Phil's Occasional Musings

a few quick tech thoughts

2012-02-21T11:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know why I keep charging my work-issued Blackberry. I never look at it. I can get my work email on my phone and my (also-work-issued) iPad, so I hardly ever use the Blackberry. I suppose it's more out of a sense of obligation that I keep it nearby and ready. I can't stand the interface compared to iOS, and the little keys have never been kind to my giant fingers.

Speaking of the iPad, I've been reading George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones novels on my tablet with the Kindle e-reader. I wanted to read the books but I couldn't imagine carrying around large book after large book for weeks. It seemed to be the right time to give ebooks a shot. Aside from a bit of glare on the screen, I hardly notice I'm not reading a paper book. The fonts look the same as the printed versions, and while there are no page numbers, there's a page counter and index a tap away. I love that the Kindle app includes a free dictionary to look up those archaic medieval terms, and the search feature makes it easy to find a character's previous appearances. I do have to be careful when I'm carrying the iPad around at lunch, especially outside. It would break my heart to drop it.

I still like real, physical books for some things, like signed copies and sharing with friends, but I have to admit that ebooks are better than I expected. And given a dearth of space on my bookshelf at home, I think there will be more ebooks in my future. My future is now!

An obligatory SOPA/PIPA post

2012-01-18T16:14:00.000-05:00

It's Internet Blackout Day, etc., etc. You know that already. The Unofficial Apple Weblog posted a long but worthwhile article this morning about why they're opposed to the bills. Chris Rawson describes in detail all of the effort and trouble he has when he wants to watch the latest episode of a new show from a major US network in New Zealand. It's maddeningly difficult, and it's all because the MPAA and RIAA want to prevent piracy. Here's the best quote I've read all day about this issue:

Here's how you stop piracy: You won't. Ever. There will always be people who want something for nothing, and no amount of trying is going to stop those people from looking for and finding it. Just accept it and move on.
Here's how you reduce piracy: Make it easier for people who want to access and pay for your content. That means no more arbitrary restrictions on what devices we can view it on. That means making the same content available to everyone, worldwide, simultaneously or as close to it as feasible, and at a fair price that consumers won't balk at.

I've already contacted my congressional representatives, even though Senators Schumer and Gillibrand are co-sponsors of the bill. Maybe all our opposition to it will sway them to withdraw their support. Maybe it will get them to tell the MPAA, RIAA, and other organizations behind the legislation to find different ways of solving this issue that don't involve censoring the innocent.

Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic play Bruckner

2012-01-14T01:09:00.002-05:00

On Friday night we braved the wind and cold to venture uptown to Lincoln Center for a New York Philharmonic performance of Bruckner's Symphony No. 8. It was my first time seeing former Philharmonic music director in person on the podium, but Bruckner was the main reason I was there. The 8th Symphony is a massive work: 80+ minutes of gorgeous brass chorales, shimmering string chords, and beautiful woodwind solos. Mehta led the orchestra through a well-paced reading of the symphony, taking things a bit slower than I expected in the first and second movements, but always with a sense of motion and energy. The third movement built to climax after climax, culminating in perhaps my favorite moment in the entire work, a tremendous explosion with a cymbal crash. (One thing I like about hearing this piece in person is watching the percussionists on cymbal and triangle, who sit behind the timpani for the entire work only to play a few measures in the slow movement.) The finale thrilled me as always, from its terrifying opening to its glorious conclusion. Mehta seemed to be much appreciated and well-received by the audience. As with Mahler, if the Philharmonic is playing Bruckner, I'll do whatever I can to be there.

A couple of other notes:

There were plenty of empty seats in the first and second tiers. I guess Bruckner isn't as beloved in New York as Mahler.

The audience laughed and applauded after Alec Baldwin's recorded announcement to turn off cell phones. I didn't see anyone on the orchestra level with phones out during the concert. And I saw ushers on either side of the orchestra level, near the side doors, taking turns keeping an eye on things.

The young (college-age?) kid in front of me conducted and cued a tiny orchestra in front of him for most of the concert. His girlfriend didn't notice or didn't care. The guy next to him seemed exasperated and left quickly after the concert ended. It was more than a little distracting, and I was sitting behind the kid. I might have kicked him if I'd been next to him.

Alan Gilbert responds to the Mahler phone incident

2012-01-11T17:17:00.001-05:00

Alex Ross linked to Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert's response to last night's Mahler incident in the New York Times' ArtsBeat blog. Gilbert was as astonished by the audacity of the offending patron as the rest of the audience. The Times also notes that the ushers should have stepped in to get the people involved to silence the phone, but did not.

The ushers do not answer directly to orchestra management, and Mr. Gilbert said no ushers were in sight at the time of the ringing. “I heard this morning that ushers in the hall claimed they didn’t hear it, which sounds ridiculous to me,” he said. “Everybody could hear it.”

I almost always sit in the second tier center of Avery Fisher Hall, which gives me a view of the entire front of the hall. I never see ushers near the front of the stage. If the ushers stand inside the hall, they must be at the back. So I can understand why they might not have heard anything if they weren't in the hall itself, but the hallway outside. But that defeats the purpose of having ushers in the first place. I'll look again on Friday night for some floor-level ushers.

We're not kidding when we say "silence your phones" at a concert

2012-01-11T11:36:00.001-05:00

Last night, at the New York Philharmonic, the final performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 had an extra performer: a persistent ringing iPhone. According to several eyewitness reports (see the comments as well), a patron in the left front of the hall near the stage neglected to silence their phone and then paid no heed as it rang and rang with an alarm throughout the last movement of the symphony. Music Director Alan Gilbert broke protocol and stopped the orchestra, admonished the concertgoer, who by this time had figured out how to turn off their phone or otherwise stop the alarm, then apologized to the audience before resuming the symphony.

Mr. Kinchen discussed the audience's reaction to the ringing phone. After Gilbert stopped the orchestra, some people in the hall shouted "get out!" "throw them out!" and "Turn off the phone!" Mr. Kinchen took issue with the reaction, suggesting that it was disproportionate to the severity of the offense:

Whoever had owned the phone had made an honest mistake, one that just about anyone else in the audience could possibly have made, yet here, at Lincoln Center, listening to The Symphony, this violation was enough to draw the ire and ill will of hundreds of people. Sophisticated people who had come for a night of culture and music and proceeded to be reduced, for a few moments, to the early stages of an angry mob.
In the name of keeping with the etiquette of this classy and cultured event, these people got so worked up they were actually shouting, not cursing mind you, for that would be uncultured, but shouting angrily. And when Gilbert finally dealt with the situation, the response was the cathartic release of pent up aggression. Blatant, almost animal aggression, at the symphony, over a ringing phone. Maybe I’m new to the whole symphony culture but to me it seemed a bit much.

I wasn't there, so my comments are based on what I've read above. As a musician and an audience member, there is nothing that offends me more than a disruptive noise during a concert. When I'm performing, a noise such as a ringing phone distracts me and breaks my concentration. I'm certain it does the same thing for my fellow musicians, who are all trying to hear each other and play together as an ensemble. As an audience member, it's even worse. I listen to recorded classical music at work, on the subway, and at home. I'm used to interruptions such as answering the phone, talking to my co-workers, cats breaking things, etc. But when I go to a performance in a concert hall, I've spent money for an uninterrupted musical experience. For two hours, I get the enjoyment of classical music without the distractions of phone calls, Twitter, people talking about work, and so on.

When a phone rings during a concert, that's intrusive not just to the musicians who are working so hard to put on the best performance possible, but to the audience that has paid money to enjoy a concert in near-silence. That's why the Philharmonic has Alec Baldwin remind everyone to silence cell phones and other electronic devices. It's not just for the musicians, it's for the audience as well. And that means everyone. How hard is it to turn off your phone for two hours? If you can't live without your phone being on and available, maybe you shouldn't go to a classical music concert.

As for the audience reaction, I agree with Mr. Kinchen that some of the shouts from the crowd seem to have been excessive. I'm sure that they came from people like myself who would be offended that a ringing phone disturbed their intimate musical experience. But that doesn't mean you should shout out things like "get out!" and "thousand dollar fine!" There's a certain level of decorum we should maintain at concerts and while one person clearly ignored that by leaving their phone on, that's no excuse for the mob mentality that comes with the anger at the disruption. There's no need for angry shouts. I doubt that the crowd would have turned on that patron physically, although there was a brawl in the balcony at a Boston Pops concert a few years ago. In any case, let's try to remain calm even in our anger.

I do approve of Gilbert's reaction to the patron: abject humiliation. If it had been me sitting there, I would have been so mortified that I might not ever return to Avery Fisher Hall. I'm going back on Friday night and my phone will most definitely be turned off long before Alec Baldwin reminds me.

some quick thoughts on Saturday night's concert

2012-01-09T11:46:00.001-05:00

What struck me about Saturday night's New York Philharmonic performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony were the woodwinds. This symphony is a feast for the wind section and the Philharmonic's players (with extra flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons) made a strong impression, especially in the second and third movements. The double fugue in the third movement really stood out, as the entire orchestra plowed through Mahler's intricate counterpoint. The last movement, with its lush, full string chords, reminded me of the finale of his Third Symphony, but this time the melodies were more elegiac than romantic. Alan Gilbert and the Philharmonic received several well-deserved ovations, pointing out once again that New York loves Mahler (and, I hope, Gilbert's interpretations of Mahler).

I'm really looking forward to Saturday night

2012-01-06T12:39:00.005-05:00

Saturday night will be my first of two New York Philharmonic concerts this month, the other one next Saturday evening. Paul Pelkonen at Superconductor posted a review of last night's performance and it sounds like Alan Gilbert has successfully transplanted his approach to Mahler's Ninth Symphony from his previous post at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra to New York. Yesterday, I listened to Gilbert's 2009 recording of the symphony with that ensemble and hoped that I'd hear something similar to that on Saturday. It sounds like I will. Also, Thomas Ades' new work "Polaris" uses antiphonal brass, which is always a plus.

I'll try to have a brief review of my own up here on Saturday or Sunday.

Ooh, Google+ integration!

2011-12-27T12:56:00.000-05:00

With a few clicks of the mouse, my ancient profile photo from my 2004 business trip to Tokyo is gone, replaced by a photo from earlier this year(?), and I've linked this blog to my Google+ page. Unless there's a way to cross-post Google+ posts here, I don't see this making a big impact on my blogging life.

I could have predicted this would happen

2011-12-02T15:40:00.001-05:00

The Times has an article today about the etiquette of talking to your cellphone's "personal assistant" in public. Surprise: most people don't like when others do it and think it's creepy. We are still working out the rules and behaviors for using this new feature on our phones. And while the best implementation is on the iPhone 4S, it won't be long before Android and Blackberry phones add personal assistants. We're only going to see more of these apps.

I have a iPhone 4S, but I haven't gotten into a habit of using Siri for much more than the occasional reminder or alarm. Even at home, where I'll talk to my cats like they're people, I'm reluctant to talk to my phone lest my girlfriend think I'm crazy. And at work? Forget it. My co-workers would think I'd lost my mind if I dictated messages to my phone. So that leaves out in public on the street, where I don't care what people think. Unfortunately, Siri doesn't work well in loud environments or in areas with poor network coverage, so dictating alerts or web searches is difficult. As the service improves and our societal comfort level with it increases, I'm sure I'll use it more. But for now I'll stick to typing out my messages as much as possible. It's cramped but it certainly is quiet.

Don Giovanni at the Met

2011-11-14T10:53:00.001-05:00

On Friday evening we had the pleasure of seeing the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. It had been about five years since I'd seen a Mozart opera at the Met (or anywhere else) and Don Giovanni had long been on my my list of must-see operas, so I happily bought two tickets for this production. Our seats were in the dress circle, which not only gave us a great view of the stage but of the orchestra pit as well. We could watch conductor Louis Langree as he led the singers and orchestras through this long masterpiece, and we could see the musicians come and go as needed. The trumpeters only appeared a few minutes before they had notes to play, disappearing through a back door as soon as they were done. The lone trombonist played at the beginning and the end.

The sets weren't too elaborate, allowing the singers to be the show instead of the scenery. The fire effects that shot out of the floor at the end, when the Commendatore condemns Don Giovanni to hell for his actions, could be felt all the way in the back of the hall. It was a most impressive ending.

The opera itself was outstanding. Mariusz Kwiecien played the title character as a breezily dark lothario, not quite evil but unconcerned with the repercussions of his womanizing ways. Luca Pisaroni's Leporello provided plenty of comic relief throughout, but especially in Act II when he pretended to be the Don and distracted Donna Elvira. Speaking of which, Barbara Frittoli played Donna Elvira mostly for comedic effect, though her pain at her multiple betrayals by the Don was evident in her arias late in the opera. I enjoyed this production so much that by the end my face was sore from smiling.

Being late for the Philharmonic isn't so bad

2011-10-30T15:58:00.002-04:00

We left Brooklyn at 6:45 PM for a 8 PM New York Philharmonic concert last night. The subways are always screwed up on weekends but I assumed that allowing ourselves over an hour would leave us plenty of time. However, the D train had other plans. Our train stopped between Broadway-Lafayette and West 4th Street, and we sat for about 20 minutes. The conductor told us that there was a power problem north of 59th Street, so the D trains were all unloading passengers at West 4th Street and that we would unload there as soon as possible. We didn't get to West 4th until 7:40 PM, and even after a quick transfer to the 1 train at Christopher Street we didn't get to Avery Fisher Hall until a few minutes after 8 PM. It was the first time I've ever been late for a concert.

The ushers directed us to the Helen Hull Room on the second tier level, where the orchestra holds its pre-concert lectures. There we found several rows of chairs facing a big-screen TV and high-quality speakers, and we were able to see and hear most of the first piece on last night's program, Schubert's Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished." I was a little out of sorts to really focus on the music, but I appreciated the balance among the sections. There were elements of the harmonies that conductor Kurt Masur brought out that I hadn't noticed before.

At intermission we took our seats in the hall for the second half, Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13, "Babi Yar." I like Shostakovich's music and I especially enjoyed the first two of the five movements. Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poems were the text that Shostakovich set to music, and his treatments of "Babi Yar" and "Humor" matched the words and reinforced the poet's message. "Babi Yar" was harsh, brutal, and mournful, while "Humor" was a scherzo full of jovial passages in the strings and winds. To be honest, the last three movements didn't really hold my full attention, and while I appreciated the work of the lower strings and the brass and the sounds of the soloist and mens' chorus, the music itself didn't really resonate with me. I will find a recording of this piece and listen to it again, though.

At the end of the symphony the nearly full hall gave the Philharmonic and Masur a long and resounding ovation. Masur has maintained the appeal that he had when he was music director here, and if anything, the city's love for him seems to grow each time I see him conduct here. I hope he has many more years of conducting ahead of him. He clearly has much left to say and do in that role.

The final chapter in the Steven Slater saga?

2011-10-20T15:55:00.001-04:00

I saw this Gawker story yesterday while I was out of the office. Steven Slater got probation and a fine as a result of his emergency exit abuse in August 2010.

This has been your occasional update on Steven Slater, now and likely forever the number one story ever on this blog. I am in his debt and thus consider myself obligated to post about him whenever he resurfaces.

a quick coffee-buying rant

2011-10-20T10:40:00.001-04:00

There should be two lines at the Dunkin Donuts on Cortlandt St. by my office. One for tourists and occasional coffee/donut consumers, and another for people like me who know what they want and are paying with a debit card. I can be in and out of there in one minute. I don't have time to get stuck behind four tourists who don't know what a cruller is or which cream-filled donut to try this morning. Make way for working stiffs like me.

A quick trip through Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-06T17:53:00.000-04:00

During lunch today, I took a walk through Zuccotti Park, home of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. I'd checked them out from outside the park many times, but I'd never ventured into the park itself, not since they moved in three weeks ago. Maybe it was the fear that I'd see or smell things I didn't want to experience. Maybe I was afraid I'd see a sign that struck me and I'd quit my job and join them. Or maybe it was the thought that the minute I waded into the mass of people would be the moment the NYPD decided to clear the park and arrest everyone.

None of those things happened. I walked through the park unmolested. In fact, it was enlightening. They have a kitchen area with plates and bowls, and a "greywater" system for cleaning dishes. They have a desk for registering volunteers, a library, and a cellphone charging station. They have a daily message board with the park rules (including quiet time from 10 PM - 8 AM, keep your stuff bundled and wrapped when you're not sleeping, keep the central walkway clear). If they don't have a cohesive list of "demands" or clear intentions, they at least have things organized down there. It's a real community now, not unlike something out of a William Gibson novel.

I had already decided that while some of the people there appear to be creative types looking for ways to express themselves, they're not all crazy hippies who are too lazy to get jobs. My quick stroll today reinforced my impression that they're from everywhere, representing everyone. I could be there, but for a few breaks I had earlier in my career. They seem like rational, thoughtful people. And I figured out after last Saturday's arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge that they're not going anywhere. Even if the police moved in and arrested everyone in the park for trespassing, hundreds of people would be back in the space the next day. The city, the state, and indeed the nation will need to figure out what to do with them.

Andy Rooney retires

2011-09-27T17:52:00.003-04:00

In honor of Andy Rooney announcing his retirement from 60 Minutes, I'll link to my own blog post from a few years ago about Andy's commentary. I'll miss Andy complaining that he doesn't understand fruit or those newfangled motor cars everyone is talking about.

2011-09-21T20:11:00.001-04:00

I'm not live-blogging tonight's opening night concert by the New York Philharmonic, but I might tweet a little while I watch. So there's that.

Something a little different for the NYC Century this year

2011-09-18T21:55:00.000-04:00

Until this year, I'd always been a riding marshal for the Transportation Alternatives NYC Century. After a sub-par performance for me in 2009, I decided to try marshaling with the Brooklyn Bridge crew instead. I missed last year's ride, so my debut on the bridge was postponed to this year.

I woke up at 4:45 AM and arrived at the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge at 5:40 AM. On my way across I played my favorite game: "Who's Just Going Home Now vs. Who's Up As Early As I Am?" It turned out that most of the people on the bridge at that hour were early-rising tourists. There were only a couple of other people there, and none of them were in charge. There were also a couple of crackheads arguing over by City Hall Park, and I'm pretty certain they were just winding up a wild and crazy Saturday night. As the eastern sky started to brighten, I noticed a tent going up over in the plaza by the park. That was the rest stop/marshal sign-in station, so I got set up with a reflective vest and a marshal kit. A few other marshals were there with traffic cones and signs, and they said I should just go pick a spot on the bridge to stand for the next four hours.

I rode halfway across and set up directly between the two bridge towers, which seemed like a fantastic spot for photos and for telling riders to stay on the left and avoid pedestrians. I was directly in the path of the riders as they came over the bridge from Manhattan, so they could see me and I could see them. While it was a great location for those things, it was a terrible location to be in considering the conditions. It was a chilly morning with a strong breeze coming from the east. Even with the sun, I was shivering the whole time I stood there. After a couple of hours walking back and forth and picking up wayward traffic cones, a rider coming from Brooklyn stopped and suggested that we put someone further down on the Brooklyn side, saying that there had already been an accident back there. I wasn't sure what she meant, but seeing as how I wasn't doing much other than freezing in my original location, I decided a move was in order. I rode down to the Brooklyn tower and stood facing Manhattan, directing riders to be careful as the next section of the path was narrower than the rest of the path on the bridge. But I quickly figured out the real problem: riders (not on the bike tour) coming from Brooklyn were riding right into the flow of cyclists on the tour coming from Manhattan. I saw at least a half-dozen near-collisions, and one woman fell off her bike right in front of me trying to avoid an oncoming cyclist. There was nothing much I could do other than politely shout at everyone to slow down and be careful.

I loved the views from the bridge, and I enjoyed looking up at the top of the tower and watching the clouds wheel past, making it look like the Brooklyn Bridge itself was moving. But by 9 AM the novelty had worn off. I was freezing, and no amount of pacing, shivering, or waving my arms was helping. At 10 AM my shift ended, and I wasted no time riding back to the Manhattan side for a rest stop visit. I told the rest stop crew I'd planned to ride part of the route, and they asked me if I would ride it as a marshal, so I agreed. I rode back across the bridge to Brooklyn and picked up the ride route.

Since I was about four hours behind my usual 100-mile pace, I decided to ride the 55-mile route for a change. The first part followed last weekend's route to Coney Island and Marine Park, but then veered north and east through Brooklyn's Chasidic neighborhoods. There was a heavy head wind along the East River in Brooklyn and Queens but I made it to Astoria Park around 2:30 PM. After a few minutes rest I decided that I felt good enough to tack on the Bronx part of the ride for the bonus mileage. I didn't have a cue sheet for the Bronx, so I caught up with some other riders who had sheets. Even so, there was a little confusion in our group as we left the Van Cortland Park rest stop, and I think we may have ridden up a few hills that weren't on the route. We got back on the route without too much trouble and returned to Central Park just before 6 PM. That's usually the time I finish when I ride the whole century, so it was odd to see only 65 miles on my odometer.

I had a harrowing ride down 2nd Avenue on the way home, featuring my closest near-miss with a car all year (thus fulfilling my yearly quota of near-misses). I crossed the Manhattan Bridge as the sun set over Manhattan, giving me a little bookend for my day. And I walked in my apartment at 7:05 PM. At least it wasn't dark when I got home - that happened a few years ago. Somehow I think I'll be more sore tomorrow than I was last week after my 92-mile ride. Maybe it was all the pacing and shivering?

2011-09-15T12:04:00.003-04:00

Dan Fienberg's takedown of the CW's new show "H8R" is required reading for TV fans, reality show fans, or people who just enjoy rants about terrible people doing terrible things. Don't miss it.

another Blogger redesign?!

2011-09-09T11:24:00.001-04:00

Google updated the behind-the-scenes Blogger interface again. Now it looks more like Google+ or Gmail than it did before. But does this mean I need to upgrade my template again? I just switched to this one a year ago!

Google also released an official iPhone/iPad app for mobile posts. My previous mobile posting app, BlogPress Lite, never actually posted anything, so an official app is an improvement. Maybe I'll try it this weekend and see whether it works.

We missed the whole thing

2011-08-30T17:52:00.001-04:00

I keep missing the big storms in New York. I was out of town at Christmas when a massive blizzard swamped the city in 2-3 feet of snow for a week. And last weekend I had the good fortune to be out of town for Hurricane Irene's visit to my adopted hometown.

My girlfriend and I had already planned to be out of town this past weekend for a couple of family events in Ohio. By the time we were ready to leave on Thursday morning, the NWS had just updated Irene's projected path for New York. As we were packing Mayor Bloomberg was on TV telling people to prepare to evacuate low-lying areas. While we live in Zone C and we're well up a hill from the Gowanus Canal, I went to my basement storage room anyway and moved a few valuable boxes off the floor. And I moved my viola onto the bed, just in case potential floodwaters came up into the apartment itself. We left the cats with plenty of food and water (and I'd arranged for a friend to check on them on Saturday) and we got on the road.

By Friday afternoon the predictions of doom and destruction had gotten so bad that we went to Wal-Mart in Boardman, OH, to pick up some emergency provisions in case we returned to a Brooklyn devoid of power and rife with anarchy. They had bottled water for sale at $4 a case, and I insisted we get three cases. At that price, it would have been irresponsible not to buy it. We also bought two heavy-duty LED flashlights, candles, granola bars, peanut butter, and jelly. I thought we'd get bread on Sunday on our way back to the city. As the weather predictions grew worse, on Friday night we decided we'd try to go back to New York on Monday instead. I wasn't able to fully relax until Saturday afternoon and evening, no doubt helped by the samples of homemade wine my girlfriend's uncle served at a family picnic/tasting that night. We got home late and I found myself watching a Times Square webcam, comforted by the bright lights and the knowledge that the city was still standing, at least at that hour.

As soon as I was awake on Sunday morning I was back online, checking Twitter and news sites for updates on the storm. By 10 AM it was clear that the hurricane had spared the city the worst of its fury. I relaxed and hoped that I wouldn't see a photo of a tree branch through my living room window. I worried a little when I saw photos of the Gowanus Canal close to cresting its banks, but I never heard anything about the canal actually overflowing. We drove to Johnstown to see my mother, secure in the knowledge that our apartment was OK. Late on Sunday night, a friend tweeted that he'd gone to a bar on 4th Avenue and confirmed everything down there was clear.

The return trip to New York was the least eventful drive I've had in the past few months. It was busy but there were no long delays or backups. As we drove through Park Slope, we marveled at the lack of evidence of a hurricane. The damage we saw looked like it was from a strong microburst, not a sustained storm. The cats were fine when we got back. Based on the mess they left us, they must have had quite a hurricane party.

32 (now 33) blog posts this year? WORST. BLOGGER. EVER.

2011-08-21T20:37:00.000-04:00

It's true: Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr have all killed my blog. Also, work has been kind of busy lately, so I haven't had much time to write. But right now, I'm looking at my worst year ever and I'd really like to keep this blog going into a 10th year. I'm not giving up on this forum yet.

And now, a rant about Duke Nukem Forever

2011-08-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

About two months ago, I pre-ordered Duke Nukem Forever for the Xbox 360. I was a huge fan of Duke Nukem 3D in college and waited patiently but in vain for this follow-up game throughout the ‘90s. By the time I moved to New York in 1999, I’d given up hope that the world would ever see the sequel. I was as shocked as everyone else to find out a few years ago that the game would finally come out in 2011.

I received the game on June 14, its release date. By that time I’d already read a couple of advance reviews and they were not positive. But I’ve played mediocre games before, most notably the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series, and I’ve had fun with them. The Star Wars universe is always entertaining to me. I hoped that I’d find a return to Duke Nukem’s world of misogyny, quips, big guns, and aliens would be as much fun as it was in 1996. I was wrong. I’ve actually quit playing the game part of the way through, and I’ve never quit on a game like that before. It’s that bad.

Duke Nukem Forever is not fun to play. It feels like work. It’s a formulaic first-person shooter, and by that I mean you go through level after level of shooting halfway intelligent aliens and solving puzzles so you can shoot more aliens. None of that gameplay is new to shooters, but in most shooters there’s something appealing about the effort. For example, in Halo, the worlds in which you fight are gorgeous, lush tropical paradises, terrifying underground caverns, or creepy wrecked spaceships. In The Force Unleashed, you play on familiar Star Wars worlds. DNF is set in a half-destroyed Las Vegas, but there’s nothing particularly unique about the levels. While there’s interactivity with the universe, I’m not interested in playing with toilets or making popcorn in a microwave. Yes, you can throw objects at your enemies when you run out of ammunition (and you often run out of ammunition) but while you’re looking for a barrel or box, the aliens are killing you.

When you die, you reload the game from the last automatic save. Duke Nukem Forever’s levels aren’t graphically intense but for whatever reason (bad coding? Bulky graphics engine? Poor overall game design?) they take over a minute to load. And when you die often, that’s a lot of wasted time. If I were enjoying the game play the long load times would be annoying, but in a game that feels like punching a clock, they remind you that you could be doing better things with your time. You could be playing a better game. At least DNF lives up to the “Forever” in its name.

After you’ve killed enough aliens, you face a big “boss.” Again, bosses are a feature of just about every shooter I’ve ever played. Duke Nukem’s bosses are gimmicky in that there’s a trick to defeating them. I don’t remember the first boss I faced or how I beat it, but when I got to the “queen” alien with three giant breasts protected by impenetrable wings, I gave up. It was such a predictable Duke Nukem thing to do. I saw the gimmick right away: wait until the queen screams and spreads her wings, then fire rockets at the breasts. But while you wait for her to scream, she’s throwing her offspring at you and trying to crush you with her tail (or something like that). It was a pointless and frustrating moment in a game full of pointless and frustrating moments.

That’s when I stopped playing. I’ve gotten bored with games before and not finished them, or gotten distracted by another new game. I never finished Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, or GTA IV, but with all three games I felt like I got my money’s worth. (There’s always a chance I’ll go back to GTA IV if there’s a massive blizzard.) And in the San Andreas and IV cases, I had a feeling going in that the games would be so big I’d never finish them. I had every intention of playing Duke Nukem Forever from beginning to end, just to see where the story went and for the sheer nostalgia of shooting pig cops and flying monsters. But I can’t do it. I have a limited amount of time to spend on video games, and I’m not going to waste those precious hours on something that I don’t enjoy. I played Call of Duty: Black Ops for about 45 minutes last night and had more fun in that time then in all the hours I put into Duke Nukem Forever. There’s no chance I’ll ever put that game back into my 360.

So, does anyone want a slightly used copy of Duke Nukem Forever?

Chris Mueller on how to fix what went wrong in last night's Pirates-Braves game

2011-07-27T17:57:00.000-04:00

In lieu of a half-assed rant from me about home plate umpire Jerry Meals' bad call that cost the Pirates a win in a 19-inning game, just read what 93.7 The Fan's Chris Mueller has to say about it. Chris rants with his whole ass, and I mean that sincerely. Also, follow Chris on Twitter and check out his call-in show.

The battlefield at Gettysburg

2011-07-25T18:08:00.000-04:00

We spent the weekend in Gettysburg, PA, at a friend's wedding. We arrived late on Friday night and left Sunday afternoon, so we didn't have time to spend a full day at the museum and battlefield. So we opted to drive around the site and see as many landmarks as we could before driving back to Brooklyn on Sunday evening.

The battlefield is a national park surrounding the town of Gettysburg. (I highly recommend looking at that link for details on the places in my photos.) You can't walk five feet without stumbling into a memorial or monument or plaque that commemorates a regiment or a civilian hero of the battle. But many of the key events of the battle took place on the hills and fields outside the town itself, and most of the open spaces are preserved much as they were in July 1863 when the battle occurred. For example, when you stand on Little Round Top and look across the field at Devil's Den and the tree lines, it's not impossible to imagine what the scene must have looked like on those three days.

I want to return to the battlefield after virtual reality technology has advanced to the point where I could see an overlay of the scene in 1863 on the current landscape. No matter how much I read about the Civil War, I'll never know what it would have felt like to be present on the field that day. I suspect I don't really want to know.

2011-07-22T13:19:00.000-04:00

Once again, I want to write something about my job, and once again, I will not. You never know who's reading this thing. It's a great job but there are times when I find it exasperating. I shouldn't need to parse my emails as much as I do sometimes.

This week on House of PUNTE...

2011-07-08T12:36:00.002-04:00

I'm a "special guest" on this week's House of PUNTE, AKA the KSK podcast. I talk about the Tour de France and laugh at everyone else's jokes. Please give it a listen.

2011-07-06T17:00:00.001-04:00

Articles like this one by Justin Davidson make me happy to be a New York Philharmonic subscriber. At the same time, I'm even more upset I passed on the chance to hear Magnus Lindberg's Kraft this past season. What was I thinking? I should have been there.

I know I should have posted a full review of the orchestra's season finale, Leos Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen. It was delightful, a spirited woodland fairy tale with creative costumes and set design. The music was fantastic, of course, but it was almost secondary to the costumes and the set. It was another triumph for Alan Gilbert, Douglas Fitch and his Giants Are Small production company, and the Philharmonic. They're not doing an opera next year, but I'm confident that Gilbert and the orchestra have an impressive season ahead of them.

Who are these data-abusing monsters?

2011-07-05T21:50:00.000-04:00

Gizmodo had this article about cellular carriers abandoning unlimited data plans. In the comments, several people bragged about being grandfathered into unlimited data plans and how they used 17 GB of data last month, or in one case, 22 GB. Who are these people? Do they not have Wi-Fi anywhere in their immediate vicinity? I'm the rare customer who actually likes AT&T's network, and I've rarely had problems with 3G coverage in New York. It's slower than Wi-Fi, but it's fairly reliable. Even so, I'd rather wait to listen to streaming radio until I'm in my apartment or office (both of which have abundant Wi-Fi coverage on fat Internet pipes) than listen to a stream while walking around outside. And forget downloading music or apps while I'm out: I do that stuff indoors, in Wi-Fi, too.

The problem, as always, is that a small number of network users consume the most bandwidth, making it harder for the carriers to support the rest of us who use our phones sensibly. I hope that these carrier issues will someday be a thing of the past, as Wi-Fi and WiMAX and other broadband wireless technological advances make it easier to get online anywhere. Until then, if you believe Gizmodo, guard your unlimited data plan with your life. Or if you're like me, get a home Internet connection, leave the house with all the music you'll ever need, and don't worry about it.

For my dad (who doesn't use Twitter or Facebook)

2011-06-22T12:27:00.001-04:00

a better photo of my new desk layout, originally uploaded by catelinp.

Here's a better photo of the new setup on my desk at work. And once again my MacBook Pro came to work today.

The Manhattan loop, or 30 ever-changing miles around a metropolis

2011-06-20T12:59:00.001-04:00

I spent part of my Sunday morning and afternoon on my first Manhattan loop of 2011. I've been riding the greenways around the perimeter of the island since 2002, and every year there's something different. Sometimes it's different each month, if you take the never-ending construction in lower Manhattan into account. But I always enjoy seeing the improvements in the route each year, and the areas that are still in dire need of upgrades.

I crossed the East River via the Manhattan Bridge and turned south onto the East River greenway, under the assumption that foot traffic at the South Street Seaport would still be light at 11 AM. While it was, the NBA had set up some sort of fan festival there, so I had to take South Street all the way down to the Staten Island ferry terminal. I took the marked bike paths around the ferry terminal (those are only a year or two old) and found myself in Battery Park. The presence of a few Park Police squad cars convinced me to walk my bike around to the northwest exit of the park, where I picked up the West Side greenway.

There's a new detour around the World Financial Center, and I almost rode into traffic on the West Side Highway before I saw the signs directing cyclists around the back of the WFC and onto the esplanade on the river's edge. Once I was north of the WFC the detour led back onto the greenway, which has been fully developed at least since 2002. The path was busy but it was a straight shot all the way to the George Washington Bridge and the steepest hill I've climbed in New York. The short but steep hill just north of the GWB is always a challenge. I still remember when the northernmost part of this path was a rotting asphalt nightmare and riders had to take the footbridge across the Henry Hudson Parkway onto the streets near the bridge. But it's been a well-paved path for at least seven or eight years.

I took Dyckman Street over to the Harlem River greenway, once used for horse-and-buggy races, and rode south to St. Nicholas Avenue. I turned east onto the bike path on 120th Street, but a bike race blocked my path. I would have loved to watch the races, but it was hot, I was getting tired, and I didn't have much in the way of food. I doubled back onto 118th Street until I passed the race and then took 120th St. over to the northern section of the East River greenway. The sections of this path north of 96th Street are in dire need of repairs. Apparently the city thinks that metal barriers and orange cones are all the repairs giant sinkholes need.

The greenway took me past my old favorite park, Carl Schurz Park, where I spent many hours reading and watching the boats go by when I lived in the neighborhood. Another construction detour forced me onto the street, so I rode over to 2nd Avenue and took that all the way down to 38th Street where I could pick up the greenway again. Along the way, I saw all of the disruption of the 2nd Avenue Subway construction, and thought about how lucky I was that I moved before all of that work began.

The southern sections of the East River greenway haven't changed much in the past few years, though they are long overdue for a repaving. I was grateful for the shade that the FDR overpass provides, as it was the hottest part of the day by the time I reached the Manhattan Bridge to cross the river back to Brooklyn. I got home at 2 PM, 3 1/2 hours after I'd left, with 40 miles on the odometer. The ride through Brooklyn to and from the Manhattan Bridge adds the extra miles, which I forgot before I set out with only a handful of energy bars and two water bottles. Also, I say this every time, but this time I mean it: I'm leaving earlier next time.

No Concerts in the Parks this summer for the Philharmonic

2011-06-10T11:12:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday the New York Philharmonic announced that they were canceling their free summer Concerts In The Parks for 2011. The orchestra said that the musicians need time off and that they will perform a free concert with tenor Andrea Bocelli in September in Central Park. But the announcement seemed to have caught parks officials and caterers (not to mention the general public) by surprise. I can't find it now, but I read an article yesterday that quoted an Upper West Side caterer who said she had prepared bags for pre-made meals that she sells to hungry concert-goers.

I know that the orchestra is busy year-round -- their season ends in late June and begins in September, with a stop in Vail, Colorado for a music festival -- but it's odd that they used "scheduling conflicts" as an excuse. I have a feeling that some of the sponsors decided not to participate this year. Those concerts may be free to the public (and partially taxpayer-funded, as the New York Daily News pointed out in an editorial yesterday), but they're not free by any stretch.

I don't think the orchestra is obligated to perform in the parks each summer. I appreciate that they do it. For some New Yorkers, it's the only exposure they get to classical music all year. And while the concerts have devolved into excuses for people to picnic in the park and chat with friends, sometimes to the detriment of the rest of us who are just trying to enjoy the music, I think these concerts still fulfill a vital cultural role in New York. The Philharmonic says the concerts will return next summer. I hope that they do.

A few quick thoughts about Thursday night at the Philharmonic

2011-06-03T19:49:00.000-04:00

It's not a proper New York Philharmonic season for me if I don't see Anne-Sophie Mutter perform. Her reading of Beethoven's Romance in F was lyrical and sweet. Sebastian Currier's Time Machines, a concerto he composed for Ms. Mutter, was an unusual seven-movement work with touches of Barber, Glass, and Reich in places. I especially enjoyed the fifth movement, titled "entropic time," in which the themes and cohesion of the music gradually disintegrated into snippets of phrases and random echoes from different instruments of the orchestra.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 2 was well-played throughout but it was the third movement that drew me into the work. Alan Gilbert led a ferocious reading of the Scherzo that had me on the edge of my seat. The fury of the strings combined with blasts from the brass and loud bursts from the timpani energized the orchestra and carried over to the finale. It had been 40 years since the Philharmonic last performed this symphony. In the program notes Gilbert states that Bruckner is a composer whose music he could conduct every day for the rest of his life. I hope that means more Bruckner on Philharmonic programs in the future.

Return to "Foundation"

2011-05-27T17:18:00.000-04:00

I don't have any major summer reading projects this year. I had planned to read Infinite Jest this summer, but got pulled into an online reading project last fall and finished it in March. I do have a sizable stack of books at home just waiting to be read, so I'll work my way through those. One will be Noah Andre Trudeau's Gettysburg, since I'm going to a wedding there in July and I'd like to know more about the battle before I see the battlefield. I have a few other non-fiction history books to read, such as a book on the Jewish Resistance during WWII and David McCullough's book about the Johnstown Flood.

But before I dive into all of that boring history nonsense, I'm re-reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. I devoured Asimov's fiction (and some of his non-fiction) as a kid. I tore through the Robot novels, the Empire novels, and the Foundation series, all before I was in high school. I remember them as fast reads but I don't recall much of the detail. I do remember enjoying the Foundation novels more than any of his other books. I think it was the concept of psychohistory that captivated me more than the ideas of robots solving crimes or a decaying galactic Empire. When I was home last October, I grabbed all five of the books I have in the series (not counting the two prequel novels, which Asimov wrote much later in his life) and brought them back to New York. I think I'll read a Foundation novel, then read some non-fiction, then read another Foundation novel. I think of them as palate cleansers. Also, it means I'll spread out the fun over the summer.

I rarely re-read books. The last time I remember re-reading anything was 2001, when I read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy for the third time, in preparation for the movies. But every once in a while I think it's worth revisiting books that I've loved. I listen to the same music over and over (though I introduce new albums all the time, I return to my favorites far more often) and I re-watch movies I love. Why not re-read books and see what I missed the first time around? Also, it's an excuse for me to keep all those books on my shelves. I can always say "hey, I might want to read that again" when it comes time to clean the apartment.

Don't kill off high school English!

2011-05-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

As an English major in college and a fan of great reading and writing, I read Kim Brooks' essay "Death to high school English" in Salon with more than just casual interest. Brooks' descriptions of her students' high school English classes sound similar to my own experience with the same curriculum twenty years ago. And I could see the roots of the English education that students receive now.

My parents claim that I would read the TV Guide to them before I was two years old. I was a "gifted" student in elementary and middle school. In my school district, the "gifted" class was mostly a double period of English, with some special projects in other areas (never math and science, though) thrown in. I was probably atypical even then; I would read longer books than my classmates, like novels by Asimov and Clarke, and even George Orwell's 1984 in 1984 when I was 10. (I admit that I was too young to understand much of that book, but I wanted to read it anyway.)

When I got to high school, the students in the "gifted" program merged into the rest of the class year, and while we had a more advanced English class, we read much of the same material as everyone else in our freshman year. I remember reading Romeo and Juliet, then watching Zeffirelli's movie of the play. Then we watched West Side Story, because why not? It's the same story, or so our teacher told us. In my sophomore English class, the material became more challenging, and our teacher assigned a few of us Faulkner's Light In August as a small group project. We had to give a presentation to the class, and after our bumbling effort she acknowledged that the book had probably been too difficult for us. (It definitely turned me off to Faulkner -- I haven't read any of his other books yet.) We wrote papers and took exams as well, but there were always group projects.

I took AP English my junior and senior years, and these classes were the reason I became an English major in college. We read some of the same books and plays as our non-AP classmates, in particular Richard III, Macbeth, and King Lear in 11th grade and Hamlet in 12th grade. And we had group projects. But we also had surprise essay tests in junior year, which I realized too late were meant to prepare us for the AP English test. (I never took the AP English test.) Our 11th grade teacher taught us the MLA style manual and worked with our AP History teacher on grammar and spelling, since many of us took history as well. She was tough but fair, never fun and seldom funny, but we learned a lot.

My senior year English teacher took matters a step further. We kept a journal four or five days a week, in which we had to fill two pages. At first, she would give us a topic every day, but as the year went on and our ability to fill those two pages (and sometimes more) increased, she would give us a "free topic." My friends and I used those free topics to write about our lives, comment on the news, and even dabble in fiction. I researched and wrote a long paper on humor in literature and a senior theme on science fiction. She was also tough but fair, and she encouraged us to be creative and find our own voices.

I think I enjoyed my music and history classes a little more, but when I think about high school I remember reading Beckett's Waiting For Godot aloud as a class and writing an almost passionate explanation of Godot as God. I think about writing that science fiction paper and editing it until it was perfect. I think about those English classes and how they prepared me for college-level writing. I left for Georgetown thinking that I would major in history, but my experiences in high school English and a few classes with excellent professors showed me that English was the better path. But I was in high school English classes with other bright, creative thinkers. I don't know what the rest of my classmates were doing, but I have a feeling it was more along the lines of what Brooks describes.

Brooks points out all the deficiencies of the modern high school English curriculum but doesn't offer any suggestions on how to improve it. Problems like class size, teacher workload, and classroom time aren't going away and are likely to get worse. She talks about the need for greater emphasis on teaching how to research and on teaching style and grammar. But the bottom line is here, from a discussion with her friend Amelia Shapiro, a writing tutor in Hawaii:

When I ask her why she thinks there's such resistance to prioritizing and teaching writing, given its numerous applications, given its overlap with critical thinking skills, analytical skills, basic communication skills, she hesitates for a moment, then answers in three words: "It's not fun."

My experience in high school was that writing was something fun. I looked forward to writing in that journal senior year. I still look forward to writing, even if it's just emails at work. Despite all the obstacles, I hope that more students can see the value of good writing skills, and that those skills are the most important thing they can take away from their twelve years in the school system. Any animal can eventually pound out a barely coherent email or text message. Writing is what makes us human.

Were you voted "most likely to succeed?"

2011-05-11T10:23:00.000-04:00

I was voted "Most Musical" in high school and I think I've lived up to that as best I could. But I hadn't thought about it at all until I saw this article. If you're 30 and still dwelling on something from high school, you might want to talk to a professional. You've got bigger problems on your plate.

Also, this (from Gawker writer Jeff Neumann):

The takeaway here? High school still sucks long after it's over.

Amen, brother.

Emanuel Ax and Mahler at the NY Philharmonic

2011-05-01T01:14:00.001-04:00

Saturday evening's concert opened with a solo performance of Debussy's Pagodes, a “slide show” for piano (as Ax and music director Alan Gilbert explained before the concert). Gilbert said that they decided earlier in the week to perform the Debussy work back-to-back with Olivier Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité céleste, as the two pieces were similar in style and theme. The Debussy was a short but pleasant work, and Ax's work was delightful and charming. Gilbert, who had been standing at the podium through Ax's performance, then cued the small ensemble (horns, trumpets, trombones, winds, and percussion) for the Messiaen piece. I'm not a fan of Messiaen's music. The only thing I could think during the performance (which was excellent, by the way) was that his music sounds like what happens when you try to make sense of a two-year-old banging on a piano. His music doesn't sound like music to me. It's barely controlled random notes. And I say this having performed Messiaen with NYRO a few years ago. I didn't understand it then either.

After intermission, I returned to the hall to a stage filled with chairs and percussion for Mahler's Symphony No. 5. I heard Gustavo Dudamel lead the Philharmonic in this work a little over two years ago, and I think Saturday night's performance with Alan Gilbert was ever so slightly better. Gilbert was in full control at the podium, using every inch of space he had to hold the massive ensemble together. Each movement had moments that gave me chills and I hung on nearly every note. Phil Smith on trumpet and Phil Myers on horn were both magnificent, and each received well-deserved cheers at the end of the piece. I've been to every New York Philharmonic Mahler concert this year, and I think this one was my favorite. I'm going to be thinking about this performance for a long time, or at least until they open next season with Mahler's Symphony No. 2, my all-time favorite.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy filing and the state of classical music today

2011-04-22T14:49:00.000-04:00

I was as dismayed as everyone else in the classical music community when I read that the Philadelphia Orchestra had declared bankruptcy. It's a tough time for American orchestras. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra's musicians' months-long strike ended just a few weeks ago. The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra folded, as have a few others recently. But Philadelphia is one of the most renowned American orchestras, on a level with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It's difficult to see an orchestra with that kind of history in financial straits. However, bankruptcy is not the end of a business. It's a chance to reorganize, get clear of debt and continue operating. It's a bad thing for an organization's credit, but it's better than shutting down completely. The Philadelphia Orchestra isn't going anywhere.

But as this commenter on the New York Times pointed out, modern orchestras are not lean, mean musical machines. They're bloated, with far more musicians on the regular payroll than are required by most classical works. They have a limited repertoire. They play the same concert three to five times a week. And let's not even get into the aging audience for this music.

On the other hand, I like this quote from Arts Beat's Daniel Wakin:

Some have argued too that there is nothing wrong with orchestras serving — in part — the function of museums, keeping the classics on view.

That's an argument for the status quo. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart aren't writing any new music, and there's a good reason orchestras keep programming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: people will pay to hear it. No one complains when Bruce Springsteen sings "Born To Run" in concert for the 10,000th time. And regardless of whether you listen to classical music, it's a link to our shared musical past. It's important to keep this art form around, just as we wouldn't throw out a Picasso painting or a Giacometti sculpture.

I do hope the Philadelphia Orchestra finds a way through its current financial problems and comes out the other side stronger than ever. But I think it will take some serious re-evaluation of the presentation and performance of classical music to get there. Other orchestras should keep a close watch on developments in Philadelphia before their organizations reach the same state.

Masur conducts Liszt, Gubaidulina and Brahms with the New York Philharmonic

2011-04-14T16:16:00.000-04:00

Last night's concert by the New York Philharmonic was something of a "greatest hits" show bookending a brand-new song. And we had the rare experience of seeing two different conductors on the same program. Kurt Masur, the scheduled conductor for the program, had an temporary eye infection that "[impeded] his ability to see the score" (according to a program insert from the Philharmonic), so he conducted the opening and closing works on the program, and stepped aside in favor of New York Philharmonic Assistant Conductor Daniel Boico for Sofia Gubaidulina's Two Paths: Concerto for Two Violas and Orchestra.

The Philharmonic opened the concert with Franz Liszt's symphonic poem Les Preludes, one of my favorites. Masur took the podium and received loud cheers before the orchestra made a sound. He conducted this work (and the Brahms symphony after intermission) from memory and without a baton. Throughout the concert, his conducting consisted more of cues and occasional indications of tempo changes than what I think of as actual conducting. But Masur is in his 80s and while he moved well, he looked his age. He is also Music Director Emeritus of the Philharmonic, and as his audience reception showed, he is still beloved by audiences and familiar with the orchestra and its musicians. I got the feeling that Masur could have communicated whatever he needed to the musicians with his eyebrows and the concert would have been fantastic. And opening with Les Preludes is sort of like Bruce Springsteen opening a show with "Born To Run." It's a great piece of music, an audience favorite, a showcase for the entire orchestra, and music everyone in the group knows well. And it was exciting to hear. The brass fanfares were impressive, but what I enjoyed even more was the balance among all the instrument groups. I heard melodies in the piece that I hadn't heard before. I think I say that often, but it was certainly true last night.

Daniel Boico took the podium for the Gubaidulina concerto. His conducting was almost the polar opposite of Masur's: clear and precise beats for every measure, left hand cues when necessary, and he kept a close eye on the score. To be fair, these concerts are only the second time the Philharmonic has performed this piece, so everyone in the room was paying extra attention, including Boico. He had the task of being pressed into service as conductor for this piece at the last minute, and to a neophyte conductor like myself, that seems like a massive challenge. But what an opportunity! Boico performed admirably, managing the music and the soloists. Principal Violist Cynthia Phelps and Associate Principal Rebecca Young were equally impressive as the soloists (they also premiered this work with the Philharmonic in 1999, under Masur). Phelps took the higher part while Young explored the lower registers of the viola. The music became a conversation between the soloists and the rest of the orchestra, including solo turns from Carter Brey on cello, Michelle Kim on violin, and from the winds. It was a melancholic and mysterious piece, and well suited to the dusky tones of the violas. I really enjoyed it, and not just as a violist. I'll have to listen to the radio broadcast of this concert to hear it again.

After intermission, Masur returned to the podium for Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 1, another personal and audience favorite. Phelps and Young also returned to the stage, as the first stand in the viola section. I thought that was interesting; I'd expected them to have the rest of the night off since they had already performed as soloists. Masur took the tempi in the Brahms just a touch slower than other versions I've heard. Maybe the two were unrelated, but I thought that the slightly slower tempi enhanced the tension in the first movement and brought out some of the melodies and harmonies that might otherwise remain hidden. At the end of the work, the rousing finale brought most of the audience to its feet and Masur received another loud and extended ovation. The audiences in New York really love his work. I hope he keeps coming back here to conduct as long as he's able to do so.

Sports bloggers as Muppets

2011-04-14T13:02:00.000-04:00

I don't know if there's anyone who reads my blog and doesn't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, but if you're out there, you need to read Dan Levy's post on sports bloggers as characters from the Muppets, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock. I've enjoyed Dan's daily podcast for three or four years now and I'm going to miss having it as part of my daily routine. This post is possibly the best farewell I've ever seen. It's a labor of love that deserves a read.

Supporting the Prospect Park West bike lane

2011-04-11T00:07:00.001-04:00

This morning I rode my slowest mile in recent memory, but it was for a great cause. Park Slope residents organized We Ride The Lanes, a family- and community-oriented ride in support of the Prospect Park West bike lane. Kids and adults on bikes of every shape and size rode from Grand Army Plaza to the traffic circle at 15th Street. I didn't partake, but there were cupcakes, lemonade, and smiles all around at the end of the ride. (Then I rode 18 miles in the park, because why not.) There's a video of the event here, and I can be seen at about the 0:55 mark in the extreme upper left corner, waiting my turn to ride the lane.

As I was riding along the bike lane with hundreds of fellow cyclists, I realized that I just don't understand the fight over this bike lane. It's just a bike lane! We have much bigger problems in New York than this 20-block stretch of pavement alongside a public park in a residential neighborhood. Transportation Alternatives, Councilman Brad Lander, and others have pointed out the safety benefits of the lane. The traffic data shows cars are moving slower on Prospect Park West and that accidents for pedestrians and cyclists are down. This lane is a good thing for the neighborhood. I would hope that those opposed to this lane realize the sheer ridiculousness of the argument and turn their activism toward more urgent causes.

Wikipedia has all the answers

2011-04-01T22:03:00.000-04:00

I was watching the 25th anniversary Les Miserables concert on PBS and it finally bothered me that all of the lower-class characters speak and sing with British Cockney accents. Why? Why not French accents? Don't get me wrong: I love this musical. But I've always wondered: why the British accents for the characters?

Wikipedia knows: it's used to represent Parisian criminal 'argot.'

Well, that was anticlimactic.

Hey, I'm playing a concert this weekend!

2011-03-22T17:06:00.000-04:00

Saturday night, the usual time and place. We're playing Vaughan Williams, Martinu, and Humperdinck, though not in that order.

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/REMINDER--New-York-Repertory-Orchestra-Spring-Concert---Saturday--March-26--2011.html?soid=1102230218778&aid=JBK6Crn62_o

The NSO takes on Messiaen's "Turangalila"

2011-03-11T17:47:00.000-05:00

My brother and his girlfriend are going to hear Olivier Messiaen's gargantuan "Turangalila-Symphonie" performed by the National Symphony Orchestra this weekend in Washington, DC. I'm not a big fan of Messiaen's music but I'd go see this work in concert in a heartbeat. It calls for a massive orchestra with obsolete instruments and makes demands on the players and audiences that few pieces do. In short, it's a spectacle. And I love spectacles, musical or otherwise. It's disappointing that there were "hundreds of empty seats" at the Kennedy Center last night. I think that New York audiences would turn out for this piece. (A quick check of the New York Philharmonic's history shows that they've performed it twice, in 1988 and 2000, so it must have been popular enough for a second hearing.) I look forward to hearing my brother's review of the performance.

At the Philharmonic: Szymanowski and Mahler

2011-03-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

I got a ticket for this concert for Mahler's Symphony No. 4, so Karol Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 with concertmaster Glenn Dicterow as soloist was a bonus. The orchestra for the concerto was easily the largest I've ever seen for a solo work: lots of strings, full wind and brass sections, an armada of percussion, a piano, celeste, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. It was a formidable mass of instruments for guest conductor Daniel Harding to manage against Dicterow's solo violin. The music was dense and thick, as one might expect with forces of that size. Harding kept the orchestra from overwhelming the soloist, while Dicterow played with conviction. He's not a flashy soloist, more conservative than risk-taking, but he plays as if the violin was an extension of his body. I've watched Dicterow for a number of years both as a soloist and as concertmaster, and he always looks as if the violin is as much a part of him as his arms or legs. Szymanowski's music straddled a line between late Romanticism and early modernism, with Asian melodic lines sprinkled throughout. I wasn't about to leave the concert humming any of the tunes, but I'd listen to this piece again, especially if Dicterow is playing.

Harding is only 35, but he showed no signs of hesitation or tentativeness on the podium. His crisp movements reminded me of other young conductors I've seen, like the Philharmonic's own music director, Alan Gilbert. Harding didn't waste motion or conduct with an overly flashy or fluid style. He was precise and exact. I can't imagine what it would be like to be that young and that talented, to command the respect of musicians twice his age with decades of experience. He seemed unaffected by the position and the orchestra appeared to have enjoyed working with him. I hope he returns to Avery Fisher Hall soon.

After intermission the Philharmonic returned to the stage for Mahler's Symphony No. 4. It's Mahler's smallest symphony, both in terms of length and in orchestration. He excluded the trombones and tuba from his orchestra, reduces his normal battalion of percussion, and only has four horns and a more manageable wind section than his usual oversize symphonies require. It's long been my least favorite Mahler symphony. I first heard it (or saw it) on TV in England in 1989 while on vacation visiting my grandparents. It was a terrible way to see and hear this work. I didn't get any sense of the musical flow, I thought the melodies made no sense at all, and the finale, a soprano solo song about life in Heaven, underwhelmed me. So I avoided this symphony for a long time. It's only recently that as I've explored Mahler's music in depth that I returned to the Fourth and discovered how wonderful and lovely this symphony can be.

The second movement was interesting to watch as associate concertmaster Sheryl Staples switched violins several times with a spare, deliberately out-of-tune instrument on a chair in front of her. The interplay among her, clarinetist Mark Nuccio, and principal horn Philip Myers was entertaining as well. The massive E major chord in the third movement, signifying the glorious light of Heaven, gave me chills. The end of the third movement flowed directly into the finale as soprano Lisa Milne walked from the rear of the stage to the front to sing the words that describe Heaven as a place of childlike wonder, where everyone is free from worry and enjoys unimaginable food and drink prepared by saints and angels. It reads a bit hokey but it was blissful to hear. At the end of the symphony, the last notes came from the bass section and were barely audible. As they faded out, Harding kept his baton up, barely moving it as the sound faded. There were several seconds where no sound could be heard and no one in the audience dared to so much as breathe. I've never heard a concert hall go silent like that. At last, Harding lowered his hands, and the audience applauded vigorously for what was a fantastic performance.

James Levine resigns as Boston Symphony Orchestra music director

2011-03-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

One day after cancelling the remainder of his appearances this season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, music director James Levine stepped down from his post, citing his ongoing health problems as preventing him from fulfilling his duties. He's missed many performances in Boston and with the Metropolitan Opera in New York over the past few years. He had rotator cuff surgery and other surgeries during that time. His continued absences made things difficult for both organizations.

It's too bad that Levine's tenure in Boston has to end this way. And I'm a little surprised that it happened so quickly. But like a professional athlete, he knew that it was time to go. The workload of managing a top-flight symphony orchestra is heavy enough, and adding his responsibilities at the Met (a post that he will maintain) was clearly too much for someone with his health problems. With only one job, Levine will be able to focus on the Met's needs and appear as a guest conductor with orchestras if he wants. I've enjoyed watching him at the Met and I hope he's able to continue in that position for as long as he wants.

Today in "I feel old..."

2011-02-28T15:16:00.000-05:00

Daniel Harding is 35 and making his debut with the New York Philharmonic this weekend. I tried to remember if I ever conducted a rehearsal of anything when I was 16. I don't think so. If I did, it certainly wasn't Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. It would have been something like an arrangement of songs from Les Miserables or The Phantom of the Opera, both staples of my youth orchestra's repertoire. A videotape of those pieces wouldn't be worth much today.

If anyone does have footage of my brief appearance on stage at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall conducting the Georgetown U. Orchestra with a plastic chicken, I'd like to see it.

RIP Sidney Harth

2011-02-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

My mother passed along the obituary for Sidney Harth, who passed away a few days ago. I never got to hear him play the violin, but I saw him conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1987 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and then I had the privilege of working with him a few years later at the 1991 MENC All-Eastern Orchestra Festival in Pittsburgh. OK, "worked with" is being generous, since I was in the far back of the viola section. He was a firm and knowledgeable conductor for that weekend. We only played one piece, Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, and he made sure we were fully prepared to play every note. We were so well-prepared that one afternoon of the three-day festival he decided we would sight-read instead of rehearse. So he split the orchestra in half (by having us take turns) and half of us read Schumann's Symphony No. 3 while the other half read a Brahms symphony. I got to play the Schumann, which was a real treat for me as it quickly became one of my favorite symphonies. I still have the recording of our rendition of the Tchaikovsky. I only wish we'd been able to play at Heinz Hall instead of a massive concrete hall in the Lawrence Convention Center; the sound would have been so much better in a proper space.

It's hard for me to believe that was twenty years ago. I remember it like it was last week.

Beethoven, Sibelius, and Nielsen: "New" music at the New York Philharmonic

2011-01-29T15:38:00.000-05:00

This weekend's New York Philharmonic concerts featured works by Sibelius and Nielsen that the orchestra hasn't performed in years, if at all. There was Beethoven too, if you like hearing music you've heard dozens of times before. (Not that I have any problems with Beethoven -- I love the guy -- but it's wonderful to hear something unfamiliar now and then.) The music wasn't unfamiliar to me, though; I played the two Beethoven works and the Nielsen symphony with NYRO several years ago.

The concert opened with Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 in F. I would call it a boisterous reading, with great work from the two horns in the third movement, excellent attention to dynamics (especially the recapitulation in the first movement, when the upper strings and winds play fortississimo and drown out the melody in the cellos) and I especially enjoyed watching the timpanist playing like mad on three drums at the end of the piece. (Although there's only two drums in the score, so I don't know what he was doing, but it looked amazing from where I sat.)

A smaller Philharmonic came onstage for Beethoven's concert aria "Ah, perfido!" Soprano Karita Mattila brought the singer's words to life, portraying a scorned woman going through a variety of emotions through ten minutes of music. Music Director Alan Gilbert kept the orchestra out of her way, but also brought out the woodwinds when their lines and Mattila's intersected and complemented each other.

After intermission, the Philharmonic and Mattila performed three songs by Jean Sibelius. I'd never heard these songs before (and neither had New York audiences -- two of the three had never been performed by the Philharmonic before, and the third one not since 1965) but they were unmistakably Sibelius. I'd know those harmonies anywhere. Once again, Mattila's voice was perfect for this music.

Finally, the Philharmonic marshaled all of its forces for Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 2, "The Four Temperaments." I've noted before in this space that Nielsen's music is not as popular here as it would seem to deserve. I hope that's changing. In the program notes, Gilbert wrote of his love for Scandinavian music (from his years as music director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra) and his puzzlement at the lack of exposure to Nielsen's works. He wrote that he plans to program all of Nielsen's symphonies over the next few years, which excites me as a musician and a fan. The last time the Philharmonic had played Nielsen's 2nd was in 1973, shortly before I was born. That's too long.

The first movement was crisp and stormy, with the winds and brass completely on point with short, loud blasts. The second movement, with its languid phrases, put some of the people around me to sleep. The ones who weren't sleeping applauded between movements, which baffled me. Who are these people? We don't clap between movements here! Yes, I'm a stickler for concert etiquette. The third movement, representing melancholia, was moving and powerful. I just adore the long brass and string melodies in this movement, and the orchestra played them beautifully. The last movement was spirited and bold and brought the concert to a close that the audience really seemed to appreciate. I felt sorry for the few patrons I saw leaving at intermission. What a treat they missed!

Another crazy ride on Amtrak

2011-01-26T23:12:00.000-05:00

I don't have a great record with Amtrak and the regional trains to Maryland over the past few years. In October 2009 I had a long delay for "police activity" and a sick passenger in Wilmington, DE. Then in December 2009 Penn Station lost power to the tracks for several hours, turning a three-hour trip into an all-day ordeal. These problems are unusual, but what's not unusual is that the regional trains are routinely late or delayed for reasons unknown. And I had another such experience this past Friday night.

I was supposed to take a 6:20 PM train from Penn Station to New Carrollton, MD, arriving at 9:20 PM. When I got to Penn Station at 5:45 my train was already 30 minutes delayed. Five minutes later the delay increased to 50 minutes. The PA announcer said that our train would be in the station and ready for boarding by 7:10 PM. I called my dad and told him that I'd be at least an hour late. We boarded the train a few minutes after 7, but we did not leave on time. As we sat on the platform at Penn Station the train conductor read what sounded like the entire information sheet for the train, covering oft-unmentioned items such as "there are bathrooms in each train car,""don't ride in the vestibules," "a wide variety of snacks are available in the cafe car," and "we hope you are having a lovely evening in New York and we apologize for the delay." A woman across the aisle from me asked to no one in particular "when are we leaving?"

We finally departed around 7:30 PM. Arriving at Newark, NJ a few minutes later, we sat at the platform there for at least five minutes, which was about four minutes longer than usual. Around 9 PM, outside of Trenton, the lights went out in the train and we ground to a halt. The train conductor said we'd lost power and that the engineers were trying to fix the problems but until they could do so, we were "dead in the water." I started to get a bad feeling about the whole trip as I remembered another Amtrak train stuck on the tracks between Philadelphia and Baltimore during the December blizzard. Another conductor came into our car to apologize for the delay and to tell us that we had a "helper engine" on the way to rescue us. The power came back on a few times, only to go off again a few minutes later. I tried to read my book by flashlight and not think about how bad things could get. I'd had dinner, I had used the bathroom before the power went off, and I had several warm layers in my bag.

My fellow passengers were not as outwardly calm as I was. The woman across from me continued her running commentary, possibly on her phone, though I think she was just talking to herself. When the conductor apologized again and suggested that we call 1-800-USA-RAIL with any complaints, a man a few rows up called them. He demanded action on this stalled train issue and wanted a full refund. Apparently, they told him to call back once he reached his destination. I don't think that was the answer he wanted.

The aforementioned helper engine appeared around 9:45 PM and towed us to Philadelphia. The conductor told us that they would change engines in Philadelphia, requiring another delay. Or we had the option of changing to the next Washington, DC-bound train when it arrived on the opposite platform. But Amtrak didn't say how long the engine change would take. The chatty woman said "I ride these trains every day. An engine change takes a half hour or 45 minutes. I'm leaving." Everyone in my car began packing their belongings, except for the young couple behind me. She and I had been discussing Infinite Jest and I considered staying where I was, since I was comfortable, already late and whoever was going to pick me up in New Carrollton would have to stay up anyway. But when the next train appeared, the car emptied out except for this couple. She said to her boyfriend "we'll have the car to ourselves. We can make out." I smiled at them and said "Now I'm switching trains. Have a good night." I found a seat on the other train and a few minutes later we were on our way. I wonder how long it was before that train moved.

I arrived in New Carrollton at about 12:30 AM, over three hours late. My girlfriend (who had driven all the way from Ohio for the weekend) met me at the station, and after the ordeal I'd been through she was a most welcome sight. In retrospect, it wasn't the worst time I'd ever had on a train, but it wasn't any fun at all. I don't think it's too much to ask that for my $150 I get to my destination as close to on-time as possible. Three hours is definitely not close to on time.

Some of my friends suggested that I take the Acela next time, saying that the regional trains are always unreliable. While the Acela doesn't seem to stop at New Carrollton, I might be able to manage going to Baltimore or BWI or even Union Station instead if I could work out the schedules. So rather than abandon Amtrak entirely, I'll give that a try next time. Otherwise I might take advantage of one of those rental car deals that keep popping up in my e-mail. Or one of those DC buses that are ridiculously cheap. But I think I'm done with the regional trains for a while.

See you in Dallas in two weeks...

2011-01-24T08:40:00.000-05:00

I hope this feeling of excitement never gets old. The Pittsburgh Steelers are back in the Super Bowl for the third time in six seasons. Six years ago I could only hope that this team would make it back to the championship game after a long drought. Now, with two rings and another within our grasp, I'm just as giddy as I was in 2006 and 2009. I can't believe I'm going to watch the Steelers play the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas in two weeks.

I watched Sunday's AFC Championship game in Maryland with my family, as I owed them a visit after missing them at Christmas. My stepmother and I screamed at the TV on almost every play, which was more screaming than might have been completely necessary. As we built a seemingly insurmountable 24-3 lead before halftime, we all dared to dream about what we'd do for the Super Bowl: where we'd watch the game, who would travel, and so on. I tried to keep calm. There's plenty of football left. I took comfort from CBS's note that the Steelers led the Broncos 24-0 in the AFC Championship in 2006 and went on to win.

Then the New York Jets came out after halftime and cut the lead to 24-10 and ultimately to 24-19. My heart was pounding (although that might have been from the giant sandwich and metric ton of seven layer dip I'd consumed in the 1^st quarter). I watched the clock tick down, moving far too slowly. Like the Patriots did last week, the Jets took their time marching down the field in the 4^th quarter. With 3 minutes left, they kicked off deep instead of kicking it onside (my greatest fear at that point was that they'd recover an onside kick). I kept thinking “one more first down. Just one.” The Jets used up their timeouts before the 2-minute warning. One more first down was all we needed. And when Ben Roethlisberger hit Antonio Brown for those precious few yards, my dad said “that's the game!” and I laughed and stood up and waved my Terrible Towels (I have two now) and everyone thought I was going to cry. Ike Taylor threw his hands in the air, Rex Ryan threw his headset, and the Steelers kneeled to seal the game.

Now we move on to Dallas and the Packers. Green Bay is a solid, dangerous team and I am not about to underestimate them. The Steelers have experience on both offense and defense and a coaching staff that knows what it's like to play on the game's biggest stage. I'd like to think those are advantages, but New Orleans came into last year's game against Indianapolis and proved that they could beat a talented quarterback and a recent Super Bowl champion. Green Bay will not let Pittsburgh have a 24-0 lead by halftime. We are in for a fight in two weeks. We played these Packers on my birthday last year (a game I was supposed to attend until a snowstorm kept me in New York) and we only beat them at the last minute. These are two evenly matched teams. I think it's going to be a great game. I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

One more thing: my superstitions might be getting out of control. When I'm at home by myself, I wear my Steelers shirt, a Harrison jersey, carry two Terrible Towels, and I make chili (and watch the game from the kitchen sometimes) and that usually leads to victory. Since I was at my dad's house, I couldn't make chili or watch the game from the kitchen. Instead of ignoring my superstition for the foolishness that it is, I came up with a new one. We all stayed seated for for most of the first half as we were eating and drinking, and the Steelers looked like world-beaters. In the second half, my brother and his girlfriend got up to get drinks and dessert and spent a few minutes in the kitchen. The Jets scored a touchdown. Then my brother got up to get another drink in the 4^th quarter and the Jets got a safety. I realized that we'd been in our seats in the first half and the Steelers had played well. I nearly ordered everyone to sit where they'd been sitting in the first half, because who knew if that had been helping the team? I tweeted that I was threatening to tie everyone to their chairs. My father had to use the bathroom and waited until the 2-minute warning to get up. OK, I felt a little bad about that one. But a trip to the Super Bowl was on the line! You do whatever it takes to help the team.

I will try to calm down a bit for the Super Bowl, but it's going to be tremendously difficult. We're going for our seventh championship. I need to remember that nothing I do can affect the way the Steelers play. Except for what I wear, and where I watch the game, and where I hang my Steelers banner, and what I eat....

My computer is like an old car

2011-01-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, my mom used to talk about how her cars would always start to fall apart just when they were out of warranty. I'm not sure if that was really the case, but it did seem that her Datsun 310 had more problems at the end of its five-year warranty than ever before. Of course, she drove that car everywhere and it was on its third clutch by the time we traded it in for a Toyota Corolla in 1986. Nevertheless, her words have come back to me the past few months as my Macbook Pro nears the end of its three-year warranty.

When I invested in this computer in February 2008, I knew it wouldn't last forever. I always assumed it would hold up for about three years and then I'd buy another one. But I didn't think its demise would be so obvious. My Windows desktop PCs always deteriorated gradually. Each one needed a new hard drive sometime in its lifespan, but other than that entire components didn't just fail out of nowhere. They just started performing slower and slower until I couldn't take it anymore and bought a new desktop PC.

However, the MacBook Pro has declined in marked stages. One evening in October it refused to come out of sleep mode or boot up. A two-night stay at the Apple Store in midtown Manhattan resulted in a new logic board (which I assume is the motherboard). A few weeks later I noticed that the keyboard and touchpad would stop working periodically. They usually came back after a reboot, but by mid-December the problem was serious enough that I took it to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in Chelsea. That was a three-day stay (and a trip back to the mothership in Houston) for a new "top case" of a keyboard and touchpad. I got the laptop back a few days before Christmas and it was great to have a fresh keyboard and non-worn-out touchpad, plus a fully functional 9 key. But I suspected that something else would break sooner rather than later.

A few days ago I opened the laptop and saw that the speaker icon in the status bar was grayed out. When I tried to play music I didn't hear anything. System Preferences claimed that the internal speakers weren't there. I plugged in headphones and external speakers and they worked, so the audio system itself was OK. After a reboot my internal speakers came back. But now they're not working again.

I'm wondering if it's worth the trouble of taking it back to the Genius Bar again in the next few weeks before the warranty runs out. I suppose it is; if it's possible to fix the problem for free, I should do it. Once the warranty is up I'm not getting anything fixed. And I'm planning to buy a new MacBook Pro later this year when Apple refreshes their laptop lineup. I just need to hold out until later this spring and hope that nothing else happens to this computer. And I need to keep getting regular backups. You never know when you'll lose a hard drive.

Mozart, Mahler, and Adès at the New York Philharmonic

2011-01-08T01:39:00.000-05:00

Friday night's New York Philharmonic concert featured music director Alan Gilbert at the podium once again. If that wasn't enough of a draw for me, the program of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, and the New York premiere of a new piano concerto by Thomas Adès pulled me in.

I don't remember the last time I heard Mozart's 40th Symphony in concert. It's such a well-known work that it's possible I haven't ever heard it performed live before. Gilbert led the orchestra in a lively, exciting, and, dare I say it, ferocious reading of the work. The first movement was energetic and forceful, highlighting the power of Mozart at his most emotional. In the second movement, I liked the balance of the winds and the strings. I heard suspensions in the harmonies that I've never noticed before. The minuet and trio were well-played, with lovely work from principal horn Phil Myers, and the finale, marked "Allegro assai" was nearly a "Vivace." The fury with which the strings played their runs and tossed the melodic lines back and forth gave me chills.

Baritone Thomas Hampson took the stage for Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, a song cycle of poems written by Friedrich Rückert after the deaths of his two children from scarlet fever. Mahler took five of the 428 poems and set them to wrenching, heartbreaking music. I'd seen Hampson in concert with the Philharmonic on TV, and his voice was even more impressive in person. He took Mahler's tragic melodies and brought them to life. I could feel the pain of the poet, lamenting the demise of his daughter as he remembered her running into a room after his wife. The words and music painted a truly affecting picture.

After intermission, Gilbert and composer (and soloist) Thomas Adès took the stage and talked to the audience about this new concerto. Gilbert asked Adès how the piece and the images that accompanied it (projected on a screen above the orchestra) had come about. Adès worked with Tal Rosner, an Israeli visual artist, to create the concerto and the images together, each using the other's work as inspiration. The result was a musical tableaux of the seven days of Creation, with abstract images that moved along with the rhythm of the music. I enjoyed the visual effects, and it's clear that Rosner is a skilled artist in his own right. But I also thought that the images distracted me from the music. There were some really complex and enthralling things going on with the music and I wasn't able to focus on them with the images floating above the orchestra. The music was at times jangly, atonal, dissonant, but then there were serene moments of shimmering tonic chords from the strings and brass. I'd like to hear the music without the images to get a better sense of what Adès was trying to say. But once again I enjoyed the Philharmonic's effort to get New York audiences interested in contemporary classical composition. They got me in the door with Mozart and Mahler, and I was all too happy to stick around to see what Adès had to offer. And I was not disappointed.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame

2011-01-04T22:45:00.000-05:00

One of the good things about dating someone who lives in a state that I haven't visited extensively is the opportunity for me to be a tourist. On New Year's Eve, my girlfriend and I went to Canton, OH to visit the one and only Pro Football Hall of Fame. The pilgrimage was her idea, as she'd never been there either. We're both Steelers fans, and yet we both neglected to wear anything remotely football-related (unlike most of the other people at the Hall that day, many of whom wore football jerseys or shirts).

The first stop on the tour is the history of the pro game. There are exhibits of old uniforms and protective equipment and features on early professional teams. Other panels and displays trace the development of the NFL and its merger with the AFL in the late 1960s. Next, there's a section dedicated to the NFL's 32 teams, with helmets and team records and facts. Famous Detroit product Jerome Bettis gets the honor of representing the Steelers.

The next room is the heart of the Hall, with the well-known bronze busts of all the honorees. I couldn't resist taking pictures of all of my favorite players and coaches (the Hall has a liberal photo policy). Touchscreen computer displays help you find your favorite Hall members and show highlights and interview clips. Terry Bradshaw's interview, which must have been filmed for his induction in 1989, shows him wishing for one more chance to run a two-minute drill in a Super Bowl with all of his players. He says "I could still play two minutes." I love Bradshaw more than any other former NFL great, but even in 1989 he'd have had a hard time running a few plays. Other exhibits in the Hall show highlights from past Super Bowls and feature memorabilia from current NFL players. I liked the exhibit panels for other leagues, like the now-defunct WLAF. (Scottish Claymores forever!)

The final stop on the tour is the Hall's theater, playing "The Road To The Super Bowl." I hoped the film would be a retrospective on past Super Bowls, or show how tough it is to get through an entire season and win a championship. While we waited for the theater to open, video screens on the ramp showed training camp footage from past seasons. It was fun to see now-fired coaches hollering at their players. The movie started with playoff highlights from last year, then the theater rotated 180 degrees to show a larger screen on which we saw the NFL Films' reel from Super Bowl XLIV. We watched as New Orleans beat the Indianapolis Colts, with all the miked-up hits and cheers reverberating around us at top volume. It wasn't bad at all, but the film made me wish I'd visited the Hall last year so I could have seen the Steelers' victory over the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.

The Hall has plans to expand further, and some of the displays (especially the history of pro football) are low-tech and antiquated and could use some modernization. I'd like to go back in five or ten years and see how the Hall has updated their exhibits. And I'm sure that a decade from now they'll have busts of more former Steelers for me to fawn over. I like this idea.

My blog is now smartphone-enabled!

2010-12-23T17:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Blogger in Draft, you can now read my blog on your mobile device of choice in a tiny-screen-friendly format. I've been waiting for this feature. Despite the relative dearth of content, it's been a big year for the blog. Another redesign, the most pageviews I've ever had, and now I've gone mobile. Maybe 2011 will be a bigger year.

2010-12-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

I've been busy for the past few days, which is better for me than not being busy, which usually gives me time to think about the fact that I don't write much here. (I have a tumblr as well and you're welcome to follow me, but I don't imagine writing anything there if I'm not using writing here.) I keep saying this, but maybe next year I'll make this site a true music blog and just stick to that. Otherwise I'll never reach my goal of a job writing for the New York Philharmonic.

Another set of open mic videos, this time with actual editing!

2010-12-15T16:07:00.000-05:00

My friend James played a few songs at Hank's Saloon in Brooklyn last Friday evening, and I was there to document it. Rather than just upload the videos, I discovered that iMovie has some really cool features to enhance your projects. You can put titles in front of your videos! And did you know iMovie comes with fade-in and fade-out transitions? Totally cool! So I punched up this set of videos with some sweet effects, thanks to those wizards at Apple. Seriously, those guys make some cool stuff. Have you seen this phone that they sell? I think it's called the iPhone!

NY Philharmonic, December 7, 2010: Beethoven & Mahler

2010-12-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

I was interested in last night's concert more than usual, as the program featured a Mahler work that I hadn't heard before: Des Knaben Wunderhorn, or "The Youth's Magic Horn," a collection of songs that inspired Mahler throughout his career. But before I could experience the thrill of "new" Mahler, there was the small matter of Beethoven's Symphony No. 2.

I played Beethoven's 2nd with NYRO a few years ago, so I'm more than a little familiar with the music. I spent most of the first half of the concert comparing the Philharmonic's (and Sir Colin Davis's) interpretation with ours. Davis had a sparing conducting technique for the Beethoven. He rarely used his left hand, and doing little more with his right than keeping the beat and giving an occasional cue. The orchestra showed a good dynamic contrast throughout the work, and I noticed a different bowing than NYRO's for a critical section of the second movement. I had trouble paying attention for the last movement as I was trying to suppress a cough until the end of the piece. Still, it was a energetic reading of the piece that reminded me how much I enjoyed playing it.

I knew of the Wunderhorn as a source of material for Mahler's symphonies, but not as a stand-alone work. The texts are sad, funny, and slightly profane, with words that nearly beg to be set to music. As the Philharmonic's program notes mentioned, many composers utilized the poems, including Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Mahler incorporated some of the poems into his symphonies, and the rest became a song cycle. I especially enjoyed "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" ("St. Anthony of Padua's Sermon To The Fishes") as I recognized the music immediately. Like many other composers (Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and Mozart, just to name a few off the top of my head) Mahler was not above reusing his music in different works. I'd forgotten that Mahler also used the music from this song setting as the third movement of his Symphony No. 2. "Revelge" ("Reveille") and "Der Tamboursg’sell" ("The Drummer Boy") were haunting, with martial fanfares posed against mournful melodies and lyrics. "Lob des hohen Verstandes" ("Praise from an Advanced Intellect"), which described a singing contest between a cuckoo and a nightingale judged by a donkey, was as funny as it was musical. Clarinetist Mark Nuccio deserved recognition for his role as the cuckoo. And I liked the interplay between soloists Dorothean Roschmann and Ian Bostridge, who acted out some of the dialogue in the texts in addition to their singing. At first they were hard to hear over the orchestra but their voices grew stronger throughout the performance. Davis kept the entire ensemble balanced and kept the orchestra out of their way. I might have to seek out a recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn to add to my already-extensive and ever-growing collection of Mahler's music.

Stradiwho-vius?

2010-12-01T23:35:00.000-05:00

On my visit to the Smithsonian's American History museum last Friday, I saw their small (compared to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) collection of musical instruments. What the collection lacked in size it made up in content. They had an entire Stradivarius quartet of instrument, including the only Stradivarius viola that I can recall seeing in person. In fact, I wasn't entirely aware that Stradivari made any violas. It seemed a shame to have the instruments locked away in display cases, but from the audio clips playing in the gallery I assume they see an occasional performance.

I also got to see the World War II memorial for the first time. I was against the construction of this memorial when it was proposed back when I still lived in Washington, DC. I'm still not convinced that the veterans of WWII deserve a more majestic memorial than the veterans of the Korean or Vietnam wars. But the WWII memorial pays tribute to our country's role in that war while fitting into the expanse of the National Mall. Walking around the fountains and reading the names of the major battles of the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, I remembered the scope of that conflict and the sheer effort the entire country devoted to it. If we're going to have a monument to our role in that war, I think that memorial was the best we could do.

I'm breaking my own law tomorrow

2010-11-24T17:32:00.000-05:00

It's been ten wonderful years since I last went home for Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving 2000, my then-wife and I rented a car (which turned out to be a minivan when it was the last car they had) and drove from Greenwich Village to Johnstown after work on the night before the holiday. The drive home only took six hours, even with a long wait to get through the Holland Tunnel, and we arrived at my mom's house around 1 AM. I don't remember much of the holiday itself, though I think we ate well, watched football, saw a movie, and I occasionally dialed into my office network to check e-mail as there was a massive rollout going on in Brussels that weekend.

The return trip was another story. We left Johnstown around noon on Sunday, expecting to be back in New York for dinner. We got stuck in traffic on the Pennsylvania turnpike, and then in a long traffic jam of post-game traffic near the Meadowlands. I think we returned the car around 9 or 10 PM, just before the office closed. After that experience, we vowed never to travel for a four-day holiday weekend again. Over the next decade, we had Thanksgiving dinner at home or at restaurants with friends or by ourselves, then after my divorce, I had dinner with friends at various locations. It's been a delicious run.

This year, I'm going home again. I'm putting my faith in Amtrak and taking a train to Maryland at 9 AM tomorrow morning, which will hopefully get me to my dad's house in time for an early-afternoon feast. May God have mercy on the rail system if there's another Penn Station power outage or other mishap tomorrow morning. I'm coming back to the city on Saturday afternoon to avoid the crush of people returning on Sunday. It all feels a bit like a fool's errand, but it will be great to be home for dinner. I'll miss the Macy's parade, but I think I'll live. There's only so much inane banter I can take from my morning show hosts.

Happy Thanksgiving! Safe travels to everyone.

I had nothing to do with this video

2010-11-19T14:27:00.003-05:00

I am just horrified. It's so bad. So, so awful.

My weekend in classical music

2010-11-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

I was back at Avery Fisher Hall on Saturday night for the New York Philharmonic's performance of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, featuring bass-baritone Gerald Finley in the title role. The New York Times had given this week's concerts a middling review, saying that the performance lacked energy and that the chorus and soloists needed to enunciate more clearly to be heard over the orchestra. Maybe Alan Gilbert tweaked the dynamics between Wednesday night and Saturday, because I didn't notice any of those problems. It's a fast-moving oratorio; Mendelssohn doesn't waste time with long, repetitve arias, something that I appreciate after sitting through performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Handel's Messiah. (I love both works, but 3+ hours of music with no action is hard on the ear and the brain.) Elijah came in at just under 2 1/2 hours and it never lacked for drama. Finley was captivating in the title role, and the scene where he challenged the chorus (playing the role of the priests of Baal in the scene) to implore their god to light a fire under a sacrifice, was especially exciting.

On Sunday evening I went to Barbes for a recital by violist Jennifer Stumm. I heard about the recital when she mentioned it on Twitter last week. I found her through her friend Susie Park, a violinist who performed with NYRO last February. It's the power of Twitter! Anyway, Jennifer played a challenging program of music by modern Hungarian and Polish composers before some more conventional works by Britten and Bach. In particular, I enjoyed her first work, a sonata by Georgy Ligeti played entirely on the C string. The piece had some impossibly high harmonics on that string. Notes on that string that are close to the bridge can be difficult to reach because of the viola's size, but she had no trouble hitting any of them. Jennifer's last piece was Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 in E flat, one of my favorites. I liked her interpretations of the different movements, a few of which I've attempted to play (poorly) over the years. Listening to her play made me want to run home and practice more.

Saturday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

2010-11-10T00:32:00.000-05:00

I was back in Ohio last weekend to see my girlfriend (who lives in Kent) and she suggested that we spend part of my visit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, located on the shore of Lake Erie near downtown Cleveland. We drove up on a gray, snowy Saturday morning, a cold wind whipping off the lake and making the Hall the only destination we'd want to visit in Cleveland proper that day.

From the outside, the Hall reminded me of the pyramid entrance to the Louvre in Paris, which makes sense as I.M. Pei designed both. I've been to the Experience Music Project in Seattle, so I had an idea of how a museum might present the history of rock. Many exhibits showed off guitars donated by legendary musicians, and I enjoyed playing "I recognize that one!" based on my limited knowledge of guitars from my friend James. Our visit to the Hall began on the lower level, with a display of Elvis Presley costumes and memorabilia. There was a temporary exhibit of Elvis photos by Alfred Wertheimer, a few of which I saw in the Brooklyn Museum's "I Shot Rock and Roll" show in January. Other displays on this floor featured the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and rock musicians and bands from Ohio. Another exhibit showed costumes and instruments from bands such as U2, The Band, and The Who. I may or may not have bowed in an "I'm not worthy!" fashion in front of The Who's display, which included Roger Daltrey's fringed suit from The Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus and one of John Entwistle's bass guitars. Another display had Michael Jackson's zombie costume from the "Thriller" video. The Hall has a strict "no photos" policy, so the images of these artifacts will have to live on in my memory alone.

Another part of the Hall presented the history of sound recording, starting with Thomas Edison's wax cylinders and early phonographs through wire recorders, tape decks, and finally the iPod. Guitar innovator and legend Les Paul had his own display as well, with examples of his initial attempts at electric guitars. The centerpiece of the Hall was the inductee gallery. Video screens at the entrance showed highlights from induction ceremonies in years past. The gallery itself is a large theater where three giant screens played songs and videos from each inductee. A circular walkway leading up to the next level featured an honor wall with names and signatures of each inductee in alphabetical order. The hour-long inductee video looked like it would be fun to watch in its entirety if you wanted to take a break from walking around, but we only watched about a minute of it. At the end of the walkway, outside of the theater, were several touchscreen computer terminals with access to nearly every song ever recorded by each inductee. I enjoyed looking at all of the inductees' names on the wall, and I think eventually the best presentation of the inductees might be a combination of the wall, the video, and the computer terminals. Let visitors choose which artists they want to learn more about by touching the name on the wall and listening to music by that artist. It's not technically practical right now, but that's the way I imagine the exhibit might work in the future.

At the uppermost level of the museum was the temporary gallery, currently featuring an exhibit on Bruce Springsteen. I'm not a huge Bruce fan, but I was excited to see the Fender Esquire guitar from the covers of Born to Run and Born in the USA just hanging on the wall. The gallery also held his outfit from the cover of Born in the USA and notebooks with lyrics and song notes. This part of the museum would be worth the price of admission for any and all Springsteen fans. It's only there through the end of the year, so if you're looking for an excuse to go to Cleveland, go forth and rock.

2010-11-03T11:42:00.000-04:00

In the aftermath of Tuesday's elections, I'm keeping in mind what I wrote six years ago when George W. Bush won re-election. I'm not married anymore, but I do have two cats who don't care who's in power in Washington. They need to be fed every day no matter who's making policy. Their lives (and mine) won't change as a result of a power shift.

Also, I'm so apathetic about politics now that I doubt much will get accomplished with a divided Congress and an antagonistic Republican party running the House. Hooray for more of the same.

Scheherazade

2010-10-27T22:02:00.000-04:00

On Thursday night, NYRO begins rehearsals for our December concert. The program will be Samuel Barber's Music For A Scene from Shelley, Schumann's Cello Concerto with Eric Jacobsen as soloist, and my all-time, top of the list favorite piece of classical music, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

I fell in love with Scheherazade early in high school. I'd heard excerpts from it on the radio but it wasn't until I bought a cassette recording of the piece that I was able to listen to the entire work from beginning to end. I adored the structure of the work, the way Rimsky-Korsakov used music to tell stories from the Arabian Nights. And the orchestration is amazing. Scheherazade was the first orchestral score that I bought, and I spent hours looking through it and conducting from it in front of the stereo in my bedroom.

I've been waiting for twenty years to play this piece. I missed it by one season when I played with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra. I graduated from high school in 1992 and went to college at Georgetown, and the JSO performed it in the spring of 1993. I came home for the concert, and while I enjoyed hearing my colleagues play, I dearly wanted to be on the stage with them. A few years later, I was out of college and living in Washington, DC when I heard that the Georgetown University Orchestra planned to play Scheherazade. I contacted the music director and she welcomed me back to the group. But after a couple of rehearsals we'd only played part of the fourth movement and it was clear we weren't going to pull off the entire work. So I pulled out. Thus ended my brief orchestral comeback of 1999.

To say that I'm excited about playing Scheherazade would be a bit of an understatement. I'm positively giddy. But I've looked at the music and realized why I never looked at the viola part before. It's almost all filler. Rimsky-Korsakov was a master of orchestration, and the viola part fills in the harmony and only occasionally plays something resembling the melody. It's not going to be a "fun" part to play. But I'm still looking forward to taking the piece apart and putting it back together again in rehearsals. I just hope I don't get sick of it by December 18.

No love for Carl Nielsen?

2010-10-19T18:20:00.000-04:00

This weekend, the New York Repertory Orchestra is performing Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, "The Inextinguishable." Before we started rehearsing the symphony, I didn't know much more about the piece than its two sets of timpani that "duel" in the last movement. The entire work has grown on me over the past six weeks and I can't wait to play it on Saturday night. As of yesterday, my mother was still thinking about coming to New York for the concert, in part because Nielsen 4 is one of her favorite pieces and she's never heard it live before. I found that hard to believe, given the popularity and accessibility of the symphony. In addition to the fireworks of the outer movements, the second movement is a quiet showcase for the winds and the third movement features a sweeping melody that gives the symphony its "inextinguishable" character. I assumed that she'd heard it in concert at some point during her many years as a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra season-ticket holder.

The PSO doesn't have a database of its performance history, but my other favorite orchestra, The New York Philharmonic, does. I looked up Carl Nielsen and I was surprised to see that of his six symphonies, only four of them have ever been performed by the orchestra. Symphonies No. 4 and 5 have been played the most, with four and five subscription performances (sets of concerts), respectively. Neither one has been on a Philharmonic program since 2003. Nielsen's Symphony No. 2, "The Four Temperaments," which NYRO played in May 2007, has had only one NY Philharmonic subscription performance, in 1973. Symphony No. 3 had one subscription performance in 1965. By way of comparison, Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 3, not one of his most famous works (but one that NYRO has also performed recently), has had eight performances, the last in 2006.

Looking elsewhere in Nielsen's body of work, his Violin Concerto has has two performances, though none since 1989. That may have more to do with the work's place in the virtuoso repertoire than the Philharmonic's program choices. And Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto had two performances by the orchestra's now-retired longtime principal, Stanley Drucker, the last in 1982.

The point is that if Carl Nielsen's music is this unpopular with the New York Philharmonic, one of the busiest orchestras in the world, one could assume that his music is equally unpopular with other major orchestras. I do realize that I'm extrapolating from a small sample size, but I can only work with the data I have. Maybe someone well-placed at the Philharmonic will hear our concert this weekend and more of Nielsen's music will find its way onto upcoming programs.

The Slater story comes to an end (for now)

2010-10-19T12:27:00.001-04:00

As I expected all along, Steven Slater pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal mischief this morning and took a deal that would keep him out of jail. He'll have to pay JetBlue $10,000 to cover the cost of the emergency slide as well.

I have yet to be contacted by the media for my thoughts on the story, so I'll put them here. Don't call me: I couldn't care less what happens to this guy. Although I fully expect that he has a future in reality TV. He'll be the host of a show on Bravo or some other two-bit network within a year. He has to find some way to pay that fine.

A weekend back home

2010-10-13T12:54:00.001-04:00

I've traveled a lot in the past few months. There was a trip to Chicago, my vacation in Europe, and my infamous trip to Pittsburgh in August for Walkoff Walk's HEIST that featured a flight attendant's bizarre behavior on my way home. And I threw in a quick visit to see my family in Maryland for good measure. But I hadn't been back to Johnstown in almost two years, so when I saw an opportunity to go home for a weekend, I booked another JetBlue flight to Pittsburgh.

I knew that we'd have trouble with the traffic in Pittsburgh, but I wasn't quite prepared for the 90 minutes it took us to get from the airport to Monroeville. We became increasingly annoyed with the GPS receiver's (nicknamed "Carol") constant updates on our ETA and reminders that "you are still on the shortest route" so we turned her off and decided to navigate from memory. Both of us grew up in Johnstown (we went to school together) and we assumed we'd know the way home. However, in the dark we got a little confused, made a wrong turn, and we wound up going the wrong way for about 15 miles. We gave up and let Carol guide us back to town. And we let her direct us back to the airport on Sunday afternoon.

Since the weather was gorgeous, we looked for outdoor activities for Saturday. Neither of us had been to Ligonier in years so we drove over to walk around and explore Fort Ligonier, an old British outpost from the French & Indian War. On the way, we realized it was Fort Ligonier Days, an annual festival scheduled around the date of the Battle of Fort Ligonier. While the festival meant we'd have lots of company in town, it also meant we'd have arts, crafts, and food options. Nearly every little kid we saw had a hand-carved pop-gun, many of which I assume wound up "lost" in the back of a closet at home once the kids fell asleep.

The highlights of the visit to the fort included a cast of re-enactors dressed as soldiers (British and French), Native Americans, and civilians. Inside the fort, meat roasted over open pits and the re-enactors looked like they were prepared to camp out all weekend. They fired off several cannons, each one louder and smokier than the last. Then they re-enacted the battle, though with a much smaller cast than was present in 1758. I did appreciate the re-enactors' commitment to the costumes. Despite the sunny weather and temperatures in the upper 70s, they all wore wool coats and vests and long socks. But I can't explain why one guy wore what looked like a Civil War-era Union uniform. Maybe it was "dress in period costume, get in free" day.

A few overdue NY Philharmonic items

2010-10-07T12:57:00.001-04:00

If you read my blog for New York Philharmonic news (and who doesn't?) then you might enjoy Alan Gilbert's new blog over at Musical America. His first post started out perfectly, with the declaration that he wasn't going to expound on what it means to be the music director of a major American orchestra in 2010. Instead, his blog focuses on the little things, like the daily life of a modern music director. He discussed how he doesn't have as much time as he'd like to study the music he's conducting, as his day is occupied with so many other non-musical concerns like meetings and planning. He also said he's not going to write frequently, but obviously the man has enough to do without "feeding the beast" regularly, as he puts it in his second post.

Speaking of the New York Philharmonic, I attended my first concert of the season last Wednesday (September 29), a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 6. I'd never heard this symphony live before and to be honest, it's a difficult one for me to get into. The last movement in particular is long and winding, and every time I've listened to it at home or work I've been distracted. At Avery Fisher Hall, with no distractions other than patrons coughing, I was able to focus on the music. And it's terrifying at times. It's easily Mahler at his most frightening. And just when triumph seems poised to break through the fear, there's a hammer blow that brings the music back to the tragic. The hammer blows are clear on every recording I've heard, but since I'd never seen the symphony in performance I had no idea how the percussion section would play them. I expected to see a hardware store sledgehammer and some kind of drum. Instead, there was a large wooden box at the back of the percussion section. Three times in the last movement, one of the percussionists walked over and took hold of the handle of a giant, cartoonish wooden sledgehammer and prepare for the blow. A few measures before the cue, he lifted the sledgehammer over his head and, right on the downbeat, brought it crashing onto the wooden box. It was a scary and impressive sound. I was equally impressed with his ability to get the blow exactly on the downbeat. And I loved the precision of the section as they moved around and changed instruments, on stage and offstage, throughout the symphony. That's what you get with a world-class percussion section.

Losing my Rocky Horror Picture Show virginity

2010-09-29T16:27:00.000-04:00

Sunday, September 26 was the 35th anniversary of the premiere of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I read this blog post on Monday, having missed all other notices that the anniversary was upon us. As a teenager many of my friends were at least familiar with RHPS, but not me. I hardly knew what "Time Warp" was, other than a song and dance from a movie that I thought had men wearing corsets and fishnets in it. When I was in college, several of my friends told me how funny the movie was and that I should go to a screening with them. But they warned me that as a RHPS "virgin," I'd have to stand up before the movie and be ridiculed. And I wouldn't know any of the "shout-ins," so much of the movie might be lost on me. I refused to partake in something so childish, so I put off seeing the movie.

In October 1995, during my senior year at Georgetown, someone from the Georgetown Program Board (a student activities planning group) asked members of Mask & Bauble (the most prominent theater group) to put together a live cast for a Rocky Horror screening at The Pub (once the on-campus bar, then a restaurant and program space). I was dating my now-ex-wife Liz at the time, and she was and is one of the biggest Rocky Horror fans I know. She got involved in the planning right away and claimed one of the roles (Columbia) for herself. She pleaded with me to be a part of the production with her. I tried but I couldn't say no and we decided that since I'd never seen the movie or the musical, it would be best if I took the role of Brad. Seeing as I how I was then and still am a bit of an uptight guy, the part seemed like a natural fit. We found other less-inhibited students and alumni willing to take on the rest of the roles. We gathered the night before the screening to watch the movie and plan our live-action parts. Ours would be a sloppy affair but to our benefit I was the only member of the cast who had no idea what he was doing.

The next evening, Liz and I met at my apartment and got into costume. We fortified ourselves with a few shots of Stoli and took the rest of the vodka with us in a plastic water bottle to share with the rest of the cast. When we arrived at The Pub we found a crowd already gathered and the audio and video systems ready to go. However, we were missing one crucial item: the movie itself. Someone from the GPB was supposed to have brought along a copy but either they'd forgotten it or they never showed up. Luckily, the cast member who'd hosted us the night before lived nearby and still had the copy of the film that we'd watched the night before. While she ran home to get it, Liz and the rest of the cast entertained the audience and ridiculed the virgins. The live show went off mostly without problems. We managed to act out the first hour of the movie, though we ran out of steam by the dinner party scene and watched the rest of the movie with the audience. Before we left someone took a picture of all of us in costume. I think I might have that photo at home; if I can find it I'll update this post.

That was the one and only time I saw RHPS in a theater setting. In 2000 I went to see the Broadway revival of the musical, and I've listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. I even sang "Sweet Transvestite" at karaoke a few years ago. But I've never been to another live cast screening. I should add that to the list of things I need to do here in New York.

Taking my music on the road

2010-09-28T18:00:00.000-04:00

I was in Baltimore and Bowie last weekend visiting my family, of whom I see far too little. My brother had an extra ticket for Friday night's concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra so I left work early to meet him. The BSO performs at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, a modern orchestra hall with curved surfaces for exceptional acoustics. The concert consisted of Gustav Mahler's arrangements of Bach's orchestral suites and Mahler's Symphony No. 7. The orchestra was amazing in their own right, but the sound inside the hall was amazing. During the Bach piece, the harpsichord was crystal-clear from our seats in the balcony. Mahler's 7th was just as impressive. The fourth movement features a mandolin and guitar, and these players sat at the furthest point from us, behind the first violins. But their notes came out as clearly as if they were sitting next to me. And of course the other instrument groups like the horns and woodwinds sounded incredible. While I prefer the NY Philharmonic, I'm a little envious of the concert hall in Baltimore.

Before the concert I looked at the photos of the musicians in the lobby. I recognized the name of the assistant principal cellist but didn't place it until I saw it in the program. He used to moonlight with the Georgetown University Orchestra when I was there. Our music director studied at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and she would bring several students with her as "ringers" to fill out the string sections for our concerts. Dariusz Skoraczewski was one of the two "Dariuses" that she would bring in, the other being a violinist. The girls in the orchestra used to swoon over these two, but they didn't seem to notice or care. It's also possible that they didn't speak much English and therefore didn't understand what was going on. I hadn't thought about either of them since college but as soon as I saw the name Skoraczewski I remembered the swooning. It's good to see he's had such a successful career since those days.

I brought my viola with me on the trip so my brother (a violinist) could give me a few pointers about my playing. I haven't had a lesson in many years and I know my technique has suffered. He showed me a few things I was doing wrong with my bow and readjusted my viola's bridge, both of which resulted in some odd sounds coming from my instrument. We were going to play duets on Saturday evening but the hair on his bow broke before he could play a note, so we had to share my bow (he had a spare but we were at my father's house and his spare bow was in Baltimore). We did get to sight-read one of Mozart's violin and viola duets on Sunday afternoon, to great applause from my stepmother. I gave him the music so he could look it over for a future sight-reading session. It was much easier than I thought to haul my viola on the train, so I will do it again in the future.

New York Philharmonic Opening Night Concert 2010-11

2010-09-22T20:56:00.036-04:00

I had fun live-blogging Live From Lincoln Center last year for the opening night performance by the New York Philharmonic, so I thought I'd do it again this year. They're coming to you live(-ish) from Avery Fisher Hall, and I'm coming to you from Five Guys Productions HQ in Brooklyn. So tune into PBS (check your local listings) and enjoy the Philharmonic with me!

Updates will be at the bottom, since I don't do fancy top-posting blogging around here.

8:58 PM: We have a problem already: the Philharmonic's website is throwing up an error when I try to click on tonight's concert. The program includes Strauss's Don Juan, Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses on a Theme of Weber, and a new work by Wynton Marsalis. I think there's one more piece but we'll just have to wait and see.

9:02 PM: Alec Baldwin is back as the host. He sounds a little raspier than usual tonight.

9:03 PM: Alan Gilbert in the white tie and tails tonight. The orchestra begins with "The Star-Spangled Banner" as they do every opening night.

9:04 PM: Everyone stands up but the cellos. Why do you hate America, cello section?

9:05 PM: The first work is the American premiere of Wynton Marsalis' Swing Symphony. And there he is in the trumpet section!

9:08 PM: The orchestra seems at home with the jazzy style of this piece. It reminds me a little of Gershwin.

9:09 PM: They squeezed the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra on stage too. Things look cramped up there.

9:12 PM: I'm sure my first exposure to Wynton Marsalis was a jazz performance on TV many years ago. But my father had this album of Marsalis playing Baroque trumpet concerti with the English Chamber Orchestra, and I must have listened to it dozens of times. All of the works on that album called for multiple trumpets, and Marsalis played all the parts himself. It was a recording engineer's dream (or nightmare).

9:15 PM: We've got car horns and whistles in the percussion section. Like I said, I hear lots of Gershwin in this piece. That's not a bad thing.

9:18 PM: I don't listen to much jazz, but if I did, this is the kind of jazz I'd like.

9:22 PM: I love the barker-hat mutes the jazz band trumpeters just used. Alan Gilbert looks like he's having a great time conducting this piece.

9:26 PM: The jazz band musicians are calling out to each other during their solos. But the audience isn't applauding after each one like in a standard jazz concert. Is that because it's a classical music audience that in 2010 doesn't applaud in the middle of a movement of a symphony? Loosen up! It's jazz!

9:31 PM: This last part just opened up like "Sing Sing Sing" with Gene Krupa.

9:33 PM: I want a hat mute for my viola for rehearsal tomorrow night. I don't know how I'll use it. I'll figure that out. Someone hook a blogger up!

9:36 PM: I like the fade-out ending of that movement. And the next movement (are there four? Without a program I have no idea) takes off like a rocket.

9:38 PM: Marsalis takes a solo turn. This guy can still bring it.

9:41 PM: It's about time the bassist gets a solo.

9:46 PM: There's more? This is one long symphony. Not that I'm complaining.

9:51 PM: I'm going to take a minute here and talk about some of the concerts on my Philharmonic schedule this season. I'm going to hear Mahler's Symphony No. 6 next Wednesday evening. The Philharmonic is performing Mendelssohn's oratorio "Elijah" in November. I'm going back for more Mahler in April, for his Symphony No. 5. And at the end of June the Philharmonic will stage Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen. If it's anything like the way they staged Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre last year, it should be a great performance.

9:55 PM: The symphony fades to a close, and Gilbert steps off the podium to congratulate composer and performer Marsalis. The narrator notes that it's odd for a composer of a symphonic work to perform with an orchestra, but in jazz it's common.

9:57 PM: Intermission. Rex Ryan says "let's go get a goddamn snack."

10:04 PM: Alec Baldwin talks to Wynton Marsalis at intermission. Marsalis says he no longer plays classical music because it's too difficult to make the switch from one style to another. Baldwin asks him about the different styles in the work, and wonders if Marsalis was trying to provide a history of jazz. Marsalis responds that it's the history of swing music, from ragtime to the present, and I think he said that they didn't play all of the movements of the piece. So there's more?

10:09 PM: Baldwin and Music Director Alan Gilbert talk about Strauss. Gilbert says that Don Juan is a challenge for the entire orchestra. There's a reason why excerpts from the piece show up on auditions everywhere. And Gilbert says that Hindemith's Metamorphoses are a chance for the orchestra to shine.

10:11 PM: We're into Don Juan. This is some meat for the orchestra. It's not my favorite of Strauss's tone poems (that would be An Alpine Symphony) but it's right up there near the top.

10:15 PM: It amazes me that Richard Strauss was 26 when he composed this piece. It's such complex music for such a young man. (Boy, do I feel old now.)

10: 17 PM: I love principal flutist Robert Langevin's mustache. I don't know how he plays the flute with all that hair in the way.

10:21 PM: Listening to Strauss makes me want to be a French horn player.

10:25 PM: I played Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks with NYRO a few years ago and it was so much fun to learn. I fear that Don Juan is out of reach, though.

10:30 PM: The last piece on the program is Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses on a Theme of Carl Maria von Weber. I played this work with NYRO three years ago and it turned out to be one of my favorite pieces we played all year.

10:32 PM: Gilbert launches into the Symphonic Metamorphoses before the narrator can finish his introduction of the piece. Awesome.

10:36 PM: I may or may not be whistling along with the flute solos. For anyone actually reading this live, this movement has a percussion fugue in it. It's the kind of thing you don't hear too often.

10:40 PM: Outstanding work from the Philharmonic's brass section, as usual.

10:44 PM: I don't think you can say enough about the job Mark Nuccio has done in replacing Stanley Drucker as principal clarinet. Drucker was a Philharmonic institution for six decades. No one wants to try to replace a legend, and Nuccio has been stellar in the role. Note: my mother is a clarinetist, so I may have a bias.

10:47 PM: Langevin is just killing this flute solo.

10:48 PM: I love the last movement of this piece. I walked around with this piece in my head for a month and I couldn't get enough of it.

10:52 PM: Have I said before how much I love a slam-bang ending?

That's it for tonight. Enjoy the post-concert reception in the lobby, don't forget to tip your cabdriver, and I'll see you back here for next year's opening night. Of course, if you like concert reviews (and who doesn't?) I'll post something about each New York Philharmonic concert I attend this season, and any other orchestras I might hear. I think I'm going to see the Cleveland Orchestra at some point, and possibly the Pittsburgh Symphony again. Because that's how I roll.

Why was I not informed?

2010-09-21T15:42:00.000-04:00

I know it's been a while (early July) since I attended a New York Philharmonic concert at Avery Fisher Hall. And it's been even long since I went to O'Neal's or Peter's before or after a concert. Well, I won't be going to either restaurant again, since both have closed. Further research indicates that O'Neal's has become another outpost of the Atlantic Grill, so at least it's still a restaurant. I haven't been able to find out what happened to Peter's. O'Neal's was NYRO's go-to post-rehearsal watering hole and my standby for pre- or post-concert drinks and dinner. I guess this makes PJ Clarke's my new default option for dinner before a concert. Or Ollie's, if I'm not trying to impress anyone.

My first visit to Citi Field

2010-09-14T15:37:00.000-04:00

I wish I could say I had as much fun on my first trip to Citi Field as I had on my first visit to the new Yankee Stadium. Like that game, we had a rain delay, but this one happened before the game and held the first pitch until just before 8 PM. However, the rain delay allowed me to try the soft tacos, which I had heard were the best food option at the ballpark. I didn't try anything else (except a Nathan's hot dog) but I can unequivocally say yes, the tacos are worth the trip. My friend Jeremy came with me to the game and I thank him again for keeping me well-fed last night.

The game was dreadful. First of all, we were competing with the Jets-Ravens game, the Yankees-Rays game in Tampa, and the mens' final at the US Open. And it rained. And the Mets and Pirates both stink this year. One would think a 0-0 tie going into extra innings would be exciting, and from the perspective of those who enjoy good pitching, it was a great game. But the Pirates found themselves in great scoring situations, once with the bases loaded with two outs, only to have the pitcher's spot come up in the order. The Mets didn't fare any better until the bottom of the 10th when pinch hitter Nick Evans' single scored Ruben Tejada to give the home team the win. I admit I was bored for most of the game. I don't need high-scoring with lots of home runs, but I would have liked it if the Pirates had managed to put at least one run on the board when they had a chance. Pat at WHYGAVS wrote a couple of posts analyzing the bunt laid down by Jose Tabata in the top of the 10th inning. I don't know much about baseball and I couldn't figure out why Tabata bunted in that situation. After that half-inning I went for a walk around the concourse and saw the Mets' winning hit from the far side of the stadium. Rather than being upset about the loss, I was just happy I could go home, having seen the entire game.

I did get some good photos of the players at the plate, so there's that.

I'm going back on Wednesday, and perhaps the Pirates will have a better outing. I don't want to have to wear my team hat in shame on the 7 train again.

2010-09-08T12:10:00.000-04:00

I was in Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend on a semi-secret mission. We ate ribs, toured the Warhol Museum, avoided a Bret Michaels concert, had some delicious Indian food in Oakland, and walked all over the city. I flew JetBlue again and this time there were no incidents whatsoever. Both flights were as unremarkable as possible, which is just what I want out of a trip.

I'm still thinking about the NYRO preview and other ways I can promote the orchestra's upcoming season. Rehearsals begin Thursday night and I can't wait to get back to playing every week.

Coming soon to this space

2010-09-02T14:54:00.000-04:00

I hope that posting about something I plan to write is just as valid as actually writing it. With another NYRO season upon us, I'm going to write a preview of some of the music we're playing this year. If I feel particularly energized, it will happen in the next 48 hours; if not, look for it here early next week.

Bloomberg Sports gets into fantasy football

2010-08-27T10:06:00.001-04:00

On Monday night I had the privilege of attending a Bloomberg Sports event at their headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Back in January they held a similar event to introduce their new baseball products. The program began with an overview of the baseball offerings and the improvements since the launch in January. I wasn't at the baseball product launch so the demonstration was new to me. The tool for baseball teams lets scouts analyze hitters and pitchers by displaying all hits by a batter or all pitches from a pitcher, scattered across the strike zone. Click and drag across a selection of pitches and a new menu appears with each pitch or hit on video. A broadcast product provides ready-for-TV graphs of player statistics, with the ability to overlay them on whatever background the TV network has in stock. The most popular part of the fantasy baseball product has been the trade analysis tool. It shows an aggregate value for each player in a potential trade, so that the casual user can just drop in a trade and get a quick answer. There are in-depth analysis options for the hard-core users as well. Based on what I saw, I think I'll invest in the fantasy baseball tools for next season. I need all the help I can get.

After dinner, they gave us a demonstration of the new fantasy football offering. Bloomberg is putting all of their statistical analysis knowledge into a sit/start tool. It breaks down an individual player's stats over time and gives you a head-to-head look at which player at a particular position is the better option to play that week. Bloomberg provides a “safe play” number and a “longshot” number. The safe number is how that player usually performs. It's based on factors like that player's individual performance, his team support, how well that player matches up against his opponent (the inverse of the team support factor), and weather. The longshot number takes into account the wide variations in a player's performance. In other words, if a quarterback's usual production is two touchdown passes and one interception against a team in favorable weather, those stats factor into the safe number. But if that player has had a four-TD pass day against that team, then that becomes part of the longshot number. As an overview, the tool is easy for a casual player to see who is the better option that week. But the system allows a manager interested in deeper analysis to drill down into the different factors and see the numbers that went into the calculation. It sounds like a more detailed version of what my fantasy football system does now in providing managers with a projected score for each player every week. Now we can see what kind of information goes into that projection.

Bloomberg Sports is launching the fantasy football tool as part of the NFL's fantasy football league system on nfl.com. It will be free to anyone using nfl.com for fantasy football. For everyone else, the tool will be $7.95 for the season, which I think is a steal. I'd easily pay twice that much for this kind of analysis. There's a possibility that Bloomberg will provide a fantasy draft kit package for next season, which would increase the value of the product even more. For the moment, I'm eager to let Bloomberg's analytic system tell me who is the best bet to start each week and see if that makes a difference in my fantasy football performance this year.

My first game at the new Yankee Stadium

2010-08-23T14:21:00.001-04:00

It took me almost two seasons, but on Sunday afternoon I finally made the trip to the South Bronx to see a baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium. It was the final game of a three-game series with the Seattle Mariners and though the forecast called for rain, I hoped we'd be able to see at least five or six innings. My friend Amanda Rykoff had an extra ticket and offered to show me around the new ballpark. Check out her post about the game.

My last visit to the neighborhood had been in November 2007, when I had a tour of the old Yankee Stadium. The walk up to the new park is much more impressive, with better traffic flow than the crowds that milled around outside on the sidewalk.

The entrance led into the Great Hall, with banners honoring famous Yankees. It's a bit overwhelming.

The tarp was on the field when we arrived, but they removed it a few minutes later. The game was going to start on time.

Our seats were in section 420B, high above home plate but with an excellent view of the entire field.

The high-definition video screen was directly in front of us and despite the distance every line and statistic was easily readable.

CC Sabathia was pitching for the Yankees, and he threw a magnificent game with eight strikeouts through six innings. The Yankees took a 1-0 lead as the rain started. Then, in the bottom of the fifth, Robinson Cano hit a grand slam to give the home team a 5-0 lead. It wasn't as exciting as the 10th-inning walk-off grand slam by the Pirates' Pedro Alvarez against the Rockies two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, but it was fun to watch the crowd's reaction.

A few minutes later a rain delay suspended play for 45 minutes. Amanda and I retreated to the concourse, tried the sausage sandwiches (tasty!) and met up with her friend Stefanie who had provided us with our tickets. The rain kept me from exploring more of the food options on the upper level, so I'll have to see what's there at my next game.

When the rain eased up the tarp came off again and the grounds crew made short work of those puddles. They used squeegees and some sort of shovel/corer thing to punch drainage holes in the turf. Within five minutes most of the water had drained off.

At 3:30 the game was back on, though Sabathia's day was done. The Yankees' bullpen finished up the shutout, although Joba Chamberlain gave us a little to worry about with a runner on 3rd late in the game. We kept hoping for a pitcher's ERA to match the time of the game, but the closest we got was Kerry Wood's 4.40 at 4:15 PM.

The Mariners weren't able to mount anything close to a comeback and even with the rain delay the game ended around 5 PM. And we lucked out with the rain -- the worst of it came down during the game when we were under cover.

I had a great time at my first game at the Stadium. Because of the weather I didn't get to explore it as much as I would have liked, but I'll see more of it on future visits. As much as I derided the Yankees for spending more than $1 billion on their new home, the money was well spent. It's a gorgeous place to watch a game. I'm going to a Mets-Pirates game at Citi Field next month so I'll be able to compare the other new stadium to this one.

Vacation report, part 9: One last day in Vienna and Prague

2010-08-19T10:09:00.003-04:00

Before all of the mishegoss with the JetBlue flight, I was in the middle of posting photos and telling stories from my vacation in Europe. When I left off, I was wrapping up my last full day in Vienna with a giant schnitzel.

I had only a few hours in Vienna on Sunday morning, so after breakfast I went in search of the city's Holocaust memorial. On the way I passed one of Mozart's former residences, the house in which he lived while composing his opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio).

The Holocaust Memorial is in Judenplatz, an open plaza near the Jewish Museum.

This inscription appears at the memorial's base in German, English, and Hebrew.

I took a train from Vienna to Prague on Sunday afternoon for my flight back to New York Monday morning. That alone was a bit of adventure, as I'd never taken a European intercity train before. I shared a compartment with a rotating assortment of strangers, most of them older couples or families. I was one of the lucky ones who got a seat. Younger kids with backpacks filled the hallway outside my compartment, sitting on their bags or on the floor. That's a hell of a way to travel.

I had one destination when I returned to Prague: Novomestsky Pivovar (New Town Brew Pub), a restaurant just off Wenceslas Square. One of my friends from NYRO had told me of this place in March when I first announced I was going on the trip. He said "find the place that serves the hunk of pork with a knife in it." His description became more specific as the date of the trip approached, and when I was in Prague the previous weekend I'd found the restaurant. Since it was around the corner from the hotel where I was staying on my last night there, I waited until my return trip to go there. And it was worth the wait. I had two beers, one light and one dark (the light was better) and this beauty, the pork knuckle:

It's not quite as big as it looks. Most of it was bone, and I could have used a side dish of potatoes or pretzels. But it was delicious.

Since the night was young, I took one more stroll over to the Charles Bridge and took photos of the bridge and Prague Castle. There was a cello trio playing Metallica songs for a large, enthusiastic crowd. I think I tipped them in euros, since I didn't have any use for them at that point (the Czech Republic has its own currency).

The next morning I flew back to New York, my vacation at an end. I had more fun than I ever anticipated and I can't wait to go on another bike tour or another trip to Europe. I'm already thinking of my next Backroads vacation. Some people recommended Provence, others Italy, and one friend suggested Poland, Slovakia and Hungary for another taste of Central Europe. There's a Slovenia trip that includes a Tour de France-like mountain climb that sounds amazing. I just need to save some money first.

One last stop on the media tour

2010-08-12T10:36:00.000-04:00

If you want to hear the audio version of my media circus story, I'm on Dan Levy's On The DL podcast this morning. I've been listening to Dan's show for a long time and he thought the media side of the story was just as interesting, if not more so, than the incident itself. I hope you enjoy the show, and I apologize in advance for the occasional poor sound and cats meowing on my end.

My 24 hours in the media circus

2010-08-12T09:27:00.001-04:00

On Monday afternoon, after my initial tweet about the incident on the JetBlue flight, I went home to my apartment in Brooklyn, had lunch, and settled in to catch up on weekend TV. I planned to write a post about my weekend in Pittsburgh and I thought I might include something about the flight as part of that post. Around 2 PM I checked my e-mail and saw a message from a New York Daily News reporter who wanted to talk about what I'd seen. I don't have much experience dealing with the media, but I thought it would be cool if they put my name in the newspaper so I called him back. He took down my story and I asked him to make sure to spell my name correctly. He asked me not to speak to the New York Post, and as I'm not a big fan of the Post, I agreed.

A few hours later I talked to my friend Amanda Rykoff. She'd seen my tweets about the incident and told me to write the story from my point of view for my blog immediately. I had planned to wait until Tuesday to write something and include a link to the Daily News story when it came out. But her point was that I should get my version of the events out right away, so I wrote my blog post and tweeted about it. My mother called at 6 PM to tell me that the Pittsburgh news stations had stories about the flight, and I watched the local coverage here in New York.

About an hour later a producer at The Early Show on CBS called me. She asked me to do an exclusive live interview with them on Tuesday morning. I couldn't believe they'd want me to be on TV but I said yes. Why not? At first it was going to be a studio interview in midtown, then they wanted to do a stand-up interview at JFK Airport, then they moved it back to the studio.

That's when my phone blew up with calls, e-mails, and texts. NBC wanted me to appear on the Today Show. A local CBS news crew showed up at my apartment and taped me (unshaven and wearing an old T-shirt) for the 11 PM news. Later in the evening, a Good Morning America producer rang my apartment doorbell every 10 minutes for roughly an hour. My parents called to let me know that various TV shows had called them looking for me. Both Amanda and my father convinced me to break my "exclusive" with CBS and go on the Today Show as well. My father said "Get your name out there! It's the Today Show!" Amanda suggested that this story was this year's US Airways Hudson River plane landing and reminded me that those passengers had appeared on all the morning shows. I was getting overwhelmed with the requests and the details. But the Today Show producer said that they have procedures for dealing with the other morning shows, and that they routinely hand off guests to one another after interviews. I agreed to go on the Today Show for a pre-taped interview before 7 AM, then go to CBS for a live spot on The Early Show at 7. By this time it was nearly midnight. Even though I went to bed shortly thereafter, I think I only managed to get about two hours of sleep.

I woke up at 5 AM Tuesday, showered, shaved, and put on one of my favorite shirts. An NBC intern showed up at my apartment with a car at 5:30. Good Morning America had one of their producers waiting outside as well, and he practically begged me to give them a few minutes after my NBC and CBS commitments. I told him he'd have to wait and see, then got into NBC's car. At 30 Rock they whisked me past the plaza and into the green room for a bit of makeup, then I had a few minutes to sit, check my e-mail, and catch my breath. They took me into the studio, which looks smaller from the inside than it does on TV or even from the plaza. Meredith Vieira said hello to me from the desk as they put me on the couch. Matt Lauer came in, shook my hand and said "we can have a little fun with this story." I was too overwhelmed by the early hour, the lack of sleep, and all the activity to be nervous. During the interview itself, I focused on Lauer and did my best to ignore the cameras. As soon as the interview ended, the NBC intern hustled me back out to 48th Street, where I met The Early Show producer and we took another car over to CBS's studio. The Early Show's team handled me as adroitly as Today's had, getting me into the studio, on the air, and out the door in a matter of minutes. Again, I didn't even think about the cameras being there. The thought that I was on live television never entered my head.

I'd had time to check my e-mail again on the way from NBC to CBS. A CNN producer wanted to know if I could appear on American Morning around 8 AM. Since I usually go to work at 10 AM, and all these shows are close to each other in midtown Manhattan, I agreed to go on CNN. When I finished at CBS, a CNN car took me to their studio, which I think was at the Time Warner Center. I didn't notice because I was too busy reading e-mails from long-lost friends from high school who were writing incredulous things like "Did I just see you on the Today Show?" I had more time to sit and think while waiting to go on CNN. My e-mail inbox and voice mail were full of radio and TV interview requests. Good Morning America had given up, but FOX News wanted me for a spot on their 9 AM show. I did the American Morning spot and they shot some extra footage in a hallway, for what purpose I have no idea. On the way out of CNN's office building, a WABC camera crew grabbed me, so I talked to them for two minutes. Then I got into yet another car to go over to FOX. The FOX interview experience was almost a carbon-copy of what had happened at CNN, only with more makeup.

After the FOX interview I had to go to work. And I was exhausted. I'd been up since 5 AM, I was running on no sleep, and I really wanted to go to my office and get back to my job. After all, I'd been on vacation since the previous Thursday and I had a lot of work to do. I did speak to a few more news organizations over the phone in the afternoon, but I ignored requests from the afternoon and evening news shows, including some big names. I also deleted all the e-mails from radio shows around the country. You can only tell the same story so many times before it becomes stale. I saw that there were fresh stories coming into the 24-hour news cycle and knew that soon I would be old, forgotten news. To my relief, by late afternoon the interview requests had slowed from a flood to a trickle.

Another reason I passed on the vast majority of requests after Tuesday morning was that by the time I was done at FOX, I had the feeling that I'd become a much bigger part of the story than I deserved. I had made the rounds of the morning shows. To appear on any other shows in the afternoon or evening would have been completely self-serving. I admit that I got caught up in the excitement and thrill of the attention in the morning, and I'm not proud of that. But when else would I have a chance to meet Matt Lauer? Or John Roberts and Kiran Chetry at CNN? Tuesday morning was a one-shot deal, and now it's behind me. I look forward to being anonymous again.

Technology note: I took nearly all the calls, texts, and e-mails on Monday and Tuesday on my iPhone and throughout it all, I only had one dropped call. And that call took place in a cab headed downtown to my office. Bravo, Apple and AT&T!

If you missed me this morning...

2010-08-10T16:32:00.000-04:00

I am exhausted and worn out from almost 24 hours of phone calls, texts, e-mails, and tweets. It's been a unique experience but I'm really looking forward to putting this whole story behind me.

If you didn't see one or more of these shows today, here are the links I could find:

The TODAY Show

CBS Early Show

CNN American Morning

I can't find the FOX News segment on their website so if anyone else finds it please let me know.

Thank you to everyone who e-mailed, commented, or tweeted to me or about me today. I really appreciate all the support of family and friends.

To anyone who's new here, I usually write about classical music, Pittsburgh sports teams, and life in New York. I hope you'll stick around.

Thanks again!

Just a little excitement on my flight today

2010-08-09T17:52:00.002-04:00

I was in Pittsburgh this weekend for Walkoff Walk's annual HEIST meetup -- more on that later -- and I flew back this morning. JetBlue flight 1052 was really uneventful, barely more than an hour. I'm glad I had time to watch all of "The Price is Right" before we landed. I was afraid I'd miss the end of the Showcase Showdown.

As we were taxiing to the gate, we stopped and several passengers got up to get their bags. One of the flight attendants announced that we were not quite at the gate yet and asked everyone to sit down. I hadn't moved since I was in row 15. We pulled up to the gate and people started to get off the plane. As I got up to get my bags, the flight attendant made this announcement:

"To the passenger who just called me a motherfucker: fuck you. I've been in this business 28 years and I've had it."

I looked at everyone around me, all of us surprised to have just heard that over an airplane intercom. As I got off the plane, I noticed that it looked like the door opposite the one with the jetway was open. I didn't look, but there was light coming in where normally there's no light. The other flight attendants were talking about someone who was having a really bad day.

I got to the AirTrain terminal and the JetBlue flight attendant who'd made the announcement was there. I recognized him from the flight; it looked like he had a cut on his forehead. I recognized his voice when he started talking to another passenger from our flight about how he'd just had enough and quit his job. Then he said something about someone using the emergency slide to get off the plane. I still wasn't sure what had happened. I thought a passenger had taken the fun way out.

As we rode the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, he talked about how he'd been a flight attendant for 28 years and he was fed up with this passenger who had a bag problem. He said something like "your bag's right here!" and mimed pulling the emergency slide. He also said that the plane would be out of service the rest of the day to have its emergency slide replaced. I didn't talk to him myself. I stood there listening to his conversation with the other guy, phone in hand, ready to tweet. When we got off at Jamaica, the flight attendant went one way (to the parking lot) and the other passenger walked with me toward the Long Island Rail Road. I asked him if I'd heard correctly that this flight attendant had used the emergency slide to get off the plane, and he confirmed it. That's when I put this on Twitter:

JetBlue story: pissed-off lady demanded her bag, swore at FA. The FA swore back on intercom, quit job, left plane via emergency slide.

And now the story is all over the news.

To be clear about a few things:

The flight was never in danger. We were on the ground, at the gate. None of the passengers on my flight were delayed or detained as far as I know.

The attendant didn't drive away from the tarmac. Somehow he got back into the terminal and got to the AirTrain. He had his bags with him too, so I wonder if he took those down the slide with him.

I feel bad for everyone waiting for the next flight to Pittsburgh. I assume JetBlue turns the same plane around for JFK-PIT, so those people had to wait while JetBlue found another plane for the afternoon flights.

I'm mostly concerned that a flight attendant would lose their cool that way over a bag in the overhead. But I'm sure he's served his last bag of in-flight cookies.

Vacation report, part 8: Vienna!

2010-08-09T12:30:00.001-04:00

I set out as early as I could on Saturday, determined to see as much of Vienna as I could. My first stop was Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church).

I had to wait until Mass ended before I could take photos of the interior. There was a guy sitting at the desk just inside the door who gave me the "stink eye" as I stood in the back waiting for the service to wrap up.

Next up was Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church).

Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church)

The nave and altar of Karlskirche

The frescoes on the ceiling were unbelievable.

The church was undergoing renovations but they had an elevator in the middle of the nave that took visitors up to the top of the dome for close-ups of the frescoes and the view from the top of the dome. One unique feature of the dome was the "whisper" effect of the acoustics. I could hear two men talking on the other side of the dome, 40 feet away, as if they were standing next to me. It reminded me of the dome at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, which had a similar sound effect.

I wandered through the Naschmarkt for lunch, then hopped on Vienna's subway system for a visit to Schonnbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the Habsburg dynasty.

I'd skipped the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg on Friday, but I was not about to miss the apartments at Schonnbrunn, including the famous Mirror Room where a six-year-old Mozart gave his first performance for Empress Maria Theresia. I admit that I got chills standing in the same room where Mozart once stood. Yes, I'm that geeky. I lingered in the gardens and "backyard" of the palace, marveling at how royalty used to live. Who needs that much house? According to the audio guide, the palace used to require over a thousand servants to maintain it. It's good to be the emperor.

My legs were starting to give out on me, but it was only 6 PM and I hadn't heard a concert in Vienna yet. I took the subway back to central Vienna and meandered back to my hotel past several more churches, most of them closing for the day. I was able to see Minoritenkirche inside and out, and as I passed Michaelerkirche I saw that they offered a free organ recital at 8 PM that night. Score! The organ in the church was built in 1714 and it is the oldest working Baroque organ in Austria. How could I pass up a chance to hear it?

The recital consisted of music from before 1700 and included a soprano soloist. The organ sound was sublime, almost ethereal. The bass notes didn't shake the floor like the organs I've heard in the United States do, but they're all of Victorian or later vintage and I suspect that the massive organ sound I'm accustomed to is a product of that era. I imagined that this was the sort of organ Bach would have played for all those cantatas he wrote in Leipzig. There was a church employee (the "MC") who introduced the soloist and the music and told us a few "fun facts" about the organ and the church. He said that Michaelerkirche was the site of the first performance of Mozart's Requiem in December 1791, and that they think that Haydn himself used to play the organ at the church as he lived nearby.

After the recital the organist invited the audience up to the organ loft for a tour and a demonstration of the workings of the organ. He only spoke German so the "MC" provided near-simultaneous English translation. I had the feeling these two had done this routine before. The organ console had a speaker on it so that the orchestra and choir (which would sit up in the organ loft as well) could hear the organ, much as monitors work for a rock band in concert. The soloist played a few measures of one of the pieces from the recital with all of us standing up there, so we could hear and feel the organ up close. The whole event was fascinating.

The largest pipes on the organ

I had dinner at Figlmuller's, the best restaurant for schnitzel in Vienna. I looked at the menu but didn't need it. A minute after I sat down the waiter brought the gentlemen next to me their food, and I said "I'll have what they're having."

Schnitzel, potato salad and wine at Figlmuller's

The schnitzel was so large it overflowed the plate it was on. And I ate every bit of it. The potato salad wasn't bad, and I liked the bits of watercress that served as my vegetable for the day. I wandered around for a while, soaking up the environment and letting my dinner settle, before stopping at a cafe for a beer and dessert. Surprisingly, the sugary Sacher torte didn't keep me awake late that night. I slept well after all that walking around.

Vacation report, part 7: Durnstein and on to Vienna

2010-08-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

The ruins of the castle above Durnstein

Friday was the last day of the Backroads part of my vacation. We had the option of a short loop ride along the Danube or a hike up to the castle ruins above Durnstein. I chose the ruins, as I love old castles and King Richard the Lionheart had been imprisoned there.

There isn't much of the castle left, but the view of the town, the river, and the surrounding countryside was spectacular.

We also got to tour the church in Durnstein, which served as a preview of the kind of ornate decoration I would see in the churches in Vienna.

We said farewell to our guides and boarded a bus for Vienna. I got to my hotel around 1 PM, dropped off my bags, and went out sightseeing.

My first stop was St. Stephen's Cathedral, the most prominent building
in the city.

I took the elevator to the top of the spire and had a panoramic view of half of Vienna. (The roof of the cathedral blocked my view of the other half of the city.)

Next up was the Hofburg, the residence of the Habsburgs, once the ruling family of the Austrian Empire. On the way I stopped at Michaelerkirche (St. Michael's Church) and saw the incredible decorations on the altar and columns.

Michaelerkirche (St. Michael's Church)

The altar at Michaelerkirche

The entrance to Hofburg

My guidebook recommended that I skip the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg and see something else, so I skipped them in favor of the Kunsthistoriches (Art History) Museum.

Kunsthistoriches (Art History) Museum

The museum reminded me of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, with the Greek and Roman exhibits, the Egyptian mummies, and room after room of portraits and landscapes. Although the Met doesn't have a room full of art by Rubens, or this portrait of a young Franz Josef II (note the resemblance to Jeffrey Jones) and his brother, the Grand Duke.

I left the Kunsthistoriches Museum just before closing and wandered past the Staatsoper on my way to the Haus der Musik, Vienna's homage to its musical heritage. The museum dedicated its first floor to the Vienna Philharmonic, with artifacts from the orchestra's 180-year history and a theater showing their most recent New Year's Eve concert. The second floor had exhibits on how sound works and I can see the appeal for children. The third floor was the big payoff for me - rooms devoted to Vienna's musical masters: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss, and Mahler.

The Mahler Room at the Haus der Musik

Finally, the fourth floor had more interactive exhibits and a game system that let you put together your own sonic composition. I ended my day with dinner at Greichenbeisl, a restaurant once frequented by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms, though presumably not all at the same time.

Greichenbeisl

Sitting there drinking wine, eating strudel, and people-watching was a satisfying way to finish my first evening in Vienna.

Vacation report, part 6: Melk Abbey

2010-08-05T10:30:00.001-04:00

Durnstein as seen from the opposite bank of the Danube

Thursday's ride was a loop from Durnstein to Melk and back. The main route was 47 miles, but there was a 54-mile option with some steep hills. Since it was our last full day on the bikes, I was seriously tempted to go for it. But Wednesday's ride had been a little taxing and our guides told us that we could do two of these three options: 1) ride the 54-mile loop, 2) stop for lunch in Melk, 3) visit Melk Abbey, the monastery that dominated the town. They warned us that it was nearly impossible to do all three and get back to Durnstein in time for dinner. Having ridden 41 miles and a major hill the day before, I opted for lunch and the abbey. After all, I was on vacation!

Austria!

Your humble correspondent

Melk

The abbey was worth the visit, as the photos will attest.

The entrance to Melk Abbey

The Baroque design of the church in particular was a prelude of all the churches I would see in Vienna.

We missed a turn on the way back to Durnstein and nearly rode onto what might have been an army base. I wasn't sure we were going the wrong way until I heard gunfire from what I assumed was a firing range. I try to avoid machine gun fire on my vacations, so we turned around and found the correct bike path.

Another castle on the Danube

When I returned to the hotel, I bid a fond farewall to the bike and parked my trusty steed in the "I'm hiking on Friday" area. My bike tour was over, but I wasn't done with my vacation or Durnstein yet.

Vacation report, part 5: Ottenstein to Durnstein, Austria

2010-08-04T10:08:00.001-04:00

We took a bus from Cesky Krumlov to an old castle in Ottenstein, Austria. Along the way I learned that there are no longer any passport controls at the borders between EU nations, so I didn't get an Austrian stamp in my passport. We sped through the former border checkpoint so quickly that I couldn't even take a photo of the empty drive-through booths. Lunch was a picnic provided by one of our guides, followed by a brief lecture on the history and culture of Austria. Then we were off and riding again. It was one of the hottest days of the trip, and even three full water bottles weren't enough. For the first time I wished I'd brought my Camelbak along.

Castle in Ottenstein where we had lunch

Ancient castle near Ottenstein

There was another big climb on the route that day that I wasn't about to miss. I rode up the hill with Doug, one of the strongest cyclists in the group. Just before we started the climb, we met an older Austrian gentleman who asked us (in broken English) where we were going and then insisted on getting out of his car and helping us with our directions. I think we convinced him we weren't lost and that we were riding up the hill for fun. He said he'd learned English from 1940 to 1945 and we suspected he hadn't spoken it much since then. We also wondered if he might be one of the Von Trapp children.

The stream at the bottom of the big climb

Doug and I kept the same slow pace as Bob and I had used on Monday and again it worked to conserve our energy. But it was so hot that we were running low on water. I had one full bottle left and Doug was on his last bottle. We didn't see our support vans at all. While we rode through small towns on our way up the hill, we saw no stores where we could buy water. I scooped up some cold water from a small stream next to the road, useful for pouring on my head but questionable for drinking. Finally, near the top of the hill, I spotted an outdoor spigot at a deserted tennis court. There was no gate or door and no one to ask for permission, so we helped ourselves. The water was delightfully cool and refreshing.

The view at the top of the climb

Another view from the top

A few kilometers later we were speeding down the other side of the hill on another roller-coaster-like, hairpin-turn-filled ride. The end of the route led us through vineyards into Durnstein, site of the imprisonment of King Richard the Lionheart and our base for the next two evenings.

Vineyards outside Durnstein

At dinner that evening, we found out what had happened to the support vans. Some of the people in the group had opted for a ride to the tops of the hills, then rode their bikes down. And other riders took longer than expected to finish the day's ride, so the vans was out looking for them. Doug and I got caught in the middle with no support so we had to improvise. But all's well that ends well and we'd had a good time on a challenging hill.

Vacation report, part 4: Cesky Krumlov

2010-08-03T10:01:00.002-04:00

Tuesday's ride was a 45 km loop from Cesky Krumlov to Chvalsiny and back, giving us time in the afternoon to explore the town and see the castle. Cesky Krumlov is a tourist haven, and during the day the streets were crowded with families and travelers from around the world. We saw more than a few backpackers and cyclists with overloaded panniers passing through and spending the night in the town's hostels.

The castle at Cesky Krumlov

A rare quiet moment on the streets of Cesky Krumlov

The castle tower

Cesky Krumlov as seen from the castle

That evening, we had a Q and A session with a local historian and linguist, a walking tour of the town, and then dinner at a restaurant. We'd been promised music which I assumed would be a local band playing traditional Czech music. Well, they were locals, but they played American bluegrass songs and sang the lyrics in Czech.

My friends (who knew about my musical skills) suggested I ask them if I could sit in on a song or two on bass. I politely declined to ask. Before we left, our guide came over to our table and offered us some Becherovka. It's another traditional Czech liqueur, and it was nearly as vile as the slivovice was. One of my friends described it as cloves mixed with gasoline. I think we could have used it to fuel the bus we would take to Austria on Wednesday morning.

Vacation report, part 3: Monday's ride to Cesky Krumlov

2010-08-02T14:30:00.002-04:00

Monday's ride took us from Hluboka nad Vltavou to Cesky Krumlov, a small tourist haven situated on a triple bend on the Vltava River and dominated by an ancient castle. Along the way we passed through farmland dotted with tiny villages, sometimes not more than a few buildings and a church. The landscape reminded me of where I grew up in western Pennsylvania. If it weren't for the road signs in Czech I might have thought I was back home.

We stopped in the tiny village of Holasovice for a traditional Czech lunch of pork, dumplings, potatoes, and pancakes for dessert.

Then the ride route took us up into some serious hills. The biggest climb of the trip was optional: Mt. Klet, at 3600 feet. We were already about 1000 feet up so the total elevation change for us was roughly 2700 feet. I wasn't sure I was going to attempt it. I'd struggled up a small incline just after lunch and I didn't think my body was ready for a 15-kilometer climb. (Backroads lists all their distances in kilometers; I'll use km for distance and feet for elevation because I'm American.) Then I caught up to Bob, a fellow tour rider, and he talked me into it. We had Backroads vans supporting us with water and snacks, and guides ready to bail us out if necessary. Besides, I ride up steep hills in Central and Prospect Park all the time. How bad could a whole mountain be?

We're headed to that antenna in the distance. Bob is on the lower left.

As we rode up the gradual incline, Bob started out on a slower pace than I'm used to, so I slowed down to match him and put my bike into the "granny" gear. This was the right decision, as it forced me to pace myself and not burn up all my energy too soon. And since we were keeping each other company we talked most of the way, another tactic that forced us to slow down.

The little road on the right leads to the summit of Mt. Klet.

The official ride route stopped about 3 km from the summit, though it indicated the way to the summit. We decided that since we'd made it that far, we had to ride all the way to the top. As we neared the summit, another rider, Doug, came down the path toward us. He said he'd ride back up with us, saying he could use another beer. I assumed he meant later that evening at the hotel. Our van support driver had told us that she couldn't drive up the path to get us more water so I thought that meant no cars on the path. But we'd seen a few cars coming back down the path, so I was confused. When we finally reached the summit a few minutes later I understood everything. There was a small restaurant at the top, with a parking lot and scooter rentals.

As we were about to get our celebratory beers, one of our Backroads guides and another cyclist from the tour joined us so five of us toasted reaching the summit.

Al, Doug, Bob, and I at the summit of Mt. Klet

Someone suggested we put our jackets on for the descent. Despite the heat of the day, with the altitude, the shade in the forest path, and the speed of our descent, I would have been really cold on the way down without another layer. The ride down was utterly thrilling. I've never experienced a descent like that before. It was like my own little mountain stage of the Tour de France, complete with hairpin turns.

It was our first of two nights in Cesky Krumlov, and we celebrated another successful day on the bikes with a beer tasting at a local tavern and dessert at a nearby cafe.

The town square in Cesky Krumlov

The view from the cafe

Vacation report, part 2: The bike tour begins

2010-08-02T10:01:00.025-04:00

I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this bike tour. I'd never done anything like it before. What if I was the youngest person there? The oldest? The only single person? What if no one wanted to hang out with me? I tried to relax and not worry about any of these things. As it turned out I had no reason at all for any of my concerns. From the beginning of the trip, when we all met at the hotel and shuttled to a restaurant outside Prague for lunch and bike pickup, everyone on the trip was friendly and engaging. Most of the people on the tour were older couples with grown children, though there were a few families with kids about to leave for college. Once we all got out and rode, conversations flowed naturally, we all became friends, and I enjoyed some of the best days I've ever had on a bike.

My trusty steed for the bike tour

The highlight of Sunday's ride was a stop at a slivovice distillery. Slivovice is a Czech liqueur made from plums, though as we learned it can be made from pears and other fruits.

This is where the slivovice magic happens.

After the tour we sampled some of the distillery's product, about a thimble's worth per person. It was drinkable, if by "drinkable" you mean "an intense burning sensation the length of your esophagus." It's the kind of drink that puts hair on your chest, which is a location where I don't need any help.

We spent Sunday night at Hluboka nad Vltavou, a small town near the Vltava River. There's a castle above the town that we didn't have time to tour, though I took some photos of the exterior. The castle's onetime owners, the Schwarzenberg family, adored English Windsor architecture and rebuilt their chateau in the neo-Gothic style between 1841 and 1871. As a result, the castle looks like a Disney movie set. I'm not sure the following photo does the castle justice:

I liked the exterior of the church in the center of Hluboka nad Vltavou as well. It's one of the few churches I saw on my vacation that I did not get to tour.

Vacation report, part 1: Prague

2010-07-30T13:02:00.000-04:00

Charles Bridge

My first day in Prague is now a little hazy. It was hot and I was jetlagged. But I had all day to explore Old Town Square, the Charles Bridge, and Prague Castle, which is more of a massive complex than our modern concept of a castle as a fortress.

Prague Castle as seen from Charles Bridge

At its center is St. Vitus's Cathedral, which is visible from the bridge and just about any point on the Vltava River.

St. Vitus' Cathedral at Prague Castle

I walked and walked and walked some more, to the point that whenever I sat down I felt as if I could just fall asleep right there. I took a nap at the hotel before dinner, which helped matters. But after dinner and a bit more wandering around, I returned to the hotel and slept like the dead.

After breakfast on Saturday I set out for Vysehrad, the remains of the ancient castle on the Vltava. I walked along the river then hiked up the hill to the remains, which command a spectacular view of southern Prague and the neighborhoods across the Vltava.

View of Prague from wall at Vysehrad

At Vysehrad I especially enjoyed the church, built and rebuilt over the centuries to its current Neo-Gothic design, and the cemetery in which Czech luminaries such as Antonin Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana are buried.

The church at Vysehrad

The grave of Antonin Dvorak

Prague's National Marionette Theater is world-renowned for its production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, which originally premiered in Prague conducted by the composer. There are actually two (possibly more) productions in Prague but I found the one that claimed to be the original (with press clippings and photos of world tours to back up the claims).

Prague's National Marionette Theater

I suspect it might be similar to the Ray's Pizza controversy in New York. The show began with a marionette of Mozart as conductor, leading an unseen orchestra through the overture (the music is recorded). The overture went a little off the rails, with the "musicians" throwing their music out of the orchestra pit and the music speeding up and slowing down. The opera itself was a delight. All of the marionettes were manipulated expertly and well-choreographed with the music. There was a naked Don Giovanni for a bath scene and even a bit of implied marionette on marionette action during a seduction. Between scenes Mozart appeared and bumbled around, stumbling into a speaker and drinking from a tiny wine glass. During a rainstorm in a graveyard scene, he even put up an umbrella. And at the end of the opera, after Don Giovanni's demise, I'll just say that the performers tried to get their creations to end the show so we could go home, with humorous results.

I returned to my hotel and packed my bags, preparing for Sunday morning's departure for the Backroads bike tour. I was excited about getting to see more of the Czech Republic and to meet the people who would share the experience with me.

Please check out my complete set of photos from Prague.

I'm back...

2010-07-29T11:42:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the long "dark" period on this blog. If you've been following me on Twitter (and why aren't you? It's the wave of the future!) then you know I've been on vacation for the past few weeks, on a bike tour of the Czech Republic and Austria. I had a blast while I was over there. I enjoyed some of the best days I've ever had on a bike, I saw many, many sites I'd only read about, ate delicious Czech and Austrian food, and drank large amounts of Czech beer and Austrian wine. I saw a marionette version of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and heard a bluegrass band sing American classics in Czech. I saw the excesses of the Habsburgs firsthand. I ate in a restaurant that Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms all frequented. Over the next week or so I'll have detailed posts about the trip itself and the days I spent in Prague and Vienna before and after the bike tour. Thank you for waiting out the delay. Your patience will soon be rewarded.