The All-New Bunrab

All right, folks, here's my review of Gaslight Grimoire on Amazon.com - there are three others, so you'll have to scroll down to read mine. Any helpful Yes clicks always appreciated. The anthology includes some very funny Sherlock Holmes pastiches, as well as a story where Moriarty is the hero.

Graphic novel: The Five Fists of Science. Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla battle black magic and a yeti. Need I say more? Well, it is rather nice to read a graphic novel that involves neither teenage angst nor caped superheroes, and is an original story rather than a graphic version of an established classic. And anything with Mark Twain in it is going to have funny moments, yes.

Yesterday we went to the Eastern Trombone Workshop down at Fort Myer. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Trombone Ensemble was excellent - about 20 undergrad music majors, and the performance included a couple of original arrangements by some of them. The trombones of the Atlanta Symphony, with a guest tubist. Some good hints from them about playing as an ensemble and matching tones - things that even community band players, and even people who play other instruments, could try and benefit from. The big evening concert was the Army Orchestra, doing four pieces, each with a different soloist. Charlie Vernon, bass trombonist for the Chicago Symphony, looks exactly like what you imagine someone who's been playing low brass for a major symphony for forty years or more would look like. Saturday morning he's giving a solo recital, which we may or may not get there in time for.

Tonight we have tickets for the Baltimore Symphony - they're doing Dvorak 7 - and tomorrow we are going to Ft Myer again for more trombone concerts, but returning to Baltimore in the evening because we have tickets to see the *Canadian Brass* (yes, you may all let out little jealous-sounding "oooh" noises). Then Sunday we will be driving up to the Philadelphia suburbs to see my niece Hanna in another school play - as a freshthing, she is already getting parts they normally reserve for juniors and seniors. I am working on finishing a quilt for Gregory - Hanna is my sister Steph's oldest; Gregory is Steph's youngest, all of 4 weeks old at this point; I believe I've mentioned he's my 38th niece-or-nephew. I will take a picture of the quilt as soon as it's done - it's all basted, so if I can do hand-tying/embroidery-floss quilting in the car tomorrow day, then I can finish the binding after we get home tomorrow night, and bring it with us Sunday.

Evelyn Glennie performs barefoot.

Friday evening's Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert opened with Wagner - "Brunhilde's Immolation" - yeah, it's Wagner. All the percussion toys for Glennie were already out on the stage at the beginning, so it looked odd. Then after the Wagner, the lights dimmed and we started hearing eerie noises and then Glennie comes creeping up the aisle, hunched over and playing what looks like a bird cage with a drum head on the bottom, using a violin bow on the bird cage bars. Very creepy. And, as mentioned, she's barefoot. The piece was Michael Daugherty's "UFO" consisting of five movements: Traveling Music; Unidentified; Flying; ??? [yes, that's its name, no, I don't know how it's pronounced]; and Objects. The ??? movement consists solely of Glennie and the contrabassoon. A lot of the piece was jazzy - could definitely hear hints of "Mission: Impossible" and Pink-Panther-theme type jazz in it - but a lot of it was just spacey - new agey and gimmicky, the sort of thing that reminds me that one person's "playful and joyous" is another person's "that's not music, it's sound effects!" I wouldn't want to buy the piece on CD, because a great deal of what made it interesting was watching Glennie in action - even though she was looking sort of spacey and new-agey herself - barefoot, long hair, sort of hippie-style loose calf-length dress. Anyway, over all, a success.

The second half was Holst's Planets, a piece I love love love. Mostly it went spectacularly well, although there was one teeny burble in the trumpets at one point. No matter, it is always a gorgeous piece. It also includes a contrabassoon, so the evening was definitely contra-intensive!

Continuing the outer space theme, next week is Mahler's "Titan" - well, Mahler wasn't thinking of Saturn's moon but after hearing The Planets, how could I help but make that connection?

My own apparel was mixed - I wanted to dress up for the opening weekend of the season, and bought* a turquoise sweater and brown-and-turquoise plaid skirt - and then discovered that since we haven't finished unpacking after moving in June, I had no idea where my brown shoes were. I wound up wearing brown ankle boots that looked rather silly with panty hose, but it was that or sneakers, my black and silver band concert uniform shoes, or my motorcycle boots! If I had gotten the turquoise tights to go with the sweater, I think the boots would have looked better, but I didn't. Note to self: for next weekend's concert, either find more of your clothes or more of your shoes, so that stuff matches! And definitely before niece's wedding in November, which is another occasion I intend to wear some of today's clothing purchases.

*Cindy-the-librarian and I went clothes shopping Friday afternoon, to collect some autumn clothing. We resisted more than we purchased, but some purchases were made. I do have several occasions coming up this fall to dress up. I also bought some knee socks just for fun; fadethecat, I think you would be envious of some of them, like the over-the-knee ones that would look terrific with your boots.

We went to the symphony this evening, which was performing Pictures at an Exhibition and Brahms' Violin Concerto. The violin soloist was young, and was wearing what people of my generation would call a Nehru jacket, in black, which looked quite spiffy. However, I was a little disappointed in the performance. I thought that the violin wasn't quite strong enough, that it sounded a little thin and soft. If it were brass, I'd have said he needed an instrument with a bigger bore. Anyway, there was nothing technically wrong with it, and other people didn't seem so picky. After intermission was Pictures, which I enjoyed. There were a few tiny flubs but overall it was good, and loud. I liked the alto sax interpretation, although squirrel_magnet thought it was a little bit too moderate and should have stood out more (OTOH, he liked the violinist in the concerto just fine). For "Byddlo," rather than the tuba player, the third trombonist picked up a euphonium and played the solo part. He did an excellent job, with a lovely tone. He appeared to just switch the same mouthpiece between the two, which certainly makes it easier to use two different instruments in the same performance! I've never been sure of the difference between a euphonium and a tenor tuba, myself, and I asked squirrel_magnet; his response was "Opinions vary." In other words, in a blind taste test, even experts can't actually tell the difference; it's whatever the manufacturer claims it is. (Technically, a baritone horn has a slightly less conical bore than a euphonium, but that's another one that if you put it in a lineup, you'd need a micrometer caliper to tell them apart, or else have to actually play them. With the euphonium/tenor tuba pair, even blowing into them wouldn't help.)

Afterward, we went to Sabatino's for supper. They sure have good rum cake!

Speaking of music, Netflix sent us Ice Age II: The Meltdown, which has a hysterical scene of buzzards singing "Food, Glorious Food," and also has Scrat eying the heavenly acorn to ballet music from Khatchaturian (the adagio from "Spartacus, if you're interested), even doing some jetés and spins to it.

Well, we went to the Baltimore Symphony performance Thursday evening, Marin Alsop's first full concert conducting the symphony. The program was a mix - Christopher Rouse's first symphony, a Mozart piano concerto, and Dvorak's 7th symphony. From a very modern piece that was almost just noise, to a piece so classical it was almost Baroque, and then finally a happy medium smack in the high melodic Romantic - S says "the first two were just ranging shots, then they acquired the target."

Alsop gave us a few verbal program notes about the Rouse before they started, which was good because otherwise it would be difficult to appreciate. She was quite funny. The piece itself is dissonant and depressing. After the concert, Alsop, Rouse, and the piano soloist for the Mozart, Leon Fleischer, held a question-and-answer session with those of the audience who cared to stay, which we did. (And one of the orchestra members, whose name I didn't fully catch.) So I asked Rouse why he would call a one-movement work a symphony. He claimed that it had four sections, each of which followed proper sonata form. He also added, however, that he called it that because he could - which is what I had suspected. He told a story about a student of his calling a composition for four players "Quintet" because he could. Anyway, I didn't hear separate sections each with exposition, development, and recapitulation myself, and I don't like the piece enough to buy the CD and listen to it again, but I wouldn't mind seeing the score; I could probably spot some of it there, plus I'd like to see how he notated some of that noise.

After the Dvorak, the orchestra did an encore, of all things - one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances that had been orchestrated by Dvorak.

All in all, a very satisfying experience.

That reminds me, Fade and Rob, Pittsburgh has a famous enough orchestra - you have fair warning that if we hear they're going to do something really interesting, you can expect us at your door looking for a place to crash. Incidentally, nurse at my cardiologist's office was telling us of an alternate route to Pittsburgh besides just I-70; she's from Pittsburgh, and rides a motorcycle herself, and gave us the route numbers and all for a really nice ride come spring, that's not too many more miles than the Interstate, so it's a feasible ride for us. S entered the info into the GPS unit :-) Aren't you just thrilled to hear that aging hippie geek bikers are going to be landing on your doorstep frequently?