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Archive for 2007

red-bellied woodpecker, tufted titmouse, and what the heck are those sparrows?

Posted in my hometown, tagged , on November 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The water in the bird bath is well frozen this morning in our Indianapolis back yard, this in spite the battery-powered ‘bubbler’ I installed as a vacation task this week. Somewhere in the house there lurks a birdbath heater that I bought in the summer in ant-like preparation for winter and then inserted into some perfect space with squirrel-like absence of a record. It’ll turn up. (more…)

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adding virtue to virtue: 2 Peter 1

Posted in textures, tagged , , , on November 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It is easy to wonder about the logical thread that purports to string together a chain of human virtues in consecutive fashion. It looks like artifice, like all form and no function, like empty words. (more…)

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soul-stopping: Saving Private Ryan (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

One wonders what people will say about John Williams in the year 2050. The man just keeps producing scores that, if it were possible, surpass the prior one in elegance, emotional weight, and sheer, gorgeous, spellbinding beauty.

Gushing?

I don’t think so. Listen to this soundtrack before you conclude that this reviewer has gone out-of-his-mind starry. (more…)

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curtain raisers: Schumann Overtures (Naxos)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , , on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The six-note motif that introduces Robert Schumann’s Overture (later Scherzo and Finale), Op. 52 is the calling card of a formidable Romantic composer. In the main, the Schumann pieces included in this anthology of his overtures make due on the promise put down by those first six notes.

The Overture to Genoveva is as evocative as the tale its opera tells. The overtures to ‘Bride of Messina’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Hermann and Dorothea’, ‘Faust’, and ‘Manfred’ are all beautifully performed on this 1992 Naxos recording by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Wildner.

The market for operatic overtures is not huge. Naxos has done us a service with this serviceable presentation.

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after the silence, rebuilding: Ezekiel 40 // 1 Peter 5

Posted in textures, tagged , , , , on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It is difficult to take the measure of rubble.

One cannot tell where one wall ended and another began. To guess the function of the buildings that are now this pile of stone is the stuff of speculation. One can only wonder who lived here, who died, who loved, who screamed, who longed for something better than this mountain of rock and dust. (more…)

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fire and ice: Leos Janacek, String Quartets 1 and 2, Violin Sonata (Prazak Quartet)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

From the heart of Central Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century comes this penetrating, challenging, occasionally disturbing, and ever rewarding music for small ensembles. The Prague-born Prazak Quartet is of course equal to the challenge.

Leos Janacek’s music for string quartet show what the genre can be. Easily mistaken for a weak, limpid subset of classical music, music for quartet a la Janacek is as sinewy and energetic as it gets. (more…)

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then the nations shall know: Ezekiel 37-38

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Ezekiel makes for hard reading.

My own rather buoyant hopefulness has taken some hits in these weeks of reading slowly through this insistent book, determined as it is to mark out the profile of Israel’s failure and cut the ground from under false optimism. The text is punctuated by theodicy—what some have defined as ‘justifying the ways of God to man’—by the phrase ‘Then you shall know that I am YHWH’. (more…)

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late November at the feeders

Posted in fauna, my hometown, tagged , on November 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »

After a season of travel, it’s beautiful to be back home where a holiday morning can be spent in my easy chair with some good books and a pair of binoculars to oversee my backyard, where my birds are enjoying the overdue filling of their feeders. (more…)

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prophet tracks: Ezekiel 32-33

Posted in textures, tagged , , on November 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It is important to the ethos of the book of Ezekiel that doomed people have been warned.

The logic of divine castigation requires this. Just as the desolation wrought by his overdue judgement will indicate to survivors that YHWH has been about (‘Then you shall know that I am YHWH …’), so it is important that people will have heard the voice of YHWH’s warning prior to the destruction of all that is dear to them. (more…)

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I’ll bet you didn’t know … : Jonathan Steinberg, Fountain Pens. Their history and art

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on November 23, 2007| 1 Comment »

This handsome volume reflects the high quality standards, cantankerous spirit, and eccentrically traditionalist preferences that seem to characterize many of us who are drawn to the impractical beauty we insist upon calling fountain pens. (more…)

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