FOUND IT
Ha, ha, Thieving Bastards! You are beaten!
I found the music to Star Trek II. It's not the original soundtrack album, but it's a compilation of music from the first five Star Trek films, The Best of Star Trek: Original Film Scores. And it includes the five tracks from the Star Trek II soundtrack I most want--nay, most need--to hear for only $11 used (vs. $30 for the original soundtrack).
Copyright be damned, if anyone wants the tracks from Star Trek II that are on this disc, I will gladly burn copies and send them to you. The way I see it, this is a public service; this music shall be heard in the land!
Now playing: Chopin, Etude in C minor "Revolutionary," Van Cliburn
Now reading: Vellum; High Lonesome; Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Cherie Priest.
Today's short story: "With Acknowledgements to Sun Tzu," Brian Hodge, in YBF&H 17.
Music Toys and Books
Check out the Philadelphia Orchestra's newest "toy," so called by the NYT.
UPDATE, 5/18: The Wall Street Journal has an article about how Verizon Hall, home of the PO's new organ, has limited the organ's capbilities. Interesting read, with some backhanded swipes at the hall's acousticians.
Also, a book about the women in Mozart's life, perhaps the single facet of his existence that has not received a forensic exegesis.
Now playing: Schubert, Shepherd on the Rock, Harold Wright, Benita Valente and Rudolf Serkin. Wright's playing is luminous, and Valente's voice is clarion clear. And Rudolf Serkin: enough said.
Now reading: Vellum, High Lonesome.
Thoughts on Melusine
Sarah Monette. Remember her name. Now go get Melusine. Here's why.
First, the world of Melusine: there is so much here to like from the varied dark wonders of the eponymous city to the vast suggested (but thankfully never quite exposited) backstory. It's a world bounded by a seemingly medieval political structure but informed by nineteenth-century sensibility and, to a certain extent, technology (Mildmay has a pocket watch).
Second, the characters: Mildmay and Felix are whole characters, equally capable of nobility, rank seflishness and bald fear. The ancillary players are delightfully rendered with an economy of exposition and characterization that, frankly, makes me jealous. The book would be worth reading if only for the note-perfect scansion of Mildmay's gutter speech.
The ending left me hanging, but Melusine is the first of a pair of pairs. The Virtu apparently completes the tale of Melusine, while The Mirador and Summerdown flesh out a larger tale of this world. I am loath to obligate myself to another fantasy series, but this is just about too much to resist.
Highly recommended: GOOD ENOUGH TO BUY
Roses I have known
Now that Blogger is cooperating with me, I present a sampling of my roses, ere I left them in Texas. These were taken in April 2003.
Ten Words
Today's entry is brought to you by the letter R, courtesy of the estimable Trent Hergenrader. Comment thee below and I shall bestow upon thee a letter of thine own upon which to bloggeth.
Rachmaninoff I was taught no Rachmaninoff during my formal musical training (save by my first piano teacher, Mrs. Bell), and yet the erstwhile Russian is perhaps my favorite composer. The long, gradually unfolding melodies over extended and sustained progressions, those same attributes that are so unanimously scorned by, well, everyone, are for me the purest sublimations of the Romantic era. There is always that one chord at the end of Rachmaninoff's big climaxes (in everything from the last movement of the Third Piano Concerto to the slow movement of the Cello Sonata) where the chord moves in an unexpected direction that simply floors me, even when I know it's coming.
Ready Mix Another of my musical loves in Bill Holman, whom I would never have known if not for John LaBarbera. From the relentless drive of Ready Mix to his witty (and hard-swinging) arrangement of Tennessee Waltz, the "Holman sound" is one of my favorites.
Recycled Books I spent way too much time in this store when I should have been practicing. But if you've ever in North Texas, Recycled Books is the purple building on the corner of Locust Avenue on the courthouse square in Denton, Texas. This is the mothership of used book stores. This is also where I got my copy of Kenton Plays Wagner. For $7!
Reds The first Reds game I ever went to, my aunt, uncle and I sat in the upper deck on the first base side of Riverfront Stadium. Tom Browning beat the Cubs 6-4, even though Ryne Sandberg hit two home runs. I remember thinking that my uncle had the greatest apartment in the known universe: across the river from the stadium, you could see the fireworks after the game from the window of his study. When Ken Griffey, Jr. was traded to the Reds, I walked around for weeks saying "we're gonna win" like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.
Remington Steele The series that made Pierce Brosnan into Pierce Brosnan was one of my parents' favorite shows. My mother still has every episode taped--on Beta. I have only recently rediscovered this show, which was much better in its first two seasons than it was at the end. Episode 18, Vintage Steele, is like an old Cary Grant movie in miniature. Brilliant.
revenant I love this word. It's a ghost, but it's more. It evokes words like "return" and "remnant," but it also has that dashing, malevolent v in the middle.
roses I have plotted and planned a potential rose garden since we moved into our house in Virginia. Alas, the trees and the lawn have prevailed upon me for attention. But soon, I will have my rose garden. Until then, be wowed by pictures of my roses from our house in Texas. I miss them. AND I WOULD POST PHOTOS OF THEM IF BLOGGER WOULD STOP SUCKING.
Rouen Center of Anglo-Norman power, this is the city I most want to see in France--much to my dear wife's dismay. When she thinks of France, she thinks of Versailles and the Louvre; I think of 1066, the Conqueror and the Angevins who followed him.
Greg Rucka Queen & Country is one of the best spy thrillers ever. Its also a unique, black-&-white comic book. Rucka's tales are smart, gritty and, well, thrilling. And if you can't stomach a comic book, go read the novel.
Louis Rukeyser Read about Lou here. Figure out why he's on this list here, here and here.
It doesn't sound like Beethoven
This from an observer of an ongoing performance of John Cage's As Long As Possible, the apparent antithesis of his 4'33''. Now playing: "Cherokee," Study in Brown, Clifford BrownNow reading: Melusine, Sarah Monette
Fun with Google Translate
Quick, name the song in which this line--washed through Google Translate several times--appears:
Those which note with the person of Reno is lent outside to the dice
Come on. It's a dead giveaway!
UPDATE: Here's a hint, the song title as washed similarly through Google Translate.
The Volsum arrest is its green light bulb
Thoughts on Spin
Speculative fiction often (not always, but often enough to make such generalizations useful) breaks out into one of two kinds of story: idea or character. The works at each end of the genre spectrum, both hard-science SF and the most unapologetic sword-and-sorcery fantasy, are often idea stories. The science, world, magic or talisman is the thing; the characters are essentially interchangeable.
The best stories, of course, combine mind-bending ideas with heart-wrenching characterization. Robert Charles Wilson's Spin is one of those.Patrick Nielsen Hayden extolled the novel's virtues here, and I would not deign to add much more than my brief introduction to his lucid analysis.Highly Recommended: GOOD ENOUGH TO BUY
Ha, ha, Thieving Bastards! You are beaten!
