Slippery

In the European classical tradition, the piano, with its twelve precise divisions of the octave—inflexible, immovable—has dictated musical thinking for several centuries. Once developed, the piano quickly became a machine of almost tyrannical influence throughout the Western world. Its division of the octave into twelve intervals, each mathematically equidistant from its neighbors, forces one to regard pitches as discrete entities, like nations with strictly policed [borders]. A piano-generated melody goes from point to point with no expressive sliding in between. This is not a fault—Bach and Mozart built their entire work on the notion—rather, it is a stylistic choice. Since the advent of the black-and-white keyboard… Western instrumental music has had to state itself according to the twelve discrete, individual pitches of the scale, resulting in a more limited universe of emotional expression.

—John Adams, Hallelujah Junction, ch. 10, “The Machine in the Garden”

At the park: 32

crunchOver the weekend I did some field work at Huntley Meadows for my tree ID class, and I previewed conditions for the upcoming nest box season. There are still substantial patches of slush on the trails and boardwalk, and lots of downed tree limbs. The fast-growing trees suffered the most damage from winter storms. Lots of chunks of Red Maples and Viriginia Pines were on the ground; I clipped twigs from snapped boughs of Sassafras albidum (thanks, Elizabeth!) and Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica). The most spectacular wreck was the top half of an Eastern Redcedar that you see, permanently separated from its bottom half.

Walking the dog

Language Log contributor Geoff Nunberg explores new crannies of curmudgeonliness. My kind of guy:

I have this notion that “gingerly” shouldn’t be used as an adverb, as in, “She hugged the child gingerly,” because there’s no corresponding adjective “ginger” — you wouldn’t say, “She gave the child a ginger hug.” I’ll concede that “gingerly” has been used as an adverb for 400 years, and nobody’s ever complained about it before. But so much the better: Every time I see the word used as an adverb, I can take a quiet satisfaction in knowing that I’m marching to a more logical drummer than the half-billion other speakers of English who haven’t yet cottoned to the problem.

Now let me explain how to pronounce the names of the years of this past decade…

Counting rules

The editors of Nature come out in support of abandoning Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the primary measure of social development and economic wealth:

…GDP is known to be flawed as an indicator. For example, a developing country can accelerate its GDP growth by over-logging its forests, even though this could destroy a sustainable resource and carbon sink that would be far more valuable over time. A similar problem rears its head for the construction of environmentally destructive dams, power plants and industries. The focus on GDP growth can make it hard for local politicians to take pollution and other long-term threats seriously.

Upcoming: 22

CATF’s 2010 season is available for early-bird subscribers from previous seasons. No Blessing nor Dresser, but Lee Sellars!

  • The Eelwax Jesus 3-D Pop Music Show, book and lyrics by Max Baker, music by Lee Sellars (world premiere)
  • Inana by Michele Lowe
  • Lidless by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
  • Breadcrumbs by Jennifer Haley (world premiere)
  • White People by J.T. Rogers

Heavy

He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the smoldering log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.

—Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, ch. 17

Four Mile Run

drop it, RileyWith much schedule shuffling as a result of the recent snow disruption, we finally got out for our second field trip for winter tree ID, to a couple of spots along Four Mile Run. Proving that you don’t need a pristine natural area to learn about the world, Elizabeth started us at the dog park at Shirlington Park, a long strip of ground along the north side of the stream pinched in by the light industrial area located just to the north.

my way, birchesfast growerWe looked at natives and invasives: we keyed out an American Basswood (Tilia americana) still showing some shreds of the bracts and stalks of its fruits; we worked with a large River Birch (Betula nigra) with its scaly bark; and we found beyond the west end of the park a massive Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides).

Among other trees, Elizabeth used a Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) with its “burnt cornflakes” bark for a field quiz. Her field quizzes are very effective teaching tools. We’re asked to identify a tree, by key or whatever means, to species by common and scientific name—but most importantly, we’re asked to mark three observed characteristics that led to the identification. So we’re led to a structured way of collecting information about a tree that may not yield its secrets readily. And if one of the trees is an easy ID, like an ailanthus with its brutishly heavy twigs, the rule of three keeps us looking. It might be that I go to the field guide with a known tree and then look back at it to find a bud or scar feature.

county championWe moved on a little upstream to a smallish habitat that supports a magnolia association: American Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), and Sweetbay ( Magnolia virginiana), with Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) in an oak-heath community just up the slopes. The smooth-barked multistemmed Sweetbay in these parts retains a handful of green leaves over the winter. Farther northwest, at about mile marker 4.5 on the Four Mile Run Trail, Elizabeth showed us the Arlington County champion Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica).

Hotel Cassiopeia

Fourth wall-breaking opens this production of Charles Mee’s one act on the life and works of assemblage artist Joseph Cornell, a man who found both sides of the picture post card equally interesting. Preceding Wilderesque self-introductions, the cast solicits donations from the audience of found objects to be arranged into a box construction in the course of the play. (Can it be called a fourth wall when the stage in the black box Kogod is configured galley style?) In any event, it’s a nice touch to open this 70-minute fantasia, a co-production of the University of Maryland theater department and Round House Theatre. Scheduled for presentation at Round House’s space later in the year, let us hope that certain aspects of the production settle into more of a performance groove by then.

Mee’s intriguing, deceptively challenging, script effectively conjures the dream-like world of Cornell, one of infatuations with shop girls, devotional consumption of sweet treats, obsessions with movie stars, and tender caring for his infirm brother Robert. It’s a universe where a ballerina can drop by with a chocolate cake, or a lonely artist working in a basement can burst into song. The text enters Cornell (Equity member Scott Sedar, who approaches the role with bemused gravitas) into dialogues with his contemporary artists (Gorky, Duchamp, Matta) as well as a chorus of three men (coached by Leslie Felbain) who flounce like twittering birds—and in each case. we’re not sure how much of each dialogue is projection by Mee’s Cornell onto the other speakers. There are longish passages where Cornell watches Hedy Lamarr and Lauren Bacall in Algiers and To Have and Have Not, and he recites the dialogue along with—but to Sedar’s credit, not mechanically like a Rocky Horror Show fan, but rather a beat before or after the sound track, as one who is remembering in real time.

The standout among the ensemble cast of student actors is James Waters, as a member of the flittering birds chorus and as a character called the Astronomer: he delivers his monologues with a cool economy of means.

  • Hotel Cassiopeia, by Charles L. Mee, directed by Blake Robison, University of Maryland Department of Theatre and Round House Theatre, Smith Center Kogod Theatre, College Park, Maryland

Mee himself constructs plays as a collagist. He writes:

…I try in my work to get past traditional forms of psychological realism, to bring into the frame of the plays material from history, philosophy, insanity, inattention, distractedness, judicial theory, sudden violent passion, lyricism, the National Enquirer, nostalgia, longing, aspiration, literary criticism, anguish, confusion, inability.

I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable.

On deck: 4

on deck: 4Yes, this is what I’m doing instead of a more constructive use of my leisure time, like preparing for next week’s auditions: snapping pix of my bookshelves. I’m saving the Jonathan Kern as a memento until my onsite gig wraps up. The Thoreau is perhaps ambitious. I’ve been through Walden and I’m curious about the other books in the LOA edition. John Adams and the Therberge and Therberge via the free book shelves at work; Morton via Mattie; Sir Gawain via the Strand. The John Brunner is one of the few sf titles from high school that I’ve held onto; since it’s set in 2010, I thought it would be good to find out how well he predicted. The Chinua Achebe is there because it just feels good to say “Chinua Achebe.”

A simple ramp

In an excellent post, Matt Johnson explains what happened after Friday’s White Flint-bound Red Line train found itself on the pocket track just beyond Farragut North, how the electromechanical safety systems did the job they were designed to do, and how a derailer works.

… not only did the derailer prevent a collision or damage to misaligned switches, it also prevented the train from fouling either main track. However, while this event saw the safety system avert potential disaster, it is not clear why a potentially dangerous situation was allowed to progress so far.