Here's a song to go with the Files that Last Kickstarter campaign.

LJ now is setting my default mood to "depressed." If I am, it's only with regard to how LJ is wrecking itself.

New post: The Walkman and its descendants.

I just watched Der Graf von Luxemburg for the second time, and it's threatening to displace Goodbye, Lenin as my favorite German movie.

Here's a YouTube video with some clips from it.

Errol's wonderful music video for the upcoming book I'm Bored, illustrated by Debbie Ohi (the book, that is, not the video)!

I've posted a recording of "I'm an Unbeliever," with revised lyrics, to my blog.

From time to time I may post some of my other serious songs there.

When I was younger, a number of piano music collections had a piece that purported to be "Farewell to the Piano" by Beethoven, with at least one of these claiming it was his last composition. Checking numerous sources showed that the claim was a hoax, and I could never establish that Beethoven even wrote the piece. Today I decided to search again ( Read more... )

Operas have such a reputation for bad plotting that some people overconfidently nitpick them. Beethoven's Fidelio deserves some of the nitpicks it gets. Leonore infiltrates the prison disguised as a young man, and she's so successful that she gets engaged to the jailer's daughter rather than blow her cover. But there's at least one complaint that ( Read more... )

Jonathan Coulton and John Scalzi discuss JoCo's songs, with special attention to "The Future Soon." happyfunpaul, you've seen this already, of course?

This morning on the train, I listened to the recording of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with Leon McCawley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which I'd gotten along with Der Glorreiche Augenblick. Whether because I was in the right mood or because of the performance, I especially enjoyed hearing it this time. It's in two sections. The first is for ( Read more... )

When Classics Online announced a special on a recording of Beethoven's Der Glorreiche Augenblick (plus the Choral Fantasy), I had to grab it. Among those who have heard of it, this cantata has an even worse reputation than Wellington's Victory. He wrote it for the Congress of Vienna and probably expected it would never be performed again.
It's ( Read more... )