In a recent article I thrilled readers with an electrifying account of purging my house of unwanted doodads, gizmos, and stuff. Now that you’ve had a chance to catch your breath a bit, allow me to continue with a bit of personal purge. Nothing revealing or personal, but stuff that needs to be moved onwards and out.
It’s All Going to Hell in a Handbasket
According to the local and national news outlets, we should all be running around utterly panic-stricken about umpty-million things that are haywire. Absolutely nothing is working right and just about everything is trying to give us cancer, make us fat, or mess with our search for happiness. That’s because those local and national news outlets employ “consumer affairs” reporters, all of whom pop up with a story or two a week. Multiply twice weekly by the number of news outlets, and the reason for the constant drizzle of alarm becomes clear. The airwaves are filled with hired Cassandras, all of them spouting portents of doom at the top of their lungs. Just a few evenings in front of the tube, rounding up the usual suspects (ABC, NBC, CBS, local stations broadcasts, CNN, Fox, a few others), produced the following:
- Mislabelled foods: that can of peaches might contain a lot more sodium than it says on the label. (Then again, it might not…)
- Prescriptions: did you know that your pharmacy just might be switching your prescriptions around? All those pills look alike, you know. (Then again, pharmacists are usually highly-trained, dedicated professionals who follow industry-standard procedures to ensure correct pills and dosages.)
- Fish oil: those supplements might contain—hang on—oils other than fish. (Then again, it’s just a fad, so who cares?)
- College: there are often not enough dorm rooms for college students. (Then again, a lot of colleges have plenty of dorm rooms, and besides, one of the reasons for going to college is to learn to deal with challenges, right?)
- Bones: pills designed to strengthen your bones might be doing just the opposite, and your legs might go snap just like toothpicks. (Then again, that might not be because of the pills.)
- Cell phone: your little servant might be killing you with radiation. (Then again, it probably isn’t.)
If you took even a soupçon of these dire warnings seriously, you’d fret yourself into an early grave. (Perhaps that could be a subject for one of the Cassandras.) My advice to all and sundry: get over it.
Pretty People Make Classical Recordings
The classical music world has always suffered from a streak of pederasty, what with the emphasis on Infant Phenomena and the like, but of late it’s all turning into Teen Glam. How many of today’s recordings feature liner photos that could qualify for Vogue, Elle, or GQ? What’s with all these outrageously pretty young performers? Not that I object, mind you—but I’m rather wondering if pulchritude is playing a greater role in the selection process than in the past. Nobody bought George Szell’s recordings to look at pictures of the Maestro, after all. Even glam-boy Leonard Bernstein wasn’t in the league of some of these ultra-pretties nowadays, both male and female.
I should hasten to point out that any number of these ultra-pretties are damn fine players: Gautier Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Daniel Müller-Schott, et al. Obviously talent, skill, and ability remain the governing forces here. But the trend is kind of intriguing. There sure weren’t anywhere near this many cuties making records when I was growing up.
Valery Gergiev Sounds Like My iPhone
I have been spending time of late with Gergiev’s stunning performance of the Shostakovich 8th—the one on Phillips with the Kirov (now Mariinsky Theater) Orchestra.
Gergiev has a certain gaspy-inhale that accompanies some of the softer passages. Unfortunately, it sounds just as though my iPhone is ringing from a distance, say when I’ve left the phone in a drawer or something like that. I had to get up three separate times to hunt for the phone before I realized what was going on.
I’m Trying to Grok Albert Roussel, and Failing
I’ve been going over a cross-section of Roussel’s works—some of the symphonies, the piano concerto, the ballet Bacchus et Ariane, various other stuff. I’m not sure what I think about it or even whether I like it. He seems awfully flinty for a French composer. I’m trying to figure out where to get a handhold; I start listening and before too long I just drift away. It doesn’t hold my attention and I’m not sure why. I’ll keep trying, in between sessions with the Shostakovich Eighth, which is dominating my listening life at present in preparation for lecturing on the work for the SF Symphony in early April.