a tantrum straight out of Mommie Dearest. I was trapped in the car with her and she wouldn’t let up for a moment. She screamed at me at the top of her lungs for half an hour. I started crying after thirty seconds and didn’t stop. I kept moaning, “I’m sorry, Mom! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” And she kept screaming, “Sorry isn’t good enough! Do you understand? SORRY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”
We were due at my grandmother’s house for dinner, and when we arrived there the tears were still streaming down my face. I ran inside and begged my grandmother to let me stay over, even though it was a school night. IIRC, she calmed me down to the point that I finally agreed to back home with my mother.
One of the most terrifying aspects of my mother’s rage was that she always waited until she was alone with me to blow up. One time we were eating in a restaurant and one of her friends saw us and walked over to say hello, and I said something in the presence of the friend that displeased her. (I don’t even remember what it was. It was extremely trivial, but evidently my mother felt that I’d embarrassed her.) My mother’s friend left and the rest of the meal proceeded without incident. Then, as soon as we got in the car – total meltdown. I was a sobbing wreck within a minute.
This happened all the time. Not every day, but perhaps once or twice a week.
The only reason I have been able to forgive her is that, in early adulthood, I became just as abusive toward her as she was toward me. I inflicted at least as much misery on her as she ever did on me. I dislocated her shoulder once. So we’re even now.
Of course, once I began stooping to her level, I gave her more ammunition to use for her constant guilt-trips.
“I never tell anyone how much of a raging asshole you really are,” she said once. “Everyone thinks you’re this sweet loving son, and they have no idea.”
“I’ve done a lot for you,” I said.
“You should never get married,” she continued. “You’d probably just find some skinny bitch and sweet-talk her into doing everything for you. And if she ever stepped out of line, you’d beat the crap out of her.”
“I’m never going to get married,” I said. “I missed out on that opportunity, just as I missed out on so many other opportunities. I gave up my entire youth for you. All of my time and energy that should have gone into a career, into a wife, into a family, went into you. And you weren’t worth any of it. You’re not worth one minute of my life.”
“Your time and energy went into taking care of Grandma,” my mother said. “You’ve never done anything for me. It was all for her.”
“Grandma did a lot more for me than you ever will. She was my real mother. You were just some flaky bitch who kept screwing me over. I owe her everything. You owe her everything. I owe you s**t.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” she asked. “What have I ever done to you?”
“You never let me have a normal life,” I said. “You never let me have any friends; you never let me go on dates; you didn’t let me go away for college; you treated me like I was just your little slave boy. And I let you do it. I let you ruin my life. I could have walked out the door when I turned 18. I didn’t. I can walk out the door right now. I can walk out the door and never look back and you will never hear from me again. You won’t even know if I’m alive or dead. But I won’t.”
“You’re very selfish,” she said. “You know I need your help. You’re a very heartless person if you can’t see that a son has a responsibility to take care of his mother.”
“You’re trash,” I said. “I have no interest in keeping trash alive.”
“You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for me.”
“I don’t want to be alive,” I said. “You never should have had me. You should have had an abortion.” Then I stormed off.
But, yeah, nobody’s perfect.
The local Africans just figured ... hey, they love us and like sharing their stuff with us.
Serve's 'em right.Replies: @bomag, @Anonymous
The day after ‘France’ won the 2018 football world cup, a big mob of Africans stormed the fence of that Spanish outpost in Morocco in order to get into Europe. I think I’m the only one who noticed the connection between the two events.
Even the earliest bands called “New Wave” came several years after German synth music, which began in the late 60s/early 70s. Afrika Bambaataa pretty much created the techno scene by rapping over a Kraftwerk song that was already at least six years old at the time. I dare you to listen to Kraftwerk and find anything even slightly African about them. Can, maybe, but not Kraftwerk…
I’ve been hearing all my life how the blues somehow arrived straight from Africa, despite the fact that it’s one of the most clear examples of a creole synthesis in music history. You hear more ancestry of the blues in the folk music of the British Isles than you do in any music native to Africa. The blues is merely a fork of the same tradition that produced bluegrass, and then classic country music. There was very good reason to name the bar CBGB…
Gospel has a little more identifiable relationship to the traditional vocal harmonies of sub-Saharan Africa, but even so the main component is Christian hymns, and the main instrumentation is piano and organ. Even modern gospel ends up sounding like a distant second cousin to traditional African singing, but a direct descendant of 18th/19th Century American church music.
Jazz started with the early 19th Century touring and ‘parade’ bands whose repertoire was originally a mix of show tunes, hymns and patriotic songs. We’re talking 99% white guys playing songs by 99% white composers. It was only after it took a few turns in places like New Orleans — the epicenter of American creole synthesis — that these bands started to feature any distinctive ‘black flavor’ that wasn’t simply minstrel caricatures.
Of course it was largely that flavor that took over the jazz evolution and gave it it’s name, but even well into the Big Band era it was still mostly white and Jewish guys composing or playing songs from the Great American Songbook, increasingly but not always with a featured black singer or soloist. It wasn’t until people like Coltrane and Miles Davis came on the scene that black artists really started to be the rule rather than the exception as far as composition and innovation.
Don’t get me wrong, countless black performers put their unmistakable mark on any style of music they chose. Some of the most talented even inspired entire distinct lines of musical development. But every existing style of music is a synthesis and/or development of styles that preceded it. Focusing on only part of the inspiration to the point of obscuring or denying the vast weight of the tradition that it builds upon is the result of either ignorance or an agenda, or both.
Whoever came up with the idea of putting hot fudge on vanilla ice cream was brilliant. But you gotta be suspicious when someone keeps telling you that the 90% of the sundae that is ice cream doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter.
I've been hearing all my life how the blues somehow arrived straight from Africa, despite the fact that it's one of the most clear examples of a creole synthesis in music history. You hear more ancestry of the blues in the folk music of the British Isles than you do in any music native to Africa. The blues is merely a fork of the same tradition that produced bluegrass, and then classic country music. There was very good reason to name the bar CBGB...
Gospel has a little more identifiable relationship to the traditional vocal harmonies of sub-Saharan Africa, but even so the main component is Christian hymns, and the main instrumentation is piano and organ. Even modern gospel ends up sounding like a distant second cousin to traditional African singing, but a direct descendant of 18th/19th Century American church music.
Jazz started with the early 19th Century touring and 'parade' bands whose repertoire was originally a mix of show tunes, hymns and patriotic songs. We're talking 99% white guys playing songs by 99% white composers. It was only after it took a few turns in places like New Orleans -- the epicenter of American creole synthesis -- that these bands started to feature any distinctive 'black flavor' that wasn't simply minstrel caricatures.
Of course it was largely that flavor that took over the jazz evolution and gave it it's name, but even well into the Big Band era it was still mostly white and Jewish guys composing or playing songs from the Great American Songbook, increasingly but not always with a featured black singer or soloist. It wasn't until people like Coltrane and Miles Davis came on the scene that black artists really started to be the rule rather than the exception as far as composition and innovation.
Don't get me wrong, countless black performers put their unmistakable mark on any style of music they chose. Some of the most talented even inspired entire distinct lines of musical development. But every existing style of music is a synthesis and/or development of styles that preceded it. Focusing on only part of the inspiration to the point of obscuring or denying the vast weight of the tradition that it builds upon is the result of either ignorance or an agenda, or both.
Whoever came up with the idea of putting hot fudge on vanilla ice cream was brilliant. But you gotta be suspicious when someone keeps telling you that the 90% of the sundae that is ice cream doesn't exist or doesn't matter.Replies: @Anonymous
It would be nice to see an objective history of this but that’s impossible in the current climate. Too much propaganda and agenda-pushing.
I guess the idea was to provide an antidote to the overwhelming nature of traditional culture... who could have guessed that teens and 20-somethings were easily persuaded that traditional culture didn't matter lol
Yep, music history has been hijacked by “ethnomusicology” which almost ensures that agendas are the rule. I was lucky enough to get through a decent college of music in the early 90s when there were still some objective views, but even so most of the professors and curriculum were inclined to highlight the contributions of marginalized populations rather than provide a comprehensive overview.
I guess the idea was to provide an antidote to the overwhelming nature of traditional culture… who could have guessed that teens and 20-somethings were easily persuaded that traditional culture didn’t matter lol