Tears of a Clownsilly

Helter Skelter













Make fun of Paul McCartney all you want, "Helter Skelter" off the Beatles' greatest album, and one of my most favorite albums ever, The Beatles (White Album), is one of the most frightening songs of all time. I just relistened to the whole album, and this song was for me as a child the embodiment of all that was unknown and evil. Even after hearing Fugazi, Sonic Youth and Blood Brothers live, this is still the most harshly punkish and "hardcore" song I've ever heard.
The demonic way Paul laughs the first time he says "Yeah yeah yeah" (a ironic mirror of the famous phrase of the Beatles' early cheery tune "She Loves You") , the guitar screeching bird-screams towards the end, Ringo's famous finishing line. Amazininginginging.

Christmas
And Joseph, hir hosebonde, for he was riytful, and wolde not puplische hir, he wolde priueli haue left hir. But while he thouyte thes thingis, lo! the aungel of the Lord apperide in sleep to hym, and seide, Joseph, the sone of Dauid, nyle thou drede to take Marie, thi wijf; for that thing that is borun in hir is of the Hooli Goost. And she shal bere a sone, and thou shalt clepe his name Jhesus; for he schal make his puple saaf fro her synnes. For al this thing was don, that it schulde be fulfillid, that was seid of the Lord bi a prophete, seiynge, Lo! a virgyn shal haue in wombe, and she schal bere a sone, and thei schulen clepe his name Emanuel, that is to seie, God with vs. And Joseph roos fro sleepe, and dide as the aungel of the Lord comaundide hym, and took Marie, his wijf; and he knew her not, til she hadde borun her firste bigete sone, and clepide his name Jhesus. Therfor whanne Jhesus was borun in Bethleem of Juda, in the daies of king Eroude, lo! astromyenes camen fro the eest to Jerusalem, and seiden, Where is he, that is borun king of Jewis? for we han seyn his sterre in the eest, and we comen to worschipe him. But king Eroude herde, and was trublid, and al Jerusalem with hym. And he gaderide to gidre alle the prynces of prestis, and scribis of the puple, and enqueride of hem, where Crist shulde be borun. And thei seiden to hym, In Bethleem of Juda; for so it is writun bi a profete, And thou, Bethleem, the lond of Juda, art not the leest among the prynces of Juda; for of thee a duyk schal go out, that schal gouerne my puple of Israel. Thanne Eroude clepide pryueli the astromyens, and lernyde bisili of hem the tyme of the sterre that apperide to hem. And he sente hem in to Bethleem, and seide, Go ye, and axe ye bisili of the child, and whanne yee han foundun, telle ye it to me, that Y also come, and worschipe hym. And whanne thei hadden herd the kyng, thei wenten forth. And lo! the sterre, that thei siyen in the eest, wente bifore hem, til it cam, and stood aboue, where the child was. And thei siyen the sterre, and ioyeden with a ful greet ioye. And thei entriden in to the hous, and founden the child with Marie, his modir; and thei felden doun, and worschipiden him. And whanne thei hadden openyd her tresouris, thei offryden to hym yiftis, gold, encense, and myrre. And whanne thei hadden take an aunswere in sleep, that thei schulden not turne ayen to Eroude, thei turneden ayen bi anothir weie in to her cuntrey. And whanne thei weren goon, lo! the aungel of the Lord apperide to Joseph in sleep, and seide, Rise vp, and take the child and his modir, and fle in to Egipt, and be thou there, til that I seie to thee; for it is to come, that Eroude seke the child, to destrie hym. And Joseph roos, and took the child and his modir bi nyyt, and wente in to Egipt, and he was there to the deeth of Eroude; that it schulde be fulfillid, that was seid of the Lord bi the profete, seiynge, Fro Egipt Y haue clepid my sone. Thanne Eroude seynge that he was disseyued of the astromyens, was ful wrooth; and he sente, and slowe alle the children, that weren in Bethleem, and in alle the coostis therof, fro two yeer age and with inne, aftir the tyme that he had enquerid of the astromyens.Thanne it was fulfillid, that was seid bi Jeremye, the profete,seiynge, A vois was herd an hiy, wepynge and moche weilyng, Rachel biwepynge hir sones, and she wolde not be coumfortid, for thei ben noyt. But whanne Eroude was deed, loo! the aungel of the Lord apperide to Joseph in sleep in Egipt, and seide, Ryse vp, and take the child and his modir, and go in to the lond of Israel; for thei that souyten the lijf of the chijld ben deed. Joseph roos, and took the child and his modir, and cam in to the loond of Israel.And he herde that Archilaus regnede in Judee for Eroude, his fadir, and dredde to go thidir. And he was warned in sleep, and wente in to the parties of Galilee; and cam, and dwelte in a citee, that ys clepid Nazareth, that it shulde be fulfillid, that was seid bi profetis, For he shal be clepid a Nazarey.

-The Wyclif Bible (1395. Middle English. John Wyclif-not Wyclef Jean)-Matthew Ch. 1: 18-25, Ch. 2: 1-23.


HAPPY HOLIDAYS YOU BASTARDS!
LUV,
Pattycakes

Meme of Four











So I guess respected Bloggers like Alex Ross and Kyle Gann have turned into teenage girls filling out internet surveys. I have to be myself instead, and by being myself, I have to copy them.
Look out for "What LOTR Character Will You Marry?" on Juan Cole's blog next week.

Four Jobs You've Had in Your Life: I've had one. Librarian.

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over Again: Amadeus, Hoop Dreams, Andrei Rublev, Great Expectations (David Lean)

Four Places You've Lived: Only two. Saint Paul, and Minneapolis.

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch: The Daily Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Unsolved Mysteries, Real World

Four Places You've Been on Vacation: Oh man. This is fascinating. Chicago, San Francisco, Deadwood South Dakota, Duluth Minnesota. I'm a globetrotter.

Four Websites You Visit Daily: Slate, James Wolcott, NBA.com, Wikipedia

Four of Your Favorite Foods: Hamburgers, Turkey (I eat with relish the gizzards of beasts and fowl), Chocolate Chip Cookies Homemade Stylez, Peanut Butter M&M's. I am a fatty mcfatfat.

Four Places You'd Rather Be: Loving arms, Loving Arms, Loving Arms and Vancouver.

Preparing to Scale Mount Elikon



















I finally have in my grasp a copy of Harrison Birtwistle's three-hour opera The Mask of Orpheus, a work that I've been jonesin' to hear. Birtwistle is fascinating to me, and this opera is perhaps at least in regards to the theatrical aspect, the most complicated ever written. Just looking at the immensely detailed libretto made my nerdy head spin and swoon. (Can a head swoon?) The Orphic myth has inspired some of my favorite musical works before (Monteverdi, Gluck, Stravinsky), and this perhaps a worthy successor.
It is going to take time and concentration but I'm up to Birtwistle's challenge. I will post here my thoughts after listening. From the bits and pieces I've heard of it, and from reading the libretto it reminds me of a sort of musical "Finnegans Wake"; I could see it becoming one of my favorite pieces.

If I don't post here about it, I either hated it or am dead, in which case notify the proper authorities.

Separated at Birth I

Anton Bruckner:




















David Byrne:

trees that weep incense...
On Kaija Saariaho














53-year old Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho writes exotic electronic/acoustic music that sounds like an Indonesian gamelan orchestra underwater.

A impressionist magician of sorts, Saariaho (prounounced 'Sorry-ah-ho') creates harmonically exquisite works, pulsating as slow as strawberry molasses and orchestrated with chimes and gongs, rumbling cello and string harmonics, electronically altered who-knows what, harps, vibraphones, woodwinds, whispers and half-spoken words (she often asks the instrumentalist to whisper and sing certain words while playing), amplified candles, electric Moon dreams (tutti) etc.

Her main influences seem to be Claude Debussy's sensuous plays of light and shade, the mystical harmonist of the stars Olivier Messiaen, and Bed Bath and Beyond. That being said, the music is stylistically some of the most interesting and sui generis classical being written today.

I've been listening much to her violin concerto for Gideon Kremer Graal Theatre, and her fantabulous NoaNoa for flute and electronics. I also have purchased and watched the DVD of her masterful (though perhaps a tad spotty-a TAD) first opera L'Amour de loin conducted by the always masterful, never spotty Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by the high-haired Peter Sellars. Like all her pieces, it's fascinating, hypnotic and sensual almost to the point of perversity (the opening ten minutes gave me goosebumps). I have mixed feelings about the libretto and staging on the DVD; the story and the words are too frothy for this 100% heterosexual American white male, and the enigmatically minimalist Act One set decorations of two staircases punishingly limit soprano Dawn Upshaw to endlessly walk up and down them in pornographic emotional angst for a half an hour.

Despite that and my gripe Saariaho's concentration on dainty and new-agey themes for some of her work ('Water', 'Wind', 'Ice ', Herbal Tea), the opera is quite awe-inspiring in parts and stands up well to repeated hearings. One must be in the right languid mood to enter Saariaho's dreamy and often slightly-troubling world, but as Salonen points out in his insightful interview on the DVD, when she is feeling the inspiration, the music seems to stop time like it's Zach Morris from "Saved By the Bell"* while inviting you to float around in some slow-motion ritual in reverse where the ambiguity of not knowing what is happening is the only object of worship.



*My simile, not Salonen's.

Good Ol' Lou












I'm a terrible pessimist... I really don't think we're going to make it. But every so often, there's some little ray of hope.
-Lou Harrision

Why the Drudge Report is Pure Evil (Part 2109):

Look at this advertisement from the popular "news" site:









I love they make him out to be some sort of Saint Sebastian who needs the help of Joe American. No, folks, he's a loathsome man who deserves every arrow. He can take it; He buys cigars and rounds of Golf with the money you lost when he refused the President's low-income tax cut. Let him hit the ground, play the martyr, in the end he's a specimen of all the is wrong with the United States Congress, the Bush Administration, and the country in general.

There should be a study done of these rich Southern oilmen who grow up spoiled Drunk womanizers and suddenly find Jesus and become crusaders for "American values" and "justice". It seems to be a trend.

Happy Birthday Elliott Carter

























America's best loved monster of atonality Elliott Carter turns 97 today. This man was friends with Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives (!).

Here's to growing old without losing any of your intellectual dynanism. I plan to play "Happy Birthday" in all the keys at once, in nine different time signatures in his honor.

Song of the Week!















Talk Talk-"Ascension Day"

How Talk Talk transformed from a poppy new-wave band in the early 80s to a free-jazz-folk-rock band in the late 80s is a mystery to me, but their final three albums are so incredibly beautiful and strange that it doesn't matter. Their final masterpiece, "Laughing Stock", is one of the most unique and amazing albums I have ever heard. Full of long, languid songs that seem to drift outside the fabric of Time, Space, and Pop Structure, and beautiful acoustic jazz/orchestral instrumentation.
"Ascension Day" however, is the most rocking song on the album. A sort of jazz-blues with Hammond Organ, a shifting time signature, and an infamous one-note guitar solo.
Check it out, as always HERE:
www.myspace.com/kidickz

And yes, it just ends that way.

Bill O' Reilly Interviews Howard Stern





















It is a sight to behold. Two titans of ego, two warriors of ignorant talk-radio, two self-appointed "everyman" millionaires, talking trade. While Howard Stern understands at heart he is nothing but a jester, delighting millions with sex and scatology, Bill O'Reilly makes the fatal mistake of taking himself seriously with every fiber of his bulkily blotchy body.

Wally Szczerbiak Amendment


















In my recent post on the 'Most Depressing Things Ever', I somewhat cruely named Minnesota Timberwolves small forward Wally Szczerbiak. He has always been a sorespot for me, a inconsistant player with flickering talent. This year however, and the last 5 games, he has been a true badass, averaging 21 points per game.
Tonight the Wolves are going for their fourth win in a row against the struggling Portland Trail-Blazers, a team whose name both means 'Blazing the Trail' (Changing the world) and 'Blazing the Oregon Trail' (Taking your 19th century family to California and slaughtering Indians along the way). I'm going to be playing some music with friends so I can't watch the game, but I am sure it's going to be a no-contest thanks to Garnett, Szczerbiak, Hudson et. al.

**Edit (1:35 AM): The Timberwolves Won. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Ligeti's Etudes












Ligeti's Etudes for piano are some of the most vital and important pieces written in the last 20 years. Through understanding the profound creativity and thinking behind this man's work, and especially these virtuostic piano studies, I believe you can begin to grasp some of the directions serious art music can go in the future.
I want to avoid "this is the music of the future!" cliches, as Ligeti's music is not ever labeled so easily. Also, the idea of "what the future holds" for the human mind is always simply the exaggeration of arrestive aspects of the present. Thus if one wonders what we will use as transportation in the future, one will immediately think "flying-(something or other)", where a common mode of terrestial transportation at the moment, such as a car/boat/bike/train, becomes aerial.
Another example would be when film directors give us a glimpse into some ficticious 'future city', it always is just a more incandescent Tokyo, with lots of men in leather and techno blaring. Surely the early 90s German club scene is the future!

But of course the future is just a continuation of the past, and it feeds on what can exist at the moment, or what has existed. When it comes to music, and specifically these piano Etudes of Ligeti, the past infuses them with it's common substances, and continually distorts itself into something new through various bold ways. It has always been the norm in post-modernism to simply use quotation and pastiche as a way to 'use' the art that has come before, but this gets us nowhere new. It is nothing but the dismissal of 'something' for the acceptance of 'anything'.
It is akin to answering a simple addition equation by making fun of the way numbers are drawn:
"6 + 5 = 'Doesn't an 8 sorta look like a Snowman?!'"

Ligeti and his piano Etudes are bold, funny, ingenious, serious, fresh, full of sincerity without sentimentality, meticulously devised but effortlessly flowing. They offer fresh new answers for these nagging questions in contemporary art-music. "Is tonality finished"? Listen to White on White from Book Three. Is that music tonal? It almost only uses the white keys, so one expects something diatonic or modal, but one gets something different. No longer does modern music need to insert diatonic 'allusions' into extremely chromatic music to achieve some sense of 'harmony' or even 'nostalgia'. Here Ligeti uses the most simple scale and finds the spring of emotion and expression running the gamut from gentle calm, to disturbing unease. It is a challenge to the challenge of so-called 'post-Tonal'* music. If you have the genius of a Ligeti, you can work such seeming 'miracles'.

Leonard Bernstein spoke of Stravinsky and his neoclassical gang as bringing "tonality refreshers". This too often can seem to mean adding little spicy dissonances and spiky rhythmic assymetries in primarily diatonic music. That's ONE way. When it is done perfectly (Stravinsky), it can make music as great as any other. Just as when incredibly atonal and heavily structured music is done perfectly (Berg), it can make great music.
Ligeti's late music (following the Horn Trio) seems to walk the tightrope in the most interesting and discerning ways imaginable between tonality and atonality, rhythm and polyrhythm, melody and counterpoint. It is a 'refresher' in the greatest, June breeze, Ice-Cold Sierra Mist sense of the term. No longer is music after Schoenberg and Webern and Stravinsky a choice between John Cage's zen minimalist game and Boulez' "I know it sounds like gay wasps are attacking you but look how brilliant my methods are" game. The future is a little less bleak thanks to great men like György.

Ligeti's music tells us that the future is limitless, but never aimless.





*There is no 'post-tonal' music. There is 'post-Andy Richter' Conan O'Brien, 'post-Ozzy' Black Sabbath, but no 'post-tonal' music. Tonality and atonality can live together happily and you can use any means you want know to create. There are no rules. Except pleasure. That's the law according to my Chef de Police Musicale Debussy, famously (but perhaps mythically) said.

prose poem for my birthday.












Today marks a milestone in my brave fight against (inevitable) death
I have lived 20 years as of 4am, December the 4th
I am living and there is blood flowing in my veins that carry cells to my muscles and nerves carry brain impulses that give my body information to survive against (inevitable) death because I am a mammal of the species 'homo sapien' which evolved from lower life-forms as almost everything did over a huge period of time I am descended from my parents and their parents and all the way back to bacteria in the warm oceans on a planet that was named 'Earth' by homo sapiens long after the fact that orbits a star called the 'Sun' which itself is just one of many in a galaxy called the Milky Way which itself is just a single galaxy among many in a universe with no beginning or end
I live in Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota and have all my life. I attended Catholic Schools for 12 years and graduated from High School in the year 2004 they gave me a diploma that was signed by the President of the school there named Brother Michael and the principal "Great job Patrick" great job at living for 18 years and completing school (not all do, y'know?) Great job Patrick now what? Oh and here's the Archbishop that will shake your hand on the altar of the Basillca of Saint Mary he's such a sweet guy I had my picture taken with him he opposed the Iraq war y'know caused controversy shake his hand he's such a sweet man although I don't share his beliefs he's a truly great man
And I'll go to school and get a degree which will allow me to get a job and do something I like so I can make money to eat and live comfortably and buy a nice Ikea urginomic chair or sofa and then I will do that till I can retire where I will then plan on my (inevitable death)
And is there a woman for good ol' Pattycakes who will love him and will she bore children that will keep my truly excellent DNA and genes alive (in a sense) and where is she right now and what is she doing and thinking about
I myself am looking out the window and it's snowing so quietly I hear my blood and thinking about how I'm hungry.

My Favorite Composers (an ongoing series moving through history chronologically like a mathematical bluebird flying through a grandfather clock)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)















Das ich einmal etwas, woraus sich was lernen laesst!
('At last, this is something I can learn from!')

-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Bach

Positively 4th Street















Bob Dylan gets a lot of flack for his voice, which is generally accepted to be 'bad'.
But on this track, one of Dylan's most perfect one-verses, he delivers a vocal performance that has the control, solid pitch and rhythm that rivals any Placido Domingo. The way how each time around he deftly plays the melody a little different, falling behind the rhythm before catching up, altering the volume of his voice when a particularly spirted lyric inspires him, when combined with the funky bar-band 'Blonde on Blonde' era backup pounding the changes, gives the song a mesmeric magnetism.

If Dylan would have put this track at the end of 'Blonde on Blonde', between 'Obviously Five Believers' and 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' he would have had himself a truly perfect album.

Thank God for computers! Now you can do that yourself!
;)

P.S. I'm extremely late. Why did I write this?

Fuck You, Singapore.








Fuck you, Singapore.
You are a horrible country.
You are nothing but an ugly cousin of China.
You get pounded for centuries by colonizing forces and then you claim that sweet, sweet freedom and what do you do with it? You take away the freedoms of your citizens and cane and hang those who disobey.
You have the highest execution rate in the world. You have imprisoned those who say dirty words on the internet. You have caned people for spray painting. And today, you hanged a young man for having drugs. And guess what? He wasn't even from your country. He was Australian. But ya did it anyway and you loved every heart-vein exploding, neck-snappin' minute of it!
Please read this and think about this poor man, who although did something 'wrong', payed a price no one should pay.

Singapore you should hang your head at your abuse of human rights, justice, and what you've done to Van Tuong Nguyen and his family and friends. And I'm not sure you as a country are reading this right now, but I'm saying what I think, and you aren't going to hang me for it. The first time I'll ever say these words:
'Cue the Lee Greenwood'.

Fuck you Singapore.
You were better off under Britain.

Piece of the Week!










I have hit upon an idea so fabulous and wonderous that I can hardly contain myself. It is the TEARS OF A CLOWNSILLY PIECE OF THE WEEK!.
Here's the scoop:

Each week (or each 'once in a while') I will write about a new classical piece or section, jazz, pop or rap song I'm diggin' and host it on my musical beat-makin alter-ego Kid Icarus' Myspace*.
So now, you will be able to read about what I like, and then listen to what I like! It's a wonderful way to indulge your love of the things I love, and we can talk about what I love and celebrate my interests in one big Festival of Self (or for you, Festival of Me, which means 'you' since you are talking about me).

Luigi Dallapiccola-Danza di Apollo (from the ballet Marsia)









This week's piece is the Danza di Apollo ('Dance of Apollo') from Luigi Dallapiccola's 1943 ballet Marsia. The last purely diatonic music the great Italian serialist wrote, Marsia is a neo-classical and harmonically sophisticated work of great skill and clarity that at times brings to mind the great Greek ballets of Stravinsky. At the center of the work is Apollo's dance, and what a dope-ass dance it is. Full of obsessively pounded dissonant chords, huge jazzy open-fifths and wonderfully focused and flowing energy, Dallapiccola's Apollo is not elegant and shrewd like Stravinsky's, but powerful and of great bredth.

LISTEN TO 'DANZA DI APOLLO' (OR AS CHAZ KANGAS CALLS IT, 'TONY DANZA DI APOLLO 13') HERE: www.myspace.com/kidickz
Please DOWNLOAD and listen as it works better and is even MORE illegal.
ENJOY and post your thoughts before the record companies sue me.

*This is EXTREMELY illegal!