Second Breakfast

As some may know, I sing with Measure for Measure, a men’s chorus of 85 voices that performs music in the style of collegiate glee clubs (and is a post-graduate spin-off of the U-M Men’s Glee Club). Although the tradition of men’s choruses has waned in the US, the tradition is still strong in Europe, and its very enjoyable and rewarding to sing with a group of fine, expressive singers who are (usually!) passionate about the music we’re singing together.

Measure for Measure doesn’t perform many large works, although we are increasingly collaborating with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles in performances such as Orff’s Carmina Burana and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Some of this is due to the needs of our audience and our performance opportunites, which requires a variety of styles and selections to appeal to a broad audience, and also due to the lack of a large body of good music for men’s chorus.

We’re doing a great piece this season by Benjamin Britten, a 20th-century English composer, which is a setting of an anonymous tale from the Oxford Book of Ballads, which is sort of an ill-fated medieval Lady Chatterly’s Lover: Boy meets married woman at church where they declare their love (or at least infaturation) for one another and they make a plan to get together at her love nest outside of town. Lady’s servant-boy overhears and runs off to tattle on her to her husband, who speeds off to find them, and discovers them in flagrante delicto. The husband, being magnanimous, orders the young lover to don some clothes “for it shall ne’er be said in my country that I’ve killed a naked man!”. They fight a duel, the young lover dies, and in his wrath the husband kills his wife, blames everyone else in the room, and orders the lovers to be buried together.

Interestingly, Britten edits the text somewhat (perhaps to protect the sensibilities of his audience, as well as for time), as in the story the husband kills his wife by cutting off her breasts (”He cut her paps from off her breast”), and he edits out some of the more comic bits. In exchange, he sets the text with dramatic flourishes that move from passionate tenderness to alarm to anxious rage.

One friend referred to this as “Britten’s indictment of heterosexual jealousy”. Britten was most definitely not heterosexual (although he was a simple and private man who did not enjoy intrusions into his personal life), and I’m curious what the inspiration was that moved him to set this particular ballad.

You can find the complete text at http://www.bartleby.com/243/50.html.

OMG candyboots.com is fabulous, and a bit freaky. But mostly you’ll laugh till you puke.

Its 1974. You’ve got your best jumpsuit on, you’re groovin’ to Grace Slick, and you want to lose some extra poundage. What do you do? You join Weight Watchers, and get their delicious recipe cards, which show you how to make nutritious and delicious food while the pounds just melt off. Or maybe the melting is due to the twelve hits of acid you took at that party last year, which seems to come back to haunt you at the worst times.

This food is so terrible, so disgusting, and so utterly unappealing that its no wonder that America is a nation of great, big, fat persons.

Oh yeah, there’s apparently a book.

Yahoo! News - Germany’s Cardinal Ratzinger Elected Pope

Today is not a particularly good day for the forces of moderation, inclusivity, or progressivism in the Catholic Church. Luckily the Catholics can now turn away from the wacky liberal theology of JPII. Perhaps we will see a resurgence of the auto da fe, or perhaps a new German Inquisition.

Although the man is 78, so I don’t think we will have to wait an enormously long time to do this all over again.

My husband and I had this blog chat:

alan: OMG
alan: Rat-zinger
briansp: oh no
briansp: well, he’s 78
alan: Yeah…
alan: Cardinal Panzer.
alan: I’m glad they decided to turn away from the liberal theology of Pope John Paul II
briansp: I said as much in my blog.
alan: Yeah.
alan: The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith used to have a different name…
alan: The Inquisition.
alan: yay!
alan:
briansp: yes.
briansp: Ya! Heil! No one ekxzpetz ze German Inkvisition!
alan: Indeed.
briansp: Vould you like a Lowenbrau before we render judgement?
alan: Their primary weapon is fear. Und das blitzkreig.
briansp: Unt a fanatical devotion to ze poop.
briansp: unt those tiny little hot dogs in a can. Dey are so yummy!

According to the Target StarWars Battle Name Configurator, my Jedi Battle Name is:

Prince Soob Truwoofer

You can just call me “Prince Woofer” for short.

Ain’t it Cool News reports that New Line Cinema has hired screenwriter Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) to develop a film treatment of Susanna Clarke’s book “Johathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, which I’ve read and written about.

Although Hollywood film treatments of great books are usually terrible, New Line of course also produced and distributed Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, which while not perfect were certainly very, very good in many respects.

I’m not sure how this book would translate to the screen (although there is certainly enough action and “magic stuff’ to sustain a visual film), or how approachable it would be to a mainstream audience. But a proper treatment could be exceptionally cool. This is particularly exciting for an author like Clarke for whom this is her first published work (to my knowledge).