Testing 1,2,3. . .

The month of March means more than the start of training for spring sports and plans for the prom for public schools in the US. It also marks the season of standardized testing - an enormously important event for school district administrators. Under the terms of the federal No Child Left Behind act, states must set measurable goals for all public school students and then assess those students, in order to receive federal funding.

Slouching Toward Lachenmann: Transfiguring the Night

The only person who can help poor Schoenberg now is a psychiatrist.

-Richard Strauss

"You're a slouch not to like it," he said to me one day.  "Studying ordered relationships is ultimately the best there is.  Order is everything."
-Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

When I was in high school, the curriculum included a mandatory music appreciation class.  In addition to being mandatory, the class marshaled all the worst features of classroom instruction to make its case:  a huge amphitheater of a classroom, an otherworldly teacher who wasn’t able to communicate his love of music to the class, and an approach of pure lecture with the odd bit of listening thrown in.

Oscar's Best Picture "Lasts"

In my previous post, I wrote about Ocar’s Best Picture Firsts. Now that the Academy Awards have come and gone and the Oscar went to 2011’s Best Picture – yes, the “King’s Speech,” Raining Acorns thought it would be a good idea to follow that post with a list of “lasts” in the same vein. Lest we forget, these are the things that we won’t be seeing again when the Best Picture is awarded in the future:

Oscar's Best Picture Firsts

The very first movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture was a war film. It was 1927, the first year that the Oscars were held, and the winner was “Wings.” The most recent Best Picture winner was also a war film, “The Hurt Locker.” The shared genre is just about all that these two movies, 82 years apart, have in common. “Wings” was a silent movie shot in black and white and directed by a man, while “The Hurt Locker” was very much a “talkie” shot in full color and directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow. In fact, “The Hurt Locker” was the first film directed by a woman to win an Oscar for Best Picture.

"What (Good) Is the Internet, Anyway?"

This is a story that could not be written, or understood, back in 1994, when hardly anyone, including the hosts of the Today show, knew what the internet was.

(Watch Bryant and Katie try to figure out what email and the internet are)

The Conservatory Garden in Winter

The young boy played his flute, calling to birds; his companion lifted a snow-laden bowl where they might drink.  While sparrows flitted near in search of seeds, not one came to visit this snowbound pair.

Listening to Penelope

Penelope "may be the best thing to happen to Homer since Joyce."
—George Wallace

It moves like a live thing in his hands
The story, his story
Bloody and sacred, truth and lie
—Ellen McLaughlin

A few years ago, a series of little novels started to appear, preceded by a book of introduction called A Short History of Myth.  The first novel in the series was The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood.  Atwood’s premise, “to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids,” was promising.

Bowled Over

Today is that most American of holidays. No, not Independence Day, or Thanksgiving, or even Labor Day. Today is Superbowl Sunday, the most-watched television event in the USA, and one of the most-watched programs in the entire world. Sports fans, spouses and partners of sports fans, and even non-fans will gather to watch the American football championship game.

Slouching Toward Lachenmann: Who Cares If I Listen?

 Schoenberg is dead.
-Pierre Boulez

Boulez is alive.
-Judd Greenstein

Milton Babbitt, 1916-2011.  In Memoriam.

I’ve been affected, in writing this post, by the Ecstatic Music Festival going on in New York City (through March 28, 2011).  I was able to attend only a small part of the opening day’s Marathon, but the part I attended was sublime.  The Chiara String Quartet played Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 3, and the NOW Ensemble played Judd Greenstein’s City Boy.  Both pieces were superb, the musicians excellent, and the composers were in attendance.  I was, yes, ecstatic, to be able to attend two more concerts that week.

Coffee and Courtesy

Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

For years we have been hearing about the decline of civility - in schools, offices, even our government. That good manners are vanishing due to (take your pick) increased reliance on technology, poor parenting, cable TV, or Facebook. And I must admit that I do see evidence of this everywhere, much to my dismay.