it takes place in a vacuum
I wrote this as a note to myself in 2023: If I do see the Planets again, and it’s pretty inevitable, and in fact, I'm wondering if Zander will do it.
Mars: Stravinsky
Venus: Ravel
Mercury: ? I think Bliss and Bax came later. Maybe Vaughan-Williams
Jupiter: Elgar
Saturn: Schönberg
Uranus: Dukas
Neptune: Debussy
Cut to 2024 when that exact thing happens.
It was one of those new trains so I listened to Document instead of beeping. Just fits the political mood. Also The Fox and the Bird. It reached 64 yesterday. It was 83 at the end of October, 78 on Halloween, 79 on November 1st. 79 on November 2nd. 75 on November 5. 82 on November 6. 71 on November 7.
Penelope isn’t much of an artist. She could never do what I did, anyway. Anyway, I knew a goat with that name. Maria has a cat. I’m not sure what pets Lisa, who had to spell her name out because she had a fairly thick accent, has.
For lunch, I went to Sprout and made a salad with spicy chicken, baharat, crispy sticks, chickpeas, green olives, cilantro, broccoli, and pesto lime viniagrette.
Zander was thinking that this is most likely the last time he’ll perform these specific works. Still, we don’t live life like that.
He told a story about a girl who was sent to Auschwitz at the age of 15, had lost her parents already, and her 8 year old brother lost a shoe, and she snapped at him and he was taken away. And after she got out, she made a vow that she would never again say anything to anyone that she wouldn’t want to be the last thing she said to that person.
It’s rare to hear the Planets. Best space to hear it though. I’ve heard it live twice, once in my youth and once before the pandemic.
The concert is themed around English music and his childhood in England, where a judge did not like the 9 year old Benjamin Zander’s composition and told him that he should never compose another thing again and so his mother sent it to Benjamin Britten who was like “he’s NINE, he’ll do fine.”
You know where those judges are? All dead. How you doin’ down there, fellas? Eh, eh?
Anyway, he learned music and played cricket and said that Imogen Holst should be his theory teacher but she said she had too much going on and was too busy.
And after some convincing by Britten, she did it.
Henry Purcell - Chacony, arranged by Benjamin Britten. Chacony is how some barely literate 17th century Englishman thought the word chaconne was pronounced. No, it’s ʃakɔn. I don’t know why he used a “ch” rather than a “sh” but maybe in that time, French still pronounced ch as tʃ. I don’t know the history of French. Anyways, Britten took this viol work and did things with that melody.
The original work was probably written for a play. A tragic play at that.
Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto
The movements have the moods of
1. Searching/nostalgia/memories. A farewell to a world that will never be there again. This premiered in 1919, just less one year after the war ended. The performance went rather poorly. It was the last of his large scale works. In 1920, his wife Alice died. Eventually, he got over his lack of willpower and began work on a third symphony but died before he could complete it. So it goes.
2. Happiness, even ecstasy. A scherzo with one brief moment of typically English bombast.
3. A deep, intimate love song. It evokes Robert Schuman.
4. An ordinary life, a little vulgar, even.
And on to the Holst. That’s what most everyone was there for. There were a lot of younger people there, which makes sense.
Holst’s influence shows up in everything, from Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian to Black Sabbath and King Crimson to Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy XII to Billie Eilish (in her case, not The Planets but Hymns from the Rig Veda)
Holst’s influence shows up in everything, from Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian to Black Sabbath and King Crimson to Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy XII to Billie Eilish (in her case, not The Planets but Hymns from the Rig Veda)
Mars, the Bringer of War:
Elon Musk has ruined Mars for everyone. Krissy, though, says he should just go to Mars already. I watched that episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur but haven’t yet talked to Krissy and Ren about that. Anyway.
It’s a 5/4 rhythm, which is impossible to march to, disconcerting, mechanical, inhuman. A triplet, then two quarter notes, then two eighth notes, then a quarter note. It just goes and goes, with climax upon climax.
It’s likely that Holst heard the Rite of Spring by this time.
A triumphant cavalry charge that ends with them getting unceremoniously mowed down by machine guns. It’s like the Charge of the Light Brigade only, wait, that’s exactly what happened. There’s a writhing monster and a flurry of sixteenth notes.
Venus, the Bringer of Peace:
The opposite. Harmony. Repeated motifs. Celeste and harps. Since it comes right after Mars, someone likened it to the arduous process of rebuilding and knowing that there are so many who can no longer be here.
Mercury, the Winged Messenger:
Fleet on foot and tricksy. The first and second violins play in different key signatures. There are 2s and 3s.
Beethoven would be horrified, Zander said. The celeste is here too. At one point, you get a whoosh from the contrabassoons all the way up to the piccolos, and then back down to Earth.
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity:
Boisterous, exuberant, optimistic, abundant. One of the melodies became a hymn to England.
During the private performance this premiered at, the cleaners all put down their mops and started dancing.
Together, they form the four temperaments. But we're not done yet.
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age:
No one in England had ever done anything like this.
There are strange harmonies with the harp, there’s a bass flute, a bass oboe, a moment of terror where it gets faster, with menacing brass and bells.
It ends not with sadness or death but with a sense of peace and of the wisdom that comes with age.
Uranus, the Magician:
Uranus is Dukas’ Sorcerer, a Magician with a pointed hat and robe emblazoned with a moon and stars, not a stage magician in a tuxedo and top hat. The dum-da-dum-dum melody is Holst’s name in notation, with, of course, B-flat as H. An organ glissando, a quiet string chord, a violent dissonance, and a blast from the entire orchestra.
Neptune, the Mystic
A prolonged gaze into infinity. We're back to the harps, celeste, and strings, along with a choir of altos and sopranos singing wordlessly.
As for why the sea god is depicted with this, it makes more sense when you realize that Uranus is the Sun while Neptune is the Moon.
There's no Pluto because Pluto wasn't discovered yet, Holst didn't want to write a new movement anyway, and it ends perfectly.
I once listened to Isao Tomita’s Moog version of the Planets and I thought it was at its best with things like Venus, Saturn, and Neptune but didn’t quite capture the movements that had the full might of the orchestra behind them, like Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus.
We’re not going to be able to push back against Trump wrecking the economy and creating a depression so he can enrich Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos but what we can do is push back against Trump’s culture war bullshit. Reject the gender binary. Use the bathroom you feel comfortable using, as long as you wash your hands. Read banned books. Teach banned books in school. Learn Farsi. Write a bisexual coming of age novel with a second person point of view set on a distant planet and never publish it because Amazon made it impossible for midlist writers because now you can either be a bestselling author or you can compete with endless werewolf slop.
And moderates like Jerry Coyne can go take a flying fuck at Phobos and then go take a flying fuck at Deimos.
burning question: What do Democrats even do to appeal to the demographic of “I want to beat my girlfriend but I don’t even have a girlfriend?” And why would they want to? That’s just idiotic, if you’ll forgive my saying so, that’s just stupid. What is it you want? In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Whatever it is you want, I can’t deliver because I just don’t see it.
I’m hoping Republicans flew too close to the sonnenrad when it comes to ethnic minority outreach and they’re going to start fighting. I guess what I’m saying is that maybe without Trump in 2028, is that this populist rural/working class/southern suburban wine mom/west coast techbro/azn/hispanic/white identitarian/incel/toxically masculine/barstool dudebro/antisemitic traditionalist/pro israel/feminist coalition he’s built up will fall apart or blow up.
As for Democrats, the one bit of advice I’ll offer for 2028 is that what you just did, staying at home because you thought she was insuffciently pro-Palestine or insufficiently pro-Israel or too supportive of LGBT rights, don’t do that thing.
Mars: Stravinsky
Venus: Ravel
Mercury: ? I think Bliss and Bax came later. Maybe Vaughan-Williams
Jupiter: Elgar
Saturn: Schönberg
Uranus: Dukas
Neptune: Debussy
Cut to 2024 when that exact thing happens.
It was one of those new trains so I listened to Document instead of beeping. Just fits the political mood. Also The Fox and the Bird. It reached 64 yesterday. It was 83 at the end of October, 78 on Halloween, 79 on November 1st. 79 on November 2nd. 75 on November 5. 82 on November 6. 71 on November 7.
Penelope isn’t much of an artist. She could never do what I did, anyway. Anyway, I knew a goat with that name. Maria has a cat. I’m not sure what pets Lisa, who had to spell her name out because she had a fairly thick accent, has.
For lunch, I went to Sprout and made a salad with spicy chicken, baharat, crispy sticks, chickpeas, green olives, cilantro, broccoli, and pesto lime viniagrette.
Zander was thinking that this is most likely the last time he’ll perform these specific works. Still, we don’t live life like that.
He told a story about a girl who was sent to Auschwitz at the age of 15, had lost her parents already, and her 8 year old brother lost a shoe, and she snapped at him and he was taken away. And after she got out, she made a vow that she would never again say anything to anyone that she wouldn’t want to be the last thing she said to that person.
It’s rare to hear the Planets. Best space to hear it though. I’ve heard it live twice, once in my youth and once before the pandemic.
The concert is themed around English music and his childhood in England, where a judge did not like the 9 year old Benjamin Zander’s composition and told him that he should never compose another thing again and so his mother sent it to Benjamin Britten who was like “he’s NINE, he’ll do fine.”
You know where those judges are? All dead. How you doin’ down there, fellas? Eh, eh?
Anyway, he learned music and played cricket and said that Imogen Holst should be his theory teacher but she said she had too much going on and was too busy.
And after some convincing by Britten, she did it.
Henry Purcell - Chacony, arranged by Benjamin Britten. Chacony is how some barely literate 17th century Englishman thought the word chaconne was pronounced. No, it’s ʃakɔn. I don’t know why he used a “ch” rather than a “sh” but maybe in that time, French still pronounced ch as tʃ. I don’t know the history of French. Anyways, Britten took this viol work and did things with that melody.
The original work was probably written for a play. A tragic play at that.
Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto
The movements have the moods of
1. Searching/nostalgia/memories. A farewell to a world that will never be there again. This premiered in 1919, just less one year after the war ended. The performance went rather poorly. It was the last of his large scale works. In 1920, his wife Alice died. Eventually, he got over his lack of willpower and began work on a third symphony but died before he could complete it. So it goes.
2. Happiness, even ecstasy. A scherzo with one brief moment of typically English bombast.
3. A deep, intimate love song. It evokes Robert Schuman.
4. An ordinary life, a little vulgar, even.
And on to the Holst. That’s what most everyone was there for. There were a lot of younger people there, which makes sense.
Holst’s influence shows up in everything, from Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian to Black Sabbath and King Crimson to Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy XII to Billie Eilish (in her case, not The Planets but Hymns from the Rig Veda)
Holst’s influence shows up in everything, from Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian to Black Sabbath and King Crimson to Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy XII to Billie Eilish (in her case, not The Planets but Hymns from the Rig Veda)
Mars, the Bringer of War:
Elon Musk has ruined Mars for everyone. Krissy, though, says he should just go to Mars already. I watched that episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur but haven’t yet talked to Krissy and Ren about that. Anyway.
It’s a 5/4 rhythm, which is impossible to march to, disconcerting, mechanical, inhuman. A triplet, then two quarter notes, then two eighth notes, then a quarter note. It just goes and goes, with climax upon climax.
It’s likely that Holst heard the Rite of Spring by this time.
A triumphant cavalry charge that ends with them getting unceremoniously mowed down by machine guns. It’s like the Charge of the Light Brigade only, wait, that’s exactly what happened. There’s a writhing monster and a flurry of sixteenth notes.
Venus, the Bringer of Peace:
The opposite. Harmony. Repeated motifs. Celeste and harps. Since it comes right after Mars, someone likened it to the arduous process of rebuilding and knowing that there are so many who can no longer be here.
Mercury, the Winged Messenger:
Fleet on foot and tricksy. The first and second violins play in different key signatures. There are 2s and 3s.
Beethoven would be horrified, Zander said. The celeste is here too. At one point, you get a whoosh from the contrabassoons all the way up to the piccolos, and then back down to Earth.
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity:
Boisterous, exuberant, optimistic, abundant. One of the melodies became a hymn to England.
During the private performance this premiered at, the cleaners all put down their mops and started dancing.
Together, they form the four temperaments. But we're not done yet.
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age:
No one in England had ever done anything like this.
There are strange harmonies with the harp, there’s a bass flute, a bass oboe, a moment of terror where it gets faster, with menacing brass and bells.
It ends not with sadness or death but with a sense of peace and of the wisdom that comes with age.
Uranus, the Magician:
Uranus is Dukas’ Sorcerer, a Magician with a pointed hat and robe emblazoned with a moon and stars, not a stage magician in a tuxedo and top hat. The dum-da-dum-dum melody is Holst’s name in notation, with, of course, B-flat as H. An organ glissando, a quiet string chord, a violent dissonance, and a blast from the entire orchestra.
Neptune, the Mystic
A prolonged gaze into infinity. We're back to the harps, celeste, and strings, along with a choir of altos and sopranos singing wordlessly.
As for why the sea god is depicted with this, it makes more sense when you realize that Uranus is the Sun while Neptune is the Moon.
There's no Pluto because Pluto wasn't discovered yet, Holst didn't want to write a new movement anyway, and it ends perfectly.
I once listened to Isao Tomita’s Moog version of the Planets and I thought it was at its best with things like Venus, Saturn, and Neptune but didn’t quite capture the movements that had the full might of the orchestra behind them, like Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus.
We’re not going to be able to push back against Trump wrecking the economy and creating a depression so he can enrich Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos but what we can do is push back against Trump’s culture war bullshit. Reject the gender binary. Use the bathroom you feel comfortable using, as long as you wash your hands. Read banned books. Teach banned books in school. Learn Farsi. Write a bisexual coming of age novel with a second person point of view set on a distant planet and never publish it because Amazon made it impossible for midlist writers because now you can either be a bestselling author or you can compete with endless werewolf slop.
And moderates like Jerry Coyne can go take a flying fuck at Phobos and then go take a flying fuck at Deimos.
burning question: What do Democrats even do to appeal to the demographic of “I want to beat my girlfriend but I don’t even have a girlfriend?” And why would they want to? That’s just idiotic, if you’ll forgive my saying so, that’s just stupid. What is it you want? In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Whatever it is you want, I can’t deliver because I just don’t see it.
I’m hoping Republicans flew too close to the sonnenrad when it comes to ethnic minority outreach and they’re going to start fighting. I guess what I’m saying is that maybe without Trump in 2028, is that this populist rural/working class/southern suburban wine mom/west coast techbro/azn/hispanic/white identitarian/incel/toxically masculine/barstool dudebro/antisemitic traditionalist/pro israel/feminist coalition he’s built up will fall apart or blow up.
As for Democrats, the one bit of advice I’ll offer for 2028 is that what you just did, staying at home because you thought she was insuffciently pro-Palestine or insufficiently pro-Israel or too supportive of LGBT rights, don’t do that thing.