And now, a rant about Duke Nukem Forever

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

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

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.

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...

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.

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?

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)

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

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

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

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"

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!

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?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.