LISTENING — MARCH 2010

Posted by on March 31, 2010 No comments

22006. (Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach) Can­ta­ta #13 “Meine Seufz­er, meine Trä­nen”, bwv.13
22007. (Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach) Can­ta­ta #14 “Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit”, bwv.14
22008. (Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach) Can­ta­ta #16 “Herr Gott, dich loben wir”, bwv.16 Read more »

READING – MARCH 2010

Posted by on March 30, 2010 No comments

18642. (P. F. de Moraes Farias) Ara­bic Medieval Inscrip­tions from the Repub­lic of Mali: Epig­ra­phy,
. . . . . Chron­i­cles, and Song­hai-Tuāreg His­to­ry
18643. (Jacques Hurei­ki) Essai sur les orig­ines des Touaregs ― her­méneu­tique cul­turelle des
. . . . . Touaregs de la région de Tombouc­tou
18644. (Antho­ny Bour­dain) Kitchen Con­fi­den­tial Read more »

Sunday, March 28, 2010 — A Lay of Ancient Toronto, Part 2

Posted by on March 28, 2010 No comments

When I received Dorothea’s book [see pre­vi­ous blog entry] from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s com­pact stor­age facility.[1] I was reward­ed in a way that I could not have guessed. In fact, the coin­ci­dence involved is so extreme that I hes­i­tate to relate it, for fear of being thought a hoax­er. Read more »

18672. [2] (William Tenn) Of Men and Monsters

Posted by on March 19, 2010 No comments

William Tenn was one of Sci­ence Fic­tion’s sharpest satirists in the fifties and six­ties. His short sto­ries bit like black­flies.Of Men and Mon­sterswas one of his only two nov­els, and it was expand­ed from a short sto­ry. It shows it, as the core sto­ry is still vis­i­ble, and the end shows a dis­tinct falling off in qual­i­ty, with the satire dis­ap­pear­ing so that there can be a con­ven­tion­al, plot-dri­ven res­o­lu­tion. But nev­er mind that. SF writ­ers in that peri­od had no social pres­tige, and very mod­est incomes; it was stan­dard prac­tice to inflate any suc­cess­ful short sto­ry into a “nov­el” that might pay the rent. But Ten­n’s tal­ent lay in beau­ti­ful, self-con­tained minia­tures that did not lend them­selves to expan­sion. Read more »

(Amenábar 2009) Agora

Posted by on March 17, 2010 No comments

This excel­lent film has yet to find a North Amer­i­can dis­trib­u­tor. It’s not hard to guess why. The film is a his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate por­tray­al of reli­gious life in Alexan­dria in the ear­ly fifth cen­tu­ry AD. The main char­ac­ter is Hypa­tia, the woman philoso­pher at the Muse­um of Alexan­dria, who was sav­age­ly mur­dered by a Chris­t­ian mob. The film accu­rate­ly por­trays the city as engulfed in the bru­tal reli­gious vio­lence that accom­pa­nied the rise of Chris­tian­i­ty in many parts of the Empire (The pop­u­la­tion of the city was divid­ed between Chris­tians, Pagans, and Jews, all sen­si­tive to “insults” and deter­mined to use force to con­trol the city). Read more »

Sunday, March 14, 2010 — A Lay of Ancient Toronto, Part 1

Posted by on March 14, 2010 No comments

Steve Muhlberg­er has been more pro­lif­ic in his blog, late­ly, and it has fea­tured some fine pieces on the psy­chol­o­gy of his­to­ri­ans. Entries such as “Is the past anoth­er coun­try?” among many, are well worth read­ing. I’m remind­ed of them when I re-shelve a nice lit­tle book that I recent­ly found in a sec­ond-hand shop ― an 1882 edi­tion of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome. It’s just the sort of thing that delights any­one who is fas­ci­nat­ed by the past. It’s inscribed twice by ear­ly own­ers. The first inscrip­tion reads: “Dorothea Thor­pe, from Hughey Jnr., March 20, 1884″ The sec­ond reads: “Lavinia Mary Ford, from Dorothea’s Hus­band and in mem­o­ry of her. Charn­wood 18th Octo­ber 1934, St. Luke’s Day”. These excite the his­tor­i­cal imag­i­na­tion in me. Read more »

The Beggar’s Opera

Posted by on March 7, 2010 No comments


The Beg­gar’s Operais a point­ed exam­ple of unpre­ten­tious pop­u­lar art long out­liv­ing the “seri­ous” works of its day. In 1728, a rather unsuc­cess­ful Eng­lish poet, John Gay, penned a satire of the upper class’s taste for Ital­ian Opera, as well as the estab­lish­ment pol­i­tics of the day (then per­son­i­fied in First Lord of the Trea­sury, Robert Wal­pole). Using a klep­to­ma­ni­ac col­lec­tion of Scot­tish and French folk-tunes, Gay con­ceived a fast-mov­ing, tight-knit plot involv­ing, instead of the usu­al oper­at­ic cast of Clas­si­cal heroes and deities, the whores and thieves of the Lon­don slums. Read more »

Image of the month:

Posted by on March 1, 2010 No comments

10-03-01 BLOG Image of the month

First-time listening for February, 2010

Posted by on February 28, 2010 No comments

21514. (Gabriel Fau­ré) Piano Quar­tet #1 in C Minor, Op.15
21515. (Gabriel Fau­ré) Piano Quar­tet #2 in G Minor, Op.45
21516. (U2) Boy
21517. (Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach) Can­ta­ta #10 “Meine Seel erhebt den Her­ren”, bwv.10 Read more »

READING – FEBRUARY 2010

Posted by on February 28, 2010 No comments

18576. (Steve Muhlberg­er) [in blog Muhlberg­er’s Ear­ly His­to­ry] Pop­u­la­tion Crash in Europe?
.… . [arti­cle]
18577. (Steve Muhlberg­er) [in blog Muhlberg­er’s Ear­ly His­to­ry] The Chron­i­cle of the Good
.… . Duke and “Mod­ern Times” [arti­cle]
 Read more »