Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Rediscovery

Listening to Franz Schubert’s Symphony #3 recently–for the first time in many years–it struck me just how amazing he was as a composer. Oh, the symphony itself is almost a template of the “perfect” Classical Period symphony, after the more mature works of Haydn and Mozart, and is absolutely wonderful in and of itself, but that’s not what slapped me upside the head with awe. No, it’s that he was so bang on the money with the Classical Period form and ethos in the symphony, and yet his lieder–written before there was a Romantic Period–are such perfect examples of Romantic Period music in technique and ethos. While it can be said of Beethoven that he spanned both the Classical and Romantic periods (and in some ways that he spawned the Romantic period), Schubert simply lived and composed music fit for each simultaneously.

Still, while his instrumental music is (mostly) Classical–and very good examples of that genre–it is his lieder that demonstrate his rightful place among the greatest of luminaries of classical music. Sad that he–like Mozart–lived such a short life. Had he lived to the age Brahms lived, what wonders might we have as a legacy from his creative hand and ear, given the wonders he left at the young age of 31? Ah, for a peek at an alternate universe where the mind that composed the insightful Die Winterreise, which dealt with the memories of an old man, had actually lived to the ripe old age he depicted with such songs as Der Lindenbaum, begun at the “ripe old” age of 26(?) and “corrected” by him shortly before his death. Still, as a certifiable Olde Pharte, now, I can attest that Schubert captured Müller’s lyrics, which themselves capture the sense of the retrospective of old(er) age well (and Müller himself died at age 33!).

Ah, well, I ramble.

Still, it’s a wonder to re-realize that my favorite composer of song had depths far beyond the listening area I generally grant his work. Delightful! I should never have let so loong a time elapse between hearings of his instrumental works.

Oh, links? Nah. Go find your own fav Schubertian works. 🙂 I’ve posted several of his lieder (sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, of course) here in the past, but you deserve the joy of discovering his beautiful music in your own way.

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Yet Another Gripe

I do wish folks would think before they speak/write. The difference between “all men are not” and “not all men are” is obvious to anyone with more than two active brain cells, but I see and hear “all men are not” used frequently in sentences that make no sense if one were to read those words to mean what they say.

“All men are not thieves,” for example, is plain foolishness, because some men certainly are. “Not all men are thieves,” is certainly true, because some men are not thieves. This, of course, does not apply to congresscritters. Clearly, one cannot with assurance say, “Not all congresscritters are thieves,” because it would be nearly impossible (if not clearly impossible) to find one congresscritter that has not voted in support of spending tax monies on illegal (unconstitutional) projects.

But that’s another rant.

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The Idea Has a Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi…

Vlad Tepes had a way of dealing with “illegal aliens” who transgressed his borders:

Hmmm, an idea for our borders? Pour encourager les autres, as it were…

While the idea has a certain appeal, I doubt it’d get by all the screaming from the “Surrender our borders!” bunch.

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Again With Subliterate Moronics

*sigh* One can always pick out writers who have read darned little (and that of little worth) in their lives by misuses or even complete misstatements of common phrases in their writings. ( Always? OK, not always. Sometimes other clues tip the scale. Back to the regularly-scheduled rant.)

Case in point: While reading a political article (which I shall not link in order to protect the guilty), I read, “For all intensive purposes,” and immediately stopped reading. I did make a comment about subliterates at the site (and left out “does”–an essential word in the sentence! *heh*), but methought, “Hmmm, blog rant!”

OK, here’s the deal: when I run across someone pontificating from a self-appointed position as a pundit who uses such subliterate goonerosities *heh* as “for all intensive purposes” (add to the pile of subliterate crap, “irregardless” and “escape goat” and “hone in on” and “tongue and cheek” and… you perhaps get the picture), I simply stop reading their writing. Why pollute my brain with more literary sewage from someone who’s read little and whose selection of reading matter–what little there has been–has obviously been subliterate crap? (A typical subliterate construction in that sentence would’ve been “whose” for “who’s” or vice versa. ;-))

I blame it all on TV. 😉

(Well, and lazy people.)

Micro-mini-update:

I just thought to google, “common errors in English” and found this. It looks as though it covers an abundance of the kinds of things that make me want to slap silly those dishonest word jockeys who are paid to spout subliterate crap (taking good money to perform shoddy work is theft, IMO. Ah, well, bad money’s driving out good money, now, anyway… ).

Thanks to TF and his reminder of Norm Crosby’s malapropisms. Here’s a takeoff on that theme:

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Immigration Reform

Walter Williams’ position is one I can endorse:

Here’s Williams’ suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country.

Of course, he might not endorse my own position on “strict enforcement of immigration law” and strict “enforce[ment of] border security” as I’d take “strict” to be synonymous with “Draconian”. That is, I’d make sure that ANYONE caught employing illegal aliens (alien invaders) was simply and plainly put out of business, all properties confiscated and put on the auction block (with previous owners excluded from bidding from prison). Of course, that’d take some modifications to existing laws, but bureaucraps do that all the time already without any quibbles from congresscritters. Then, machine gun nests or whatever else is necessary along our borders (along with Naval patrols of our waters) with “shoot to kill” ROI. All that’d take would be an executive order. That’d about do it for enforcing our sovereignty over our borders.

Then, of course, overhauling our immigration processes to allow potentially useful immigrants to more easily enter would be a Very Good Thing, but ONLY after working as diligently as possible to get rid of the scofflaws and place serious barriers to their return. (Yes, I’d take note–including biometric data–of all alien invaders caught for deportation and put them permanently on a “back of the line until no one else from your country wants to come in” list. It’s the only Fair way to deal with line jumpers.)

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Christie for President?

Maybe it’s time for anorexic politicians to be pushed out of national politics?

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his “confrontational tone”.

“Now, I could say it really nicely. I could say it in the way that you all might be more comfortable with. Maybe we could go back to the last administration where I could say it in a way you wouldn’t even understand it. . . . When you ask me questions, I’m going to answer them directly, straightly, bluntly, and nobody in New Jersey is going to have to wonder where I am on an issue. . . .”

We need more of this from politicians *spit* in general. No more bullshit.

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Well, Duh: 87% Say English Should Be U.S. Official Language

87% Say English Should Be U.S. Official Language

Posted using ShareThis… to start with. 😉

Rasmussen:

Americans continue to overwhelmingly believe that English should be the official language of the United States and reject by sizable margins the idea that such a move is racist or a violation of free speech.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 87% of Adults favor making English the nation’s official language. This is the highest level of support yet but in line with what voters have been saying for several years. Just nine percent (9%) disagree.

Oh, and while you’re at it, you weenie, venal poltroons in D.C., BUILD THE FENCE! (And man it with .50 cal machine gun nests with ROI making an area just north of our borders a “shoot to kill” zone, and whatever else necessary to say, “We’re serious about our borders!”)

And while you’re at it, you f-in’ idiots, traitors and corruptocrats, fix immigration so that

  1. those who give jobs to illegals lose everything they own and are put on chain gangs making little rocks from big ones and
  2. those who want to legally immigrate and show evidence they will become productive citizens (not welfare leeches or subversive/terrorist scum like the La Raza criminals and typical, average, Mohamed-honoring Moose-limbs) can immigrate more easily.
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Waffling…

OK, so I’ve been in moderate salivation mode over this for a while.

And I’d actually planned on buying one around the first of June, but… The only real selling point is the multi-touch tablet conversion feature, and while that’s certainly a “Gee-whiz” that puts this out of the range of being seriously touchable by such as the iPhad piece of crap, I know it’d just be a toy for sitting in the entertainment room goofing off while my Wonder Woman worked on her lastest class for her (latest) masters program or watched one of her fav TV shows. Not enough. Heck, I didn’t really get my money’s worth out of the CrosspadXP I bought for taking notes (although the pen is super nice :-)), and that’s the biggie feature on the touchpad for me: handwriting recognition.

So, since I’d add an external DVDRW drive and up the memory from the 1GB it comes with to 2GB, that drives the price all the way up to $585… $85 more than this, another ASUS computer that really fits my style better, though it lacks the “gee-whiz” factor of converting to a tablet. But. At $85 less, it has a 15.6″ screen, a DVDRW drive and 4GB RAM. OK, so it lacks the SSD drive of the T91, as well, having just a regular old 250GB–Oops! 320GB–notebook drive–slower and more energy-hungry. So? It’s not as though I’d use the thing for anything really demanding. It’d just be a “second” (well, a larger number, but use and feature-wise “second”) computer for use maybe away from twc central, but certainly for light use in other rooms of twc central where I might not want to boot a desktop (though there might well be one present :-)). And it does have that one feature I really appreciate in a notebook: a numerical keypad.

Sure, like just about any notebook I’d buy (notebook=NOT main box for me; for one thing, a notebook with a 23″ or larger screen would be silly :-)), it’s rather under-powered by desktop standards, but it’s got more horses under the hood than a netbook (or the ridiculous iPhad) and… would be fine for watching the occasional movie or tv show, surfing and handling email and, numerical keypad (am I repeating my single fav feature? *heh*)… and I’m well used to reading eBooks on a horizontally-displayed screen, although I’m not all that fond of the Kindle for PC app.

Sooo… still debating, but this lil plow horse looks pretty good for my use. Not “needs” of course, because I can do without it, but it’d certainly be handy.

In other, unrelated, compgeeky news, Opera Win is now at Version 10.54, Build 3390–out since Wednesday (and a nice, though slight, improvement over Tuesday’s buiild, IMO). Sadly, I cannot yet recommend the ‘nix 10.54 betas, as they have all seemed a bit more buggy than the Windows betas. (Almost any bugginess would be “more” than I’ve experienced in the Windows 10.54 betas, though.) Stay tuned for moves to 10.54 in the ‘nix builds…

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Blech! [Placeholder Post–*heh*]

While locusts are devouring my days, some light gripes for posts

Is there any excuse for any person who’s literate in English to write “there’s a few ways” instead of “there’re a few ways”? Oh, I could understand it, I suppose, if the person is writing dialog for an illiterate rube, but I’ve run across an author who does it consistently for all characters, whether the characters are common folk like you and me or a cast of nothing but people with multiple advanced degrees.

There’s no excuse for that. None.