While we're on the topic of unsolicited suggestions to make your website better, request number two is this: can you please make your search function useful? Right now, it is utterly beyond useless. For example, I want to find out if you've ever performed Janacek's Glagolitic Mass. I type in Glagolitic Mass in your search box, but yield nothing, because it wasn't in this season. It turns out you did perform this great piece-- on 8 Jan. 2005. But I couldn't find this info anywhere on your website.
Instead, where did I find this information? I had to go to San Francisco Classical Voice and do a search there, which yielded this review by Lisa Hirsch. In fact, every time I want to look up your past performance repertoire info, I go to SFCV. You might find nothing wrong with the fact that I have to go to an external website to do a search on your past repertoire, but I really should be able to do this search on your website.
Or if you are going to outsource this and let SFCV be your de facto external search engine, perhaps you should pay them commission for this service. I'm sure can use the extra funds. They'd get quite a hefty sum of cash, just from my use of their search engine to search for your past concert program info.
Perhaps this info is all there and staring at me from an obvious location and I'm just being a big moron. But I just clicked though all of your tabs and couldn't find this info anywhere. (As of 29 Feb 2008, that is. I hope this info will be obsolete some day, though.)
So instead of a not-so-helpful fancy concierge service replete with fancy flash, how about a low-tech searchable archive of your past repertoire somewhere first?
29 February 2008
The world according to 5 moods
There are exactly 5 moods--all hyphenated--of classical music.
Or at least this is what the new concierge function at the San Francisco Symphony website tells the imagined would-be-overwhelmed-audience member who might not know what concert to pick.
This new helper function will come to the rescue (oops. I slipped and initially typed "ridicule" instead. Of course, this wasn't a Freudian slip.) of this imagined helpless concertgoing ignoramus and help him select a concert, based on the mood of music he wants to hear, the period, the instruments, etc.
What are my choices of the types of moods of music?
1. Light/fun
2. Dramatic/thrilling
3. Pretty/pleasant
4. Edgy/intense
5. Spiritual
I played around with this concert helper to see what their idea of "dramatic/thrilling" music is, and conversely, (as if there is a dichotomy between these two categories) of "pretty/pleasant" music.
Beethoven's "Eroica" is thrilling. Fair enough. Shostakovitch's Ninth is also thrilling, as are Mendelssohn's violin concerto, Stravinsky, Brahms, and Mozart.
And pretty/pleasant? Mendelssohn's violin concerto emerges again! Alongside Beethoven's "Eroica", along with, of course, Bach, Handel and Mozart.
An interesting (the polite I'm-sure-it's-great-but-I'll-keep-my-distance kind of interesting, that is.) proposition, I suppose, but someone really screwed up on the marketing here.
My first problem with this categorization of music-according-to-five-moods is that the SF Symphony seems to suggest that some music isn't thrilling (read: exciting), to which this potential concertgoer begs to ask, why program something--anything--that you don't think is thrilling? It might also be "pretty", "edgy", "fun", whatever, but in the very least, you, the programmer and seller of tickets (you do want these tickets to sell, right?) should program and sell tickets with the mindset that every program will be thrilling and worth going to and convince the potential ticket-buyer that this is so.
Second, both "pretty" and especially "pleasant" are vapid adjectives to describe music. In fact, when I call something "pleasant" or "lovely", half the time, I might actually mean that something is indeed pleasant or lovely, but the rest of the time, I say it to refer to something I am lukewarm about or found nice enough, but isn't hanging-off-the-edge-of-my-seat riveting or even moving. "Pleasant" is the kind of thing I imagine the bland in-laws of the main character in My Big Fat Greek Wedding might say about a performance. If any of you read the SF Chronicle, I associate this polite applause icon with the word "pleasant".
Again, are you trying to sell tickets or lull us to sleep with reassuring sounds? Not that Beethoven's "Eroica" would do that. But why would you market any music as "pretty" or "pleasant"? How about "beautiful" or "moving", which are also clichés, but are at least less insipid-sounding than "pleasant". One uses "pleasant" to describe the weather. But even then, it's a non-committal modifier and therefore not a powerful one.
"It's pleasant weather" vs. "It's gorgeous weather"
Do you see the difference in levels of enthusiasm? And likewise: "The concert was pleasant." vs. "The concert was smashing. The adagio movement in the violin concerto sounded so lyrical and uplifting."
Why settle for the merely pleasant, when you can have riveting, moving, gut-wrenching, tender, gorgeous, etc.?
Third, I can come up with at least 20 adjectives to describe just one movement of Beethoven's third symphony. Thus, how could you possibly describe your entire season with 5 or 9 adjectives?
Fourth, you offer no options for any edgy/intense pieces from the Baroque period. Both Bach and Marais have written works that I'd categorize as edgy or intense, you know.
I think I understand what you're trying to do, but do you see how not terribly useful this is?
Also, if I may say so, it's a bit presumptuous as well. From what is written under the "first time concertgoer" tab, it sounds like you are either trying to be funny or you think first time concertgoers are idots. To wit: under top five concertgoing myths, ok, the first one is a valid misconception (although hello. We are in San Francisco, where people go to work in flip flops and go to five-star restaurants in jeans. Do you really think anyone thinks they need to dress in a tux to go see a symphony? Another marketing failure: you clearly don't understand your audience enough).
But "that one piece they always play at the beginning where the violin stands and everyone plays the same note"? Are you serious? First of all, if someone has come to a concert enough times that they observe that "they are always playing that song", then clearly, this person has been to enough concerts to figure out what the strings are doing. Actually, it only takes one concert to learn this. Surely you don't think a first time concertgoer is this moronic?
But this gets even better. "It's good to leave your cellphone on during a performance." There is always a miscreant who leaves their cellphone on, but I think that most people just simply forget to turn it off. I don't think anyone actually thinks, oh, gee, this is a great idea. Even if someone were a first time concertgoer, it's not like this person never goes to the movies or other plays or other non-classical performances where he'd also be required to switch cellphones off.
Ditto with the snarky remark about coughing and how it adds a nice percussive touch to the concert. It's fine to tell people that they should try to hold their coughs during the performance. But to suggest that first time concertgoers think this adds new percussion to the music-- you can't possibly be this out of touch with reality, so I'm going to assume you're trying to be witty or funny.
But funny it ain't. This top-5 misconceptions list is just plain dumb at best and condescending at worst. Why don't you just list FAQs and do away with this silly useless list? Like this as the NY Phil does?
First time concertgoers are not idiots. Perhaps you should keep that in mind when you do your next website redesign.
Or at least this is what the new concierge function at the San Francisco Symphony website tells the imagined would-be-overwhelmed-audience member who might not know what concert to pick.
This new helper function will come to the rescue (oops. I slipped and initially typed "ridicule" instead. Of course, this wasn't a Freudian slip.) of this imagined helpless concertgoing ignoramus and help him select a concert, based on the mood of music he wants to hear, the period, the instruments, etc.
What are my choices of the types of moods of music?
1. Light/fun
2. Dramatic/thrilling
3. Pretty/pleasant
4. Edgy/intense
5. Spiritual
I played around with this concert helper to see what their idea of "dramatic/thrilling" music is, and conversely, (as if there is a dichotomy between these two categories) of "pretty/pleasant" music.
Beethoven's "Eroica" is thrilling. Fair enough. Shostakovitch's Ninth is also thrilling, as are Mendelssohn's violin concerto, Stravinsky, Brahms, and Mozart.
And pretty/pleasant? Mendelssohn's violin concerto emerges again! Alongside Beethoven's "Eroica", along with, of course, Bach, Handel and Mozart.
An interesting (the polite I'm-sure-it's-great-but-I'll-keep-my-distance kind of interesting, that is.) proposition, I suppose, but someone really screwed up on the marketing here.
My first problem with this categorization of music-according-to-five-moods is that the SF Symphony seems to suggest that some music isn't thrilling (read: exciting), to which this potential concertgoer begs to ask, why program something--anything--that you don't think is thrilling? It might also be "pretty", "edgy", "fun", whatever, but in the very least, you, the programmer and seller of tickets (you do want these tickets to sell, right?) should program and sell tickets with the mindset that every program will be thrilling and worth going to and convince the potential ticket-buyer that this is so.
Second, both "pretty" and especially "pleasant" are vapid adjectives to describe music. In fact, when I call something "pleasant" or "lovely", half the time, I might actually mean that something is indeed pleasant or lovely, but the rest of the time, I say it to refer to something I am lukewarm about or found nice enough, but isn't hanging-off-the-edge-of-my-seat riveting or even moving. "Pleasant" is the kind of thing I imagine the bland in-laws of the main character in My Big Fat Greek Wedding might say about a performance. If any of you read the SF Chronicle, I associate this polite applause icon with the word "pleasant".
Again, are you trying to sell tickets or lull us to sleep with reassuring sounds? Not that Beethoven's "Eroica" would do that. But why would you market any music as "pretty" or "pleasant"? How about "beautiful" or "moving", which are also clichés, but are at least less insipid-sounding than "pleasant". One uses "pleasant" to describe the weather. But even then, it's a non-committal modifier and therefore not a powerful one."It's pleasant weather" vs. "It's gorgeous weather"
Do you see the difference in levels of enthusiasm? And likewise: "The concert was pleasant." vs. "The concert was smashing. The adagio movement in the violin concerto sounded so lyrical and uplifting."
Why settle for the merely pleasant, when you can have riveting, moving, gut-wrenching, tender, gorgeous, etc.?
Third, I can come up with at least 20 adjectives to describe just one movement of Beethoven's third symphony. Thus, how could you possibly describe your entire season with 5 or 9 adjectives?
Fourth, you offer no options for any edgy/intense pieces from the Baroque period. Both Bach and Marais have written works that I'd categorize as edgy or intense, you know.
I think I understand what you're trying to do, but do you see how not terribly useful this is?
Also, if I may say so, it's a bit presumptuous as well. From what is written under the "first time concertgoer" tab, it sounds like you are either trying to be funny or you think first time concertgoers are idots. To wit: under top five concertgoing myths, ok, the first one is a valid misconception (although hello. We are in San Francisco, where people go to work in flip flops and go to five-star restaurants in jeans. Do you really think anyone thinks they need to dress in a tux to go see a symphony? Another marketing failure: you clearly don't understand your audience enough).
But "that one piece they always play at the beginning where the violin stands and everyone plays the same note"? Are you serious? First of all, if someone has come to a concert enough times that they observe that "they are always playing that song", then clearly, this person has been to enough concerts to figure out what the strings are doing. Actually, it only takes one concert to learn this. Surely you don't think a first time concertgoer is this moronic?
But this gets even better. "It's good to leave your cellphone on during a performance." There is always a miscreant who leaves their cellphone on, but I think that most people just simply forget to turn it off. I don't think anyone actually thinks, oh, gee, this is a great idea. Even if someone were a first time concertgoer, it's not like this person never goes to the movies or other plays or other non-classical performances where he'd also be required to switch cellphones off.
Ditto with the snarky remark about coughing and how it adds a nice percussive touch to the concert. It's fine to tell people that they should try to hold their coughs during the performance. But to suggest that first time concertgoers think this adds new percussion to the music-- you can't possibly be this out of touch with reality, so I'm going to assume you're trying to be witty or funny.
But funny it ain't. This top-5 misconceptions list is just plain dumb at best and condescending at worst. Why don't you just list FAQs and do away with this silly useless list? Like this as the NY Phil does?
First time concertgoers are not idiots. Perhaps you should keep that in mind when you do your next website redesign.
28 February 2008
Dilemma
What to do?
This should be a non-issue, since I have a "mandatory" rehearsal on said date, but damnit. Why does Stanford have to program two potentially interesting events on the same evening as my rehearsals?
I hate showing up to rehearsals late and hate missing rehearsals even more, to the point that there have been days that I've felt lousy enough to take off early from work, but then still showed up to rehearsal (and sitting far far away from anyone so I don't pass on my germs). Why this much commitment to a nonprofessional group? Well, I can't explain it, but I am not the only one who does this; many of my fellow members still come to rehearsal when they feel sick. One woman told me she scheduled chemo around rehearsal dates. All this to make the point that I don't take rehearsals lightly.
However, to return to my pesky dilemma, I have three eacoas (equally attractive choice of activities-- an acronym I just coined, fashioned after the odd-sounding "eanabs" that is so ubiquitous on this campus that people try to pass it off as a normal acronym, when really, it isn't, but I digress, so I'll save my rant on ridiculous acronyms for another post.) on Monday night, in no particular order:
Option 1: attend rehearsal like any responsible ensemble/choir/orchestra member would.
Option 2: attend a talk by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I haven't read (yet), but I did regularly follow (and even blogged about) his blog and writings in the NYT last year.
Option 3: attend a talk by Richard Taruskin who writes brilliant commentary about classical music and is the only person that can compare the 237 reasons one has sex to reasons one might listen to classical music without making it sound contrived. (Though I'm sure the author of one of the secret blogs I frequent could write a hilarious entry on this topic. . ..)
Actually, it really boils down to option 1 and 3, since thing the little voice inside my head is telling me that I have a slight preference for Taruskin over Michael Pollan.
I guess then, the question is really, is Taruskin rehearsal-hooky-worthy? Taruskin, whose writing is interesting enough that I, with my 30-second attention span, can consume his 10-page article bashing the Washington Post Joshua Bell experiment in one sitting?
Which brings me full circle to my initial question, what to do?
This should be a non-issue, since I have a "mandatory" rehearsal on said date, but damnit. Why does Stanford have to program two potentially interesting events on the same evening as my rehearsals?
I hate showing up to rehearsals late and hate missing rehearsals even more, to the point that there have been days that I've felt lousy enough to take off early from work, but then still showed up to rehearsal (and sitting far far away from anyone so I don't pass on my germs). Why this much commitment to a nonprofessional group? Well, I can't explain it, but I am not the only one who does this; many of my fellow members still come to rehearsal when they feel sick. One woman told me she scheduled chemo around rehearsal dates. All this to make the point that I don't take rehearsals lightly.
However, to return to my pesky dilemma, I have three eacoas (equally attractive choice of activities-- an acronym I just coined, fashioned after the odd-sounding "eanabs" that is so ubiquitous on this campus that people try to pass it off as a normal acronym, when really, it isn't, but I digress, so I'll save my rant on ridiculous acronyms for another post.) on Monday night, in no particular order:
Option 1: attend rehearsal like any responsible ensemble/choir/orchestra member would.
Option 2: attend a talk by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I haven't read (yet), but I did regularly follow (and even blogged about) his blog and writings in the NYT last year.
Option 3: attend a talk by Richard Taruskin who writes brilliant commentary about classical music and is the only person that can compare the 237 reasons one has sex to reasons one might listen to classical music without making it sound contrived. (Though I'm sure the author of one of the secret blogs I frequent could write a hilarious entry on this topic. . ..)
Actually, it really boils down to option 1 and 3, since thing the little voice inside my head is telling me that I have a slight preference for Taruskin over Michael Pollan.
I guess then, the question is really, is Taruskin rehearsal-hooky-worthy? Taruskin, whose writing is interesting enough that I, with my 30-second attention span, can consume his 10-page article bashing the Washington Post Joshua Bell experiment in one sitting?
Which brings me full circle to my initial question, what to do?
24 February 2008
What to do when you're utterly beyond bored at work? Compose a windows-based symphony!
Thanks to betslan for alerting me to this.
23 February 2008
Style books: not necessarily terribly boring
The one good thing about feeling lousy enough to have to stay in bed is that I had enough time to do my annual reading of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I read this little gem every year.
I started this annual ritual in grad school. When I first got a copy of it, I read it from cover to cover, then periodically referred back to it. One day, I found myself looking something up, and then rereading the entire thing and forgetting what I had just read only a few months earlier. I decided then that until I can read it without rediscovering something new, I'd keep reading it each year.
It really doesn't take that long to do, and I feel like after many readings, I still (re)learn something after each reading. After all, it's only 80-something pages, and it is packed with useful information. I feel like after my nth (5>n>10) reading, I should know everything in this book. For the most part, much of it is review, as it should be--e.g., distinction between when to use semicolons versus commas. But it is also humbling--humbling--how much I forget. I, who like to think of myself as having a fairly decent command of grammar. (Yes, I know that wasn't a full sentence.)
Lest you think a style guide is nothing but boring rules, the folks who wrote this actually have quite a sharp sense of humor. (According to this same style guide, I'm not supposed to use "quite" so often, because it is one of the most hackneyed expressions. Ah well.) They also use lively language that evokes vivid imagery.
For example, some gems I unearthed:
"Avoid the use of qualifiers. Rather, very, little, pretty--these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words."
Maybe I don't read enough interesting books, but I haven't read anything recently that is so graphic and disgusting. (It is so vividly disgusting that I just covered up every bare patch of skin in case such a leech is lurking about my freshly cleaned apartment and wants to attack my midriff. Ewwwwwwww.)
This is regarding word usage:
"Prestigious. Often an adjective of last resort. It's in the dictionary, but that doesn't mean you have to use it."
Touché.
Also from this same section:
"The truth is. . . A bad beginning for a sentence. If you feel you are possessed of the truth. . .simply state it. Do not give it advance billing."
I wish my dictionary were as punchy.
My favorite is their take on the word flammable. Although I don't necessarily agree with the authors, their entry makes me chortle because it conjures up an image of some crotchety old man typing this away at his typewriter, whilst shaking his head and thinking to himself, "these blathering idiots. . ."
"Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning combustible is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in. . . trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operation such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.
In an ideal world, if everyone read Strunk and White every year, we wouldn't have this confusion. However, this is one instance where I disagree with the authors. I think that in an academic setting where there is no danger of ambiguity, I'd use inflammable. But in most cases, if inflammable is confusing to most, then I don't see a problem with using flammable. However, inflammable is one of these badly engineered words where both the word and its seemingly opposite mean the same thing.
It's kindof similar to the expressions, " I know jack." and "I don't know jack."
These two seemingly opposite-sounding phrases should have, well, opposite meanings. But they both mean the same thing: "I know jack about Xenakis." "I don't know jack about Xenakis."
There is no entry about knowing or not knowing jack in Strunk and White. I guess jack wasn't part of common parlance back in 1959.
There were many other amusing tidbits, but since I'm sure most of you don't find style guides entertaining, I will spare you.
But do go read Strunk and White.
Based on all of the "new" things I relearned, it looks like I need to add it (again) to my reading list for next year.
I started this annual ritual in grad school. When I first got a copy of it, I read it from cover to cover, then periodically referred back to it. One day, I found myself looking something up, and then rereading the entire thing and forgetting what I had just read only a few months earlier. I decided then that until I can read it without rediscovering something new, I'd keep reading it each year.
It really doesn't take that long to do, and I feel like after many readings, I still (re)learn something after each reading. After all, it's only 80-something pages, and it is packed with useful information. I feel like after my nth (5>n>10) reading, I should know everything in this book. For the most part, much of it is review, as it should be--e.g., distinction between when to use semicolons versus commas. But it is also humbling--humbling--how much I forget. I, who like to think of myself as having a fairly decent command of grammar. (Yes, I know that wasn't a full sentence.)
Lest you think a style guide is nothing but boring rules, the folks who wrote this actually have quite a sharp sense of humor. (According to this same style guide, I'm not supposed to use "quite" so often, because it is one of the most hackneyed expressions. Ah well.) They also use lively language that evokes vivid imagery.
For example, some gems I unearthed:
"Avoid the use of qualifiers. Rather, very, little, pretty--these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words."
Maybe I don't read enough interesting books, but I haven't read anything recently that is so graphic and disgusting. (It is so vividly disgusting that I just covered up every bare patch of skin in case such a leech is lurking about my freshly cleaned apartment and wants to attack my midriff. Ewwwwwwww.)
This is regarding word usage:
"Prestigious. Often an adjective of last resort. It's in the dictionary, but that doesn't mean you have to use it."
Touché.
Also from this same section:
"The truth is. . . A bad beginning for a sentence. If you feel you are possessed of the truth. . .simply state it. Do not give it advance billing."
I wish my dictionary were as punchy.
My favorite is their take on the word flammable. Although I don't necessarily agree with the authors, their entry makes me chortle because it conjures up an image of some crotchety old man typing this away at his typewriter, whilst shaking his head and thinking to himself, "these blathering idiots. . ."
"Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning combustible is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in. . . trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operation such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.
In an ideal world, if everyone read Strunk and White every year, we wouldn't have this confusion. However, this is one instance where I disagree with the authors. I think that in an academic setting where there is no danger of ambiguity, I'd use inflammable. But in most cases, if inflammable is confusing to most, then I don't see a problem with using flammable. However, inflammable is one of these badly engineered words where both the word and its seemingly opposite mean the same thing.
It's kindof similar to the expressions, " I know jack." and "I don't know jack."
These two seemingly opposite-sounding phrases should have, well, opposite meanings. But they both mean the same thing: "I know jack about Xenakis." "I don't know jack about Xenakis."
There is no entry about knowing or not knowing jack in Strunk and White. I guess jack wasn't part of common parlance back in 1959.
There were many other amusing tidbits, but since I'm sure most of you don't find style guides entertaining, I will spare you.
But do go read Strunk and White.
Based on all of the "new" things I relearned, it looks like I need to add it (again) to my reading list for next year.
22 February 2008
Bach, organs and eclipses
Yesterday, I went to an all-Bach organ concert at Memorial Church.
The performer was James Kibbie, a renowned Bach expert.
He played all of the pieces expertly and with a lot of care.
It all sounded lovely in this venue, which, when completely empty, has a 6.4-second reverb. (A nightmare for singers; lovely for sweeping organ sounds) Last night, the place was reasonably full, so the reverb was considerably dampened, but there was still a pleasant lingering of notes.
I must confess that while I think organ is cool as an accompanying instrument, it is not one of my favorite solo instruments.
It's a perfectly lovely thing to listen to the sounds of organ drifting from up yonder while being surrounded in semi-darkness in a beautiful church setting. However, I've always liked organs more for the mood they convey than the actual quality of sound they emit. I know this is not the way I'm supposed to listen to music, but I prefer to listen to organ music "passively" and not be over-analytical about what I hear. Once I start listening for individual textures, chords, etc. , I start to find its sound a bit overwhelming; depending on the stops used, it sounds at once like a percussion instrument, keyboard, clarinet, flute, french horn, or heck, like itself. I tend to like instruments that have a very clear "narrow" sound: oboes, English horns, violins, cellos. Conversely, I'm not a huge fan of most french horns, clarinets, or flutes because of the "fuzziness" of the sound. I don't know if my manichean fuzzy-vs.-narrow worldview of musical instruments makes sense, but when I listen to an oboe or violin, the notes sound like someone taking a brand new sharpie marker and drawing sound waves in the air. With the "fuzzier instruments", the sound produced is like a worn sharpie drawing that same line-- blurred and fuzzier. Whether it be metaphorically speaking or in real life, I really don't like worn-out sharpies. (Actually, in real life, they drive me nuts, because I can't write my parents' address on a package with blunted sharpies.) Maybe I haven't heard enough good french hornists, flutists, etc., but the result of this worn-out sharpie-like playing is that I can't quite nail the pitch.
Now, with the organ, it's not a single sound wave drawn with a sharpie--sharp, worn or otherwise--but an impenetrable wall of sound, coming at you at unrelenting speeds.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that it's not the kind of sound that is conducive to refined attentive listening. But this is also a reason to like organ music: for once, I don't feel like I have to be a sophisticated listener to enjoy it. Of course, this might just mean that I'm an organ music philistine.
Either way, I enjoyed the concert--as much as I could enjoy an organ concert.
As an added bonus, we got to witness the different phases of the lunar eclipse: before the concert, a full eclipse in which the moon was rendered a muddy hue and obscured behind a haze; at intermission, a partial eclipse wherein the brightness of half of the moon really made the red colors come out, and then the bright, full moon, towering over us and bidding us adieu when the eclipse had ended, by the time we got out of the concert.
For those of you who like Bach's organ music, Kibbie is engaged in a 3-year project in which he plans to record all of Bach's organ works on original 18th century German organs. Recordings of these entire works are available free* on the web, compliments of a generous grant from Barbara Furin Sloat. Hurray to free music, organ or otherwise!
(*note to the digital copyright gestapo: I'm sharing this website on my blog, because I learned about it (the Bach organ works website) at a concert I recently attended and believe it's a useful resource. I admit I'm a bit fuzzy on copyright laws, since you now tell us that even copying legitimately bought cds onto our computers is illegal, but it looks like the copyright is listed on the website. It is also sponsored by University of Michigan, so I'm assuming that that is also an indication of this project being legit. Thus, as far as I'm concerned, I'm sharing this link legitimately and not violating any copyright laws. Since I'm ignorant of doing anything illegal, please do not sue me. Instead, if this is somehow illegal, please warn me first, and I'll happily remove this link from this blog.)
The performer was James Kibbie, a renowned Bach expert.
He played all of the pieces expertly and with a lot of care.
It all sounded lovely in this venue, which, when completely empty, has a 6.4-second reverb. (A nightmare for singers; lovely for sweeping organ sounds) Last night, the place was reasonably full, so the reverb was considerably dampened, but there was still a pleasant lingering of notes.
I must confess that while I think organ is cool as an accompanying instrument, it is not one of my favorite solo instruments.
It's a perfectly lovely thing to listen to the sounds of organ drifting from up yonder while being surrounded in semi-darkness in a beautiful church setting. However, I've always liked organs more for the mood they convey than the actual quality of sound they emit. I know this is not the way I'm supposed to listen to music, but I prefer to listen to organ music "passively" and not be over-analytical about what I hear. Once I start listening for individual textures, chords, etc. , I start to find its sound a bit overwhelming; depending on the stops used, it sounds at once like a percussion instrument, keyboard, clarinet, flute, french horn, or heck, like itself. I tend to like instruments that have a very clear "narrow" sound: oboes, English horns, violins, cellos. Conversely, I'm not a huge fan of most french horns, clarinets, or flutes because of the "fuzziness" of the sound. I don't know if my manichean fuzzy-vs.-narrow worldview of musical instruments makes sense, but when I listen to an oboe or violin, the notes sound like someone taking a brand new sharpie marker and drawing sound waves in the air. With the "fuzzier instruments", the sound produced is like a worn sharpie drawing that same line-- blurred and fuzzier. Whether it be metaphorically speaking or in real life, I really don't like worn-out sharpies. (Actually, in real life, they drive me nuts, because I can't write my parents' address on a package with blunted sharpies.) Maybe I haven't heard enough good french hornists, flutists, etc., but the result of this worn-out sharpie-like playing is that I can't quite nail the pitch.
Now, with the organ, it's not a single sound wave drawn with a sharpie--sharp, worn or otherwise--but an impenetrable wall of sound, coming at you at unrelenting speeds.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that it's not the kind of sound that is conducive to refined attentive listening. But this is also a reason to like organ music: for once, I don't feel like I have to be a sophisticated listener to enjoy it. Of course, this might just mean that I'm an organ music philistine.
Either way, I enjoyed the concert--as much as I could enjoy an organ concert.
As an added bonus, we got to witness the different phases of the lunar eclipse: before the concert, a full eclipse in which the moon was rendered a muddy hue and obscured behind a haze; at intermission, a partial eclipse wherein the brightness of half of the moon really made the red colors come out, and then the bright, full moon, towering over us and bidding us adieu when the eclipse had ended, by the time we got out of the concert.
For those of you who like Bach's organ music, Kibbie is engaged in a 3-year project in which he plans to record all of Bach's organ works on original 18th century German organs. Recordings of these entire works are available free* on the web, compliments of a generous grant from Barbara Furin Sloat. Hurray to free music, organ or otherwise!
(*note to the digital copyright gestapo: I'm sharing this website on my blog, because I learned about it (the Bach organ works website) at a concert I recently attended and believe it's a useful resource. I admit I'm a bit fuzzy on copyright laws, since you now tell us that even copying legitimately bought cds onto our computers is illegal, but it looks like the copyright is listed on the website. It is also sponsored by University of Michigan, so I'm assuming that that is also an indication of this project being legit. Thus, as far as I'm concerned, I'm sharing this link legitimately and not violating any copyright laws. Since I'm ignorant of doing anything illegal, please do not sue me. Instead, if this is somehow illegal, please warn me first, and I'll happily remove this link from this blog.)
17 February 2008
Late-night chat
I wonder if there is something about the immediacy of the chat medium that makes it conducive to absurd conversations such as the one that George Gershwin and I had while I was writing this previous post about gynecologists:
anzu: are you spying on
gershwin: not directly, why?
anzu: I'm writing about male gynecologists who don't want to have sex w/ their wives.
gershwin: after the things they see, I would imagine it would be hard to have it with anyone.
could you imagine your life revolving around vaginal warts or worse?
anzu: This is why I've decided I'm staying away from them.
Then why would any male choose to become a gynecologist?
gershwin: Gynecologists who don't have sex with their wives?
anzu: But we were talking about
gershwin: I would imagine that I would love pizza until I worked in a pizza parlor for a few years
anzu: No, a gynecologist in general.
gershwin: exactly
anzu: I would hate to become someone who didn't want to have sex, b/c of his day job.
gershwin: Probably the young student would feel it was an opportunity for a free sneak peak
until ...
anzu: Well, I worked at Haagen Dazs, and I still like ice cream.
So your analogy doesn't always work.
gershwin: for how long, and did the Haagen Dazs look like vaginal herpies?
okay,
anzu: Maybe I should post this absurd conversation we're having on my blog, too.
gershwin: I withdraw my anology
ouch
anzu: Ewww. That is sooooooo gross.
gershwin: just keep the names as such to protect the guilty
What are you doing up at this hour?
anzu: Why, I was blogging about gynecologists who don't like having sex. What else would I be doing at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night?
16 February 2008
Gynecologists and concert-going
Omg. I just received an email from my professional musician blog-stalkee-turned-pal Titus, who lives/breathes classical music 24/7 (and whose name may or may not be Titus, but since he is named after a Shakespearean character in real life, and I happen to like the play Titus Andronicus, in this blog, I think I will dub this person Titus. . . Also, the most befitting instrument for a person named Titus is the bassoon, so that is what he will play, even if he really plays the organ in real life.) making the most hilariously absurd analogy about his concertgoing preferences.
Note to self: steer clear of male gynecologists. (Both dating-wise and well, ok, I already steer clear of them in the other context.)
14 February 2008
Help email I sent to Facebook support
Dear Facebook developers,
Now that you have a user population that exceeds the size of Guatemala and are valued at more than the GDP of Honduras, instead of investing time and energy into applications like new foods to throw at other Facebook users in virtual food fights, which some of us don't have the time for (I'm sure some people find this feature useful, but I'm not one of those people), please consider improving the groups application by fixing the following really annoying quirks:
1. Searching-- right now, the search function only allows searching of discussion subjects, and only for the past 60 days. Thus, for example, if I want to find that thread in Pretentious Classical Music Elitists in which someone mentioned something about a Julian Rachlin recording of Shostakovich and try to remember what that posting said, the current searching capabilities (or lack thereof) make this task utterly impossible.
My suggestions:
*Searches should not have a 60-day time restriction.
*Also, limiting searches to just the subject is quite useless. Please expand searching capabilities, so we can search key words in the body of the discussion, as well as do search by poster.
* Enabling a search function to work on the entire group (discussions, wall postings, etc.) would also be very useful.
2. Some weird programming glitch is causing some postings to disappear into thin air whenever a discussion becomes long enough and repaginates. Please fix this.
3. When someone leaves a group, all of the illuminating commentary that person made also vanishes, along with any trace of the person. Topics started by that departing member also disappear, which is really a shame, b/c I've seen some interesting topics disappear. You could just do some programming tweaks so that you can no longer click on that person's link or something, but keep his/her comments intact.
That is all for now.
Thanks.
Now that you have a user population that exceeds the size of Guatemala and are valued at more than the GDP of Honduras, instead of investing time and energy into applications like new foods to throw at other Facebook users in virtual food fights, which some of us don't have the time for (I'm sure some people find this feature useful, but I'm not one of those people), please consider improving the groups application by fixing the following really annoying quirks:
1. Searching-- right now, the search function only allows searching of discussion subjects, and only for the past 60 days. Thus, for example, if I want to find that thread in Pretentious Classical Music Elitists in which someone mentioned something about a Julian Rachlin recording of Shostakovich and try to remember what that posting said, the current searching capabilities (or lack thereof) make this task utterly impossible.
My suggestions:
*Searches should not have a 60-day time restriction.
*Also, limiting searches to just the subject is quite useless. Please expand searching capabilities, so we can search key words in the body of the discussion, as well as do search by poster.
* Enabling a search function to work on the entire group (discussions, wall postings, etc.) would also be very useful.
2. Some weird programming glitch is causing some postings to disappear into thin air whenever a discussion becomes long enough and repaginates. Please fix this.
3. When someone leaves a group, all of the illuminating commentary that person made also vanishes, along with any trace of the person. Topics started by that departing member also disappear, which is really a shame, b/c I've seen some interesting topics disappear. You could just do some programming tweaks so that you can no longer click on that person's link or something, but keep his/her comments intact.
That is all for now.
Thanks.
11 February 2008
Yuja Wang Recital
Well, my friend who decided to pass on this recital because “I’m not a fan of any of these composers” missed out big time. I just got back from Yuja Wang’s recital at Herbst Theatre. I left the theatre in complete awe of her nimble fingers and technical prowess, not to mention the fact that she played quite a challenging program entirely from memory.
Wang’s deft fingers literally flew from one end of the keyboard to the other.
I sat transfixed for most of it, but found the piece a challenge to listen to; my mind kept wandering and was unable to keep up with the tempo of the piece, just because the themes kept hurling at me full-speed, before I had the chance to digest and process the previous theme. This is one of these pieces that I will probably have to hear a dozen more times before I “get” it. The program notes didn't do justice to the complexity of the piece.
While I hung on the edge of my seat—entranced, mesmerized, in awe, and at times, forgetting to breathe, the guy (whom I originally sat next to, but then moved away from, b/c his snoring was driving me nuts) who sat in the row behind me slept through most of the first half as well as part of the second half. I thought I was a “tolerant” audience member, but I think I am more of an audience nazi than I give myself credit for. I now have a new “least favorite audience annoyance”: light snoring/heavy breathing that lasts the duration of the entire concert. I’ll take coughing and rustling of candy wrappers over this any day. Not only did this man reek of cigarette smoke, but I could hear his heavy breathing throughout the entire program. His wife, who sat next to him, did not once nudge him or attempt to rectify this transgressive behavior. (Didn’t she find the ostinato of his heavy breathing utterly aggravating?!?!?!?) I really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt (maybe he had a hellish night and didn’t sleep?), but the more I tried to ignore him, the more my mind kept focusing on his audible-from-10-seats-away heavy breathing.
Here are some other reviews by people who are clearly more versed in the repertoire than I am:
One not as gushy as mine in
10 February 2008
"Nanking": Rating the reviews
Now that I posted my diatribe about the rape of Nanjing, I will now comment about some of the reviews I've read of the movie "Nanking".
Here is how various reviewers describe the Nanjing Massacre, and here is how I rate their accuracy in portraying this gruesome event.
Christian Science Monitor: "The 1937-38 massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese in Nanking during the Japanese occupation has been extensively recorded in Iris Chang's best-selling 'The Rape of Nanking'. . ."
"To this day, as 'Nanking' documents, there are Japanese nationalists who deny the extent and savagery of the massacre."
This reviewer does not specify who committed the massacre, though Japanese occupation implies the military. It would've been better to say outright that it was the military that committed this massacre. As for who denies the Nanjing massacre, I give him credit for specifying that 1)it is a subsection of the Japanese population (as suggested by the wording "there are. . ."), and 2)they are Japanese nationalists, rather than most ordinary Japanese. B+
Entertainment Insiders: "In 1937, just as the people of a cultural beacon in Europe went berserk under the Nazi flag, supremely civilized Imperial Japan embarked on a needless and incomprehensible mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city that was then the capital of China."
"Two months ago, a film was released in Japan, called 'The Truth About Nanjing,' with the claim that there were no atrocities by Japanese soldiers in the city. According to film director Satoru Mizushima, 'There is one indisputable fact: there was no massacre at Nanjing. We don't want our children to grow up thinking Japan is a barbarian country.'"
Normally, I like his reviews (especially his opera reviews), but I had a problem with the above wording. First, "Imperial Japan" usually implies the government of Japan or Japan as a country, headed by the emperor. Although Iris Chang in her infamous book makes it sound like the Nanjing massacre was a top-down thing sanctioned by the emperor, it was in fact, carried out by an army group that went wildly out of control, probably unbeknownst to the emperor, though this point is hotly debated.
As for the release of the film "The Truth about Nanjing", he doesn't outright state that all of Japan shares the same amnesia, unlike some of the other reviews I read. He leaves it to the readers to interpret what they want from that last statement, which I cannot fault him for; however, I wanted more context. For example, will readers know that this director is an ultranationalist? Will they know that this is a fringe film project, largely criticized by many scholars, journalists, business leaders, etc? C+
New York Times: "'Nanking' is a swift, incisive documentary about one of the lesser-known horrors of the 20th century: the 1937 Japanese invasion of the Chinese city now called Nanjing, where more than 200,000 civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered in a matter of weeks."
Lesser-known? Compared to what? The Jewish Holocaust? The experiments that unit 731 conducted on live human subjects? The role that the U.S. had in why it's allegedly "lesser-known"? It may have been "lesser-known" once upon a time, but certainly in this country, the media has given enough coverage of Japan's denials, Iris Chang's book, and now this movie that recently came out that you'd have to be living in a bubble or completely disinterested to not have heard of the Nanjing massacres and what the Japanese soldiers did to Chinese civilians.
The NYT doesn't specify "military" when it mentions the "Japanese invation", but I think that is implied in the given context. (It's expected that it's the military that invades.)
Other than this notion of the massacre being lesser-known, the NYT doesn't distort facts or mislead per se. However, the wording is sloppy. Also, what's with the passive voice for something so horrific? B-
Salon: "The Japanese military's infamous 'rape of Nanking' in 1937 -- which included the massacre of 200,000 civilians and the rape of at least 20,000 women"
"But 'Nanking' both calls attention to a horrifying set of war crimes that remains little known in the West. . ."
Like the NYT, Salon also says that the Nanjing Massacre is not so well-known. However, this publication specifies "the Japanese military" as the agent. Not quite as good as the Monitor, but better than the average. I give it a B.
Time Magazine: "Over the course of the next few months the Japanese army essentially became an ungovernable, and before some semblance of order was restored, an estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed and 20,000 women were brutally raped."
"The years have passed — 70 of them — other horrors have piled up and the Japanese, who have never fully come to grips with their war crimes, have taken to referring to Nanking as an 'incident.'"
Again, I give Time Magazine points for specifying the Japanese army as the agent. But as I mentioned in my earlier posting, the Japanese are not a monolithic bunch of people--all of whom are in denial of these various atrocities. This author is confounding the ultranationalist fringe with the general Japanese population. This is irresponsible journalism or lousy editing. C
Here is how various reviewers describe the Nanjing Massacre, and here is how I rate their accuracy in portraying this gruesome event.
Christian Science Monitor: "The 1937-38 massacre of more than 200,000 Chinese in Nanking during the Japanese occupation has been extensively recorded in Iris Chang's best-selling 'The Rape of Nanking'. . ."
"To this day, as 'Nanking' documents, there are Japanese nationalists who deny the extent and savagery of the massacre."
This reviewer does not specify who committed the massacre, though Japanese occupation implies the military. It would've been better to say outright that it was the military that committed this massacre. As for who denies the Nanjing massacre, I give him credit for specifying that 1)it is a subsection of the Japanese population (as suggested by the wording "there are. . ."), and 2)they are Japanese nationalists, rather than most ordinary Japanese. B+
Entertainment Insiders: "In 1937, just as the people of a cultural beacon in Europe went berserk under the Nazi flag, supremely civilized Imperial Japan embarked on a needless and incomprehensible mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city that was then the capital of China."
"Two months ago, a film was released in Japan, called 'The Truth About Nanjing,' with the claim that there were no atrocities by Japanese soldiers in the city. According to film director Satoru Mizushima, 'There is one indisputable fact: there was no massacre at Nanjing. We don't want our children to grow up thinking Japan is a barbarian country.'"
Normally, I like his reviews (especially his opera reviews), but I had a problem with the above wording. First, "Imperial Japan" usually implies the government of Japan or Japan as a country, headed by the emperor. Although Iris Chang in her infamous book makes it sound like the Nanjing massacre was a top-down thing sanctioned by the emperor, it was in fact, carried out by an army group that went wildly out of control, probably unbeknownst to the emperor, though this point is hotly debated.
As for the release of the film "The Truth about Nanjing", he doesn't outright state that all of Japan shares the same amnesia, unlike some of the other reviews I read. He leaves it to the readers to interpret what they want from that last statement, which I cannot fault him for; however, I wanted more context. For example, will readers know that this director is an ultranationalist? Will they know that this is a fringe film project, largely criticized by many scholars, journalists, business leaders, etc? C+
New York Times: "'Nanking' is a swift, incisive documentary about one of the lesser-known horrors of the 20th century: the 1937 Japanese invasion of the Chinese city now called Nanjing, where more than 200,000 civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered in a matter of weeks."
Lesser-known? Compared to what? The Jewish Holocaust? The experiments that unit 731 conducted on live human subjects? The role that the U.S. had in why it's allegedly "lesser-known"? It may have been "lesser-known" once upon a time, but certainly in this country, the media has given enough coverage of Japan's denials, Iris Chang's book, and now this movie that recently came out that you'd have to be living in a bubble or completely disinterested to not have heard of the Nanjing massacres and what the Japanese soldiers did to Chinese civilians.
The NYT doesn't specify "military" when it mentions the "Japanese invation", but I think that is implied in the given context. (It's expected that it's the military that invades.)
Other than this notion of the massacre being lesser-known, the NYT doesn't distort facts or mislead per se. However, the wording is sloppy. Also, what's with the passive voice for something so horrific? B-
Salon: "The Japanese military's infamous 'rape of Nanking' in 1937 -- which included the massacre of 200,000 civilians and the rape of at least 20,000 women"
"But 'Nanking' both calls attention to a horrifying set of war crimes that remains little known in the West. . ."
Like the NYT, Salon also says that the Nanjing Massacre is not so well-known. However, this publication specifies "the Japanese military" as the agent. Not quite as good as the Monitor, but better than the average. I give it a B.
Time Magazine: "Over the course of the next few months the Japanese army essentially became an ungovernable, and before some semblance of order was restored, an estimated 200,000 Chinese were killed and 20,000 women were brutally raped."
"The years have passed — 70 of them — other horrors have piled up and the Japanese, who have never fully come to grips with their war crimes, have taken to referring to Nanking as an 'incident.'"
Again, I give Time Magazine points for specifying the Japanese army as the agent. But as I mentioned in my earlier posting, the Japanese are not a monolithic bunch of people--all of whom are in denial of these various atrocities. This author is confounding the ultranationalist fringe with the general Japanese population. This is irresponsible journalism or lousy editing. C
Beethoven orgasm
I'll explain later, but today, I think I experienced what one of the members of one of my discussion groups called a "Beethoven-orgasm".
08 February 2008
Killing coworkers, part II
Gosh, with valentine's day around the corner and all the sad and less trivial things going on in the world, I shouldn't really go on a killing spree at work, but the second type of people who ought to be killed are those who use those fancy palm-treo/blackberry phone-type things, and then have the nerve to tell you that 1) they didn't read an important email I sent them b/c "oh, I don't read emails" (then why, pray, tell, do you have a blackberry?), or 2) they didn't put some important meeting date on their calendar, and now, you (=I), the peon, are stuck trying to re-herd cats and coordinate 12 people's schedules. again. because someone f-ing didn't put it on his schedule.
At least it's Friday.
At least it's Friday.
Mozart, bastardized
Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit. I should be working instead of posting, but I'm going to take 60 seconds to complain about a coworker whose office is 2 doors down, who has her cellphone ring tone set to Mozart's piano sonata #--oh, I don't know the exact number, but I'm tearing my hair out listening to it. I can't decide whether it's worse than hearing one movement of Vivaldi on a radio station, but it is beyond annoying as heck.
Why the heck do people think this is acceptable? At work? I can work through most background noises (and I certainly get a lot), but 30 seconds of bastardized Mozart on something that doesn't sound like a real piano makes me want to walk over there and remove the battery or accidentally break it.
How about the vibrator mode? Or a quieter ring tone? Or if you must make musical references, 2 E-flat major chords? (just 2, or else the effect/reference is lost. And on volume 2 instead of 10.) I'd even prefer a ring tone that sounds like, omg, how un-novel and orthodox--a phone!
Mozart's piano sonata was meant to be played on a piano, people. If he wanted his damn sonata played on a cell phone, he would've called it the ringtone sonata. (Ok, yes, I know cellphones didn't exist during his time.)
Why the heck do people think this is acceptable? At work? I can work through most background noises (and I certainly get a lot), but 30 seconds of bastardized Mozart on something that doesn't sound like a real piano makes me want to walk over there and remove the battery or accidentally break it.
How about the vibrator mode? Or a quieter ring tone? Or if you must make musical references, 2 E-flat major chords? (just 2, or else the effect/reference is lost. And on volume 2 instead of 10.) I'd even prefer a ring tone that sounds like, omg, how un-novel and orthodox--a phone!
Mozart's piano sonata was meant to be played on a piano, people. If he wanted his damn sonata played on a cell phone, he would've called it the ringtone sonata. (Ok, yes, I know cellphones didn't exist during his time.)
04 February 2008
The Truth about Nanjing
I have yet to see the newly released movie "Nanking", but having read a few oversweeping statements that may mislead readers in some of the early reviews, I feel compelled to write a few things about the rape of Nanjing.
Since Iris Chang, in her bestseller The Rape of Nanjing, has butchered some of the key details, and this seems to have transferred directly over to the consciousness of journalists and readers, there are some things that need to be set straight, or at least, nitpicked a bit.
1. The Nanjing Massacre as a "forgotten holocaust"
First, on the notion of "forgotten":
Contrary to the impression that her book may give off, the Nanjing Massacre is very much debated and remembered in Japan. In fact, I'm not advocating the right wing movement at all, but one of the adverse effects of their whole denial/revisionist campaign is that it brings the massacre into the spotlight. By trying to deny it ever happened, you must talk about it. And if it really never happened, then a) there would be no need to deny its happening, and b) there wouldn't be all of this flurry of conversation back and forth between the two camps.
It is true that the textbooks don't do a good enough job of covering these atrocities. I did a survey of textbooks back in college and the amount of space these textbooks allot for subjects like the comfort women or the Nanjing massacre is dismal. This part of the story is broadcast all over the international media. The other part of the story that is often omitted is the fact that most history teachers (and many K-12 teachers in Japan) are so left-leaning, that they will have their own curriculum to teach sections that are omitted or glossed over in textbooks. They make it a point to cover this material.
I don't know how representative my "sample" was, but several people I spoke to over the years spanning several generations (high school and college-aged, 20s, 30s, middle-aged) all mentioned the fact that these lessons were in fact hammered into them. I won't get into my parents' generation, b/c that's a different story. They have a slight problem with the 200,000-300,000 person death count. But even they know/acknowledge that the massacre did happen.
Perhaps I need to befriend more ultranationalists, b/c if Japan is full of these massacre-forgetters, I don't know where the hell they all are.
Now, on to "holocaust":
Holocaust, loosely defined, is mass-killing. In this sense of the word, the rape of Nanjing was very much a holocaust. However, when historians employ this word, they usually refer to the notion of a state-sanctioned mass-killing on a much larger scale.
While I'm not trying to downplay the level of atrocities, the problem with referring to the rape of Nanjing as a "holocaust" is that it gets compared to the holocaust of Jews in WWII. There is nothing wrong with comparisons so long as you don't lump them into the same categories out of ignorance.
Again, I'm not trying to downplay the scale of the Nanjing massacre, but the scope of these two things were quite different.
Once you start calling the Nanjing Massacre a "holocaust", you run the risk of muddling the differences between these two fundamentally different atrocities. Which brings us to point #2:
2. The idea of Japan (the nation) or Imperial Japan embarking on a killing mission. All of Japan did not participate in the Rape of Nanjing. For one, due to strict censoring by the military, the general population did not find out about the atrocities until much later. As for the emperor's role, there are different interpretations. Herbert Bix, for example, argues that the emperor was actively involved in all logistical aspects of the war. However, his book (like Chang's book) got a lot of scathing criticism from the academic community. It seems like the most commonly accepted view (which is also the view that my thesis adviser holds) is that the military (not even the entire military, but a subsection of a few troops) pretty much ran their own show and that the emperor was probably left in the dark about the rapes and atrocities going on at the time. None of the Japanese newspapers at the time, mentioned anything about the Japanese armies raping and slaughtering innocent civilians.
2/8 update: Having just read an article in Japan Focus that refutes my point about a "subsection" being involved in the massacre, I feel compelled to bring it up, as any responsible historian would (even if it contradicts what he/she just said):
In this article, Fujiwara Akira, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, (and those of you who think that Japan is in denial and refuses to come to terms with this atrocity, stop one moment and take a note of the nationality of the author whose work I'm about to paraphrase.), argues that the massacre was not the doing of a "small" subsection of the army, but that it was well-planned and orchestrated by Matsui and the troops under his control.
-The central army leaders in Tokyo initially had no plan to attack Nanking when they sent more troops to China; Matsui made up his mind to invade Nanking long before actual orders were given.
-Under Matsui, the Central China Area Army (CCAA) formed. Its primary function was originally to stay in Shanghai and destroy enemy forces.
(Fujiwara offers several reasons why discipline was hard to maintain among the CCAA--The haphazard way the army was put together; older ages of soldiers and their disgruntlement, etc.)
-Despite being chastised by central army leaders in Japan for disobeying orders, Matsui made plans to attack Nanjing and moved his troops towards Nanking.
-Frontline units vied for the "honor" of being the first to enter Nanking; b/c of this, the attack of Nanking was out of control from the outset.
Fujiwara states that "many personal diaries and reminiscences testifying that summary executions took place on command. There is no doubt that these reflected orders from above and took place systematically-- not just haphazardly."
He also debunks several myths propagated by conservatives and revisionists. It is long, but definitely worth a read.
3. Iris Chang's Rape of Nanjing as the first and only English book written about the Nanjing massacre. Just because this is the only book that made it on the NYT bestsellers' list doesn't mean that it was the first or only book written on this topic. Granted, it might be the first contemporary non-translated work that focuses solely on this topic. But Ienaga Saburo has written about this topic in his epic work on WWII back in the 60s. His work was translated into English in 1978--almost 20 years before Chang's book was published.
Honda Katsuichi has also been writing and researching on this topic since the 70s. However, his book on the Nanjing Massacre-- a work that is not without problems, but is solidly researched and far superior to Chang's work--didn't get published in English until two years after Chang's book came out.
The earliest English source on the Nanjing Massacre was actually published in 1938 by H.J. Timperley. After his book, there is a long gap. There are other academic works in English, mostly written in the past 20 years, but perhaps not as widely known as Chang's book.
4. The Japanese "still" in denial over the rape of Nanjing and other atrocities they committed during WWII. All 128 million of them. First of all, I hate when publications--especially reputable publications like the NYT that ought to know better and adhere to better journalistic standards--make ridiculous generalizations about Japan or the Japanese, as if we were all one group. Contrary to popular belief, Japan is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. As I mentioned before, the people who deny that the rape of Nanjing happened are a small subset of ultra right wing conservatives and politicians. Unfortunately, they happen to be the most vocal (but not necessarily the strongest or most influential) voices, and thus are probably most noticed and mentioned by the media etc. Please don't mistake a fringe subset for the entire Japanese population. This would be like saying that all Americans are pro-Iraq war.
5. As a related point to points 3. and 4., let me point out that the best scholarship on the rape of Nanjing is in Japanese. The oldest research (aside from the Timperley book I mentioned earlier) on this topic is in Japanese. While the bulk of English language scholarship on the Rape of Nanjing is relatively new, Japanese scholars have been researching, writing and debating about Nanjing for decades. In fact, this scholar says that research in English lags decades behind the Japanese discourse. This is hardly the description of a nation that refuses to look at its ugly past.
6. U.S. as the great moralizer-it seems that most Americans conveniently forget the United States government's role in Japan's wartime amnesia. First, it absolved Japan from any wartime reparations to its Asian neighbors. Second, in the case of the Unit 731 experiments, the United States government actually colluded with the Japanese government on the silence and paid--let me repeat that lest you missed it--paid Japan to keep quiet about these biological experiments in exchange for data.
The occupation run by MacArthur also played a big role in this wartime amnesia. When the citizens in Japan first learned of the massacre, many were outraged. Poems and haiku that were written by writers on this subject, for example, were censored by the occupation.
7. The historiography of the rape of Nanjing in China-As a subpoint, the historiography of the telling of the rape of Nanjing is quite interesting. During the Cultural Revolution, the Japanese were the biggest aid donors to China. For this reason, and for its own political reasons, the Chinese government attempted to minimize mention of Japan's wartime atrocities during the 60s and 70s. It wasn't until the 80s that the Chinese government started to criticize Japan for its wartime deeds and (I think) started introducing this into school history curricula. Given how fervent the nationalism and concomitant anti-Japanese sentiment seems to be in China, one would never guess that this is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Nowadays, it's almost as though the younger generations in China use the Rape of Nanjing as the sine qua non of their nationalism.
Flawed though it is, I have mixed feelings about the publication of Chang's book. On the one hand, it's a book I love to hate. However, leaving aside my personal strong objections to the book, one cannot ignore some of the positive that has come out of all of this. The key contributions that Chang's book made to the field of modern Japanese history are: a) due to its notoriety and mass appeal, it did bring the atrocities committed in Nanjing into wider public awareness and b) even among academic circles that do not take her book seriously, her book has spawned great debates and subsequent further research on this topic.
Even though I find myself constantly annoyed by misperceptions that Chang's book, along with the oversweeping generalizations that the NYT has a penchant for writing (when it comes to the topic of Japan and wartime guilt, that is) have helped perpetuate, it is perhaps better than no discourse at all.
Finally, I leave you with two excerpts from 1937 editions of the New York Times that I found re: Nanjing Massacre. Out of curiosity, I looked for U.S. media coverage during the end of 1937 on what was going on in Nanjing at the time. First, around the time of the Nanjing massacre, there was another incident going on-- the shooting by the Japanese of the USS Panay--that seemed to occupy more of the attention of journalists and received far more coverage. Second, since Matsui Iwane's role is hotly debated, I can't attest to the veracity of these accounts (2/8 update: I didn't want to leave out the NYT articles, but having read Fujiwara's article in Japan Focus, it's hard to believe these NYT articles.) so take it for what it's worth, but here they are:
Excerpt from the 9 January 1938 NYT:
Since Iris Chang, in her bestseller The Rape of Nanjing, has butchered some of the key details, and this seems to have transferred directly over to the consciousness of journalists and readers, there are some things that need to be set straight, or at least, nitpicked a bit.
1. The Nanjing Massacre as a "forgotten holocaust"
First, on the notion of "forgotten":
Contrary to the impression that her book may give off, the Nanjing Massacre is very much debated and remembered in Japan. In fact, I'm not advocating the right wing movement at all, but one of the adverse effects of their whole denial/revisionist campaign is that it brings the massacre into the spotlight. By trying to deny it ever happened, you must talk about it. And if it really never happened, then a) there would be no need to deny its happening, and b) there wouldn't be all of this flurry of conversation back and forth between the two camps.
It is true that the textbooks don't do a good enough job of covering these atrocities. I did a survey of textbooks back in college and the amount of space these textbooks allot for subjects like the comfort women or the Nanjing massacre is dismal. This part of the story is broadcast all over the international media. The other part of the story that is often omitted is the fact that most history teachers (and many K-12 teachers in Japan) are so left-leaning, that they will have their own curriculum to teach sections that are omitted or glossed over in textbooks. They make it a point to cover this material.
I don't know how representative my "sample" was, but several people I spoke to over the years spanning several generations (high school and college-aged, 20s, 30s, middle-aged) all mentioned the fact that these lessons were in fact hammered into them. I won't get into my parents' generation, b/c that's a different story. They have a slight problem with the 200,000-300,000 person death count. But even they know/acknowledge that the massacre did happen.
Perhaps I need to befriend more ultranationalists, b/c if Japan is full of these massacre-forgetters, I don't know where the hell they all are.
Now, on to "holocaust":
Holocaust, loosely defined, is mass-killing. In this sense of the word, the rape of Nanjing was very much a holocaust. However, when historians employ this word, they usually refer to the notion of a state-sanctioned mass-killing on a much larger scale.
While I'm not trying to downplay the level of atrocities, the problem with referring to the rape of Nanjing as a "holocaust" is that it gets compared to the holocaust of Jews in WWII. There is nothing wrong with comparisons so long as you don't lump them into the same categories out of ignorance.
Again, I'm not trying to downplay the scale of the Nanjing massacre, but the scope of these two things were quite different.
| Nanjing Massacre | Jewish Holocaust |
|---|---|
| 200,000-300,000 killed | 7 million killed |
| not sanctioned by the state; massacres were the result of troop leaders going out of control | sanctioned by the state; every level of bureaucracy involved |
2. The idea of Japan (the nation) or Imperial Japan embarking on a killing mission. All of Japan did not participate in the Rape of Nanjing. For one, due to strict censoring by the military, the general population did not find out about the atrocities until much later. As for the emperor's role, there are different interpretations. Herbert Bix, for example, argues that the emperor was actively involved in all logistical aspects of the war. However, his book (like Chang's book) got a lot of scathing criticism from the academic community. It seems like the most commonly accepted view (which is also the view that my thesis adviser holds) is that the military (not even the entire military, but a subsection of a few troops) pretty much ran their own show and that the emperor was probably left in the dark about the rapes and atrocities going on at the time. None of the Japanese newspapers at the time, mentioned anything about the Japanese armies raping and slaughtering innocent civilians.
2/8 update: Having just read an article in Japan Focus that refutes my point about a "subsection" being involved in the massacre, I feel compelled to bring it up, as any responsible historian would (even if it contradicts what he/she just said):
In this article, Fujiwara Akira, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, (and those of you who think that Japan is in denial and refuses to come to terms with this atrocity, stop one moment and take a note of the nationality of the author whose work I'm about to paraphrase.), argues that the massacre was not the doing of a "small" subsection of the army, but that it was well-planned and orchestrated by Matsui and the troops under his control.
-The central army leaders in Tokyo initially had no plan to attack Nanking when they sent more troops to China; Matsui made up his mind to invade Nanking long before actual orders were given.
-Under Matsui, the Central China Area Army (CCAA) formed. Its primary function was originally to stay in Shanghai and destroy enemy forces.
(Fujiwara offers several reasons why discipline was hard to maintain among the CCAA--The haphazard way the army was put together; older ages of soldiers and their disgruntlement, etc.)
-Despite being chastised by central army leaders in Japan for disobeying orders, Matsui made plans to attack Nanjing and moved his troops towards Nanking.
-Frontline units vied for the "honor" of being the first to enter Nanking; b/c of this, the attack of Nanking was out of control from the outset.
Fujiwara states that "many personal diaries and reminiscences testifying that summary executions took place on command. There is no doubt that these reflected orders from above and took place systematically-- not just haphazardly."
He also debunks several myths propagated by conservatives and revisionists. It is long, but definitely worth a read.
3. Iris Chang's Rape of Nanjing as the first and only English book written about the Nanjing massacre. Just because this is the only book that made it on the NYT bestsellers' list doesn't mean that it was the first or only book written on this topic. Granted, it might be the first contemporary non-translated work that focuses solely on this topic. But Ienaga Saburo has written about this topic in his epic work on WWII back in the 60s. His work was translated into English in 1978--almost 20 years before Chang's book was published.
Honda Katsuichi has also been writing and researching on this topic since the 70s. However, his book on the Nanjing Massacre-- a work that is not without problems, but is solidly researched and far superior to Chang's work--didn't get published in English until two years after Chang's book came out.
The earliest English source on the Nanjing Massacre was actually published in 1938 by H.J. Timperley. After his book, there is a long gap. There are other academic works in English, mostly written in the past 20 years, but perhaps not as widely known as Chang's book.
4. The Japanese "still" in denial over the rape of Nanjing and other atrocities they committed during WWII. All 128 million of them. First of all, I hate when publications--especially reputable publications like the NYT that ought to know better and adhere to better journalistic standards--make ridiculous generalizations about Japan or the Japanese, as if we were all one group. Contrary to popular belief, Japan is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. As I mentioned before, the people who deny that the rape of Nanjing happened are a small subset of ultra right wing conservatives and politicians. Unfortunately, they happen to be the most vocal (but not necessarily the strongest or most influential) voices, and thus are probably most noticed and mentioned by the media etc. Please don't mistake a fringe subset for the entire Japanese population. This would be like saying that all Americans are pro-Iraq war.
5. As a related point to points 3. and 4., let me point out that the best scholarship on the rape of Nanjing is in Japanese. The oldest research (aside from the Timperley book I mentioned earlier) on this topic is in Japanese. While the bulk of English language scholarship on the Rape of Nanjing is relatively new, Japanese scholars have been researching, writing and debating about Nanjing for decades. In fact, this scholar says that research in English lags decades behind the Japanese discourse. This is hardly the description of a nation that refuses to look at its ugly past.
6. U.S. as the great moralizer-it seems that most Americans conveniently forget the United States government's role in Japan's wartime amnesia. First, it absolved Japan from any wartime reparations to its Asian neighbors. Second, in the case of the Unit 731 experiments, the United States government actually colluded with the Japanese government on the silence and paid--let me repeat that lest you missed it--paid Japan to keep quiet about these biological experiments in exchange for data.
The occupation run by MacArthur also played a big role in this wartime amnesia. When the citizens in Japan first learned of the massacre, many were outraged. Poems and haiku that were written by writers on this subject, for example, were censored by the occupation.
7. The historiography of the rape of Nanjing in China-As a subpoint, the historiography of the telling of the rape of Nanjing is quite interesting. During the Cultural Revolution, the Japanese were the biggest aid donors to China. For this reason, and for its own political reasons, the Chinese government attempted to minimize mention of Japan's wartime atrocities during the 60s and 70s. It wasn't until the 80s that the Chinese government started to criticize Japan for its wartime deeds and (I think) started introducing this into school history curricula. Given how fervent the nationalism and concomitant anti-Japanese sentiment seems to be in China, one would never guess that this is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Nowadays, it's almost as though the younger generations in China use the Rape of Nanjing as the sine qua non of their nationalism.
---------------------------
Flawed though it is, I have mixed feelings about the publication of Chang's book. On the one hand, it's a book I love to hate. However, leaving aside my personal strong objections to the book, one cannot ignore some of the positive that has come out of all of this. The key contributions that Chang's book made to the field of modern Japanese history are: a) due to its notoriety and mass appeal, it did bring the atrocities committed in Nanjing into wider public awareness and b) even among academic circles that do not take her book seriously, her book has spawned great debates and subsequent further research on this topic.
Even though I find myself constantly annoyed by misperceptions that Chang's book, along with the oversweeping generalizations that the NYT has a penchant for writing (when it comes to the topic of Japan and wartime guilt, that is) have helped perpetuate, it is perhaps better than no discourse at all.
Finally, I leave you with two excerpts from 1937 editions of the New York Times that I found re: Nanjing Massacre. Out of curiosity, I looked for U.S. media coverage during the end of 1937 on what was going on in Nanjing at the time. First, around the time of the Nanjing massacre, there was another incident going on-- the shooting by the Japanese of the USS Panay--that seemed to occupy more of the attention of journalists and received far more coverage. Second, since Matsui Iwane's role is hotly debated, I can't attest to the veracity of these accounts (2/8 update: I didn't want to leave out the NYT articles, but having read Fujiwara's article in Japan Focus, it's hard to believe these NYT articles.) so take it for what it's worth, but here they are:
Excerpt from the 9 January 1938 NYT:
"It should be said that certain Japanese units exercised restraint and certain Japanese officers tempered power with generosity and compassion. But the conduct of the Japanese Army as a whole in Nanking was a blot on the reputation of their country. Responsible high Japanese officers and diplomats who visited Nanking some days after the occupation admit all the excesses reported by foreigners who saw them. These Japanese explain the Nanking barbarities by saying that a section of the Japanese Army got out of hand and that the atrocities were being committed unknown to high command in Shanghai."19 December 1937 NYT: "Japanese Curbing Nanking Exesses" (retrieved from ProQuest) :
"The Japanese Army of high command has belatedly begun stern disciplinary measures intended speedily to end the chaos of looting, raping and killing that has made the Japanese entry into Nanking a national disgrace. It is understood that frantic efforts are being made to prevent General Iwane Matsui, the Japanese commander in central China, from learning all the facts concerning the shocking misconduct of his soldiers, who ran amok, wantonly slaying hundreds of disarmed prisoners of war, civilian men, women and children, but that wily old warrior already suspects that some officers of lower rank are engaged in a conspiracy of silence and secrecy."
". . .when, on arriving at the capital, they learned what had occurred there after the siege had ended, their dismay over the Panay deepened into horror and shame."
"Responsible and fine-minded Japanese officials in all branches of the government service are not making attempts to minimize what had occurred. Instead, they admit with dismay that conditions in many respects have been worse than the world yet realizes."
"Every effort at present is bent upon getting these units from the vicinity of Nanking and isolating them in order to restore discipline. . .."
02 February 2008
Crying at a concert, but not because the music was moving
My friend went to go see the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra perform the Mahler 5th. As Murphy's law would have it, she suddenly had this incredible need to cough during one of the hushed movements. Not wanting to offend other concertgoers who are clearly not in the know about how it used to be ok to cough, talk, etc. during performances, she attempted to suppress her cough by covering her mouth with a wad of tissue. This caused her to have some difficulty breathing, which in turn triggered a lachrymal response. Tears overfloweth and wouldn't stop for the rest of the performance.
She sat close enough to the orchestra (4th row) that several violinists noticed her. One of them kept making eye contact with her and smiled at her approvingly when the piece finally ended.
An audience member was so moved by her gushing tears that he went up to her after the concert and told her that she must have such an honest heart to have such a reaction to the music. "I was so moved by your open emotions," he said to her.
"Ah, if only they knew. . .."
She sat close enough to the orchestra (4th row) that several violinists noticed her. One of them kept making eye contact with her and smiled at her approvingly when the piece finally ended.
An audience member was so moved by her gushing tears that he went up to her after the concert and told her that she must have such an honest heart to have such a reaction to the music. "I was so moved by your open emotions," he said to her.
"Ah, if only they knew. . .."
Life before Internet?
I had dinner with my downstairs neighbor yesterday. We talked about all of the things we do with the Internet.
We are both old enough that we don't do things like pwning others. I didn't even know wth pwning is until someone "pwned" someone else on one of the discussion boards on Facebook. But the Internet has been around for pretty much all of our grown-up lives.
For starters, we use it for work and to check emails. That occupies about 10-12 hours of our days.
Instead of going to a government library to look up tax statistics from 1970 or look up housing prices during the colonial period, I can find these documents online.
If I am debating whether to go see a movie, I can compare reviews online and make an informed decision.
If I want to find out what people think about Schnabel's version of the Beethoven's sonatas, I can do a search online.
If I'm wondering what my old flings are up to, I can google-stalk them.
If I don't know what the heck something is, I can instantly look it up.
If I'm being a hypochondriac, I can look up my latest psychosomatic symptoms and make sure I don't have strep or reassure myself that I am not dying from some rare disease.
I can pay my bills online.
I can renew my books online.
I can buy CDs, clothes, even food online.
I can waste a lot of time playing silly online games like scrabulous with people I barely know.
I use it to check the news.
I use it to check and compare recipes.
I use it to upload photos of recipes I've tried, and then again to share this with friends.
I use it to discuss food.
I use it to write about any random silly topic I find interesting.
I use it to keep in touch with friends who have moved to all remote corners of the world.
I use it to get directions to a destination.
Via the Internet, it is possible to know all about the private lives of people who I know so little about, that I don't even know their real names.
I can have some horrible algorithm "recommend" music or movies or news articles it thinks I might like, based on previous things I might've read or chosen.
I could go on and on.
My neighbor and I both looked at each other and wondered--what the heck did people do before the Internet? Well, ok, I don't mean to suggest that there was no life before the Internet, but 98 percent of my job would be quite different and far less convenient without the Internet.
We are both old enough that we don't do things like pwning others. I didn't even know wth pwning is until someone "pwned" someone else on one of the discussion boards on Facebook. But the Internet has been around for pretty much all of our grown-up lives.
For starters, we use it for work and to check emails. That occupies about 10-12 hours of our days.
Instead of going to a government library to look up tax statistics from 1970 or look up housing prices during the colonial period, I can find these documents online.
If I am debating whether to go see a movie, I can compare reviews online and make an informed decision.
If I want to find out what people think about Schnabel's version of the Beethoven's sonatas, I can do a search online.
If I'm wondering what my old flings are up to, I can google-stalk them.
If I don't know what the heck something is, I can instantly look it up.
If I'm being a hypochondriac, I can look up my latest psychosomatic symptoms and make sure I don't have strep or reassure myself that I am not dying from some rare disease.
I can pay my bills online.
I can renew my books online.
I can buy CDs, clothes, even food online.
I can waste a lot of time playing silly online games like scrabulous with people I barely know.
I use it to check the news.
I use it to check and compare recipes.
I use it to upload photos of recipes I've tried, and then again to share this with friends.
I use it to discuss food.
I use it to write about any random silly topic I find interesting.
I use it to keep in touch with friends who have moved to all remote corners of the world.
I use it to get directions to a destination.
Via the Internet, it is possible to know all about the private lives of people who I know so little about, that I don't even know their real names.
I can have some horrible algorithm "recommend" music or movies or news articles it thinks I might like, based on previous things I might've read or chosen.
I could go on and on.
My neighbor and I both looked at each other and wondered--what the heck did people do before the Internet? Well, ok, I don't mean to suggest that there was no life before the Internet, but 98 percent of my job would be quite different and far less convenient without the Internet.
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