Liking tanks

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So, I'm watching "The Greatest Ever" on the Military Channel, and the show is about the ten greatest tanks ever built.

And guess who I see on the show.

Bruce Dickinson!



That's right, the lead singer of Iron Maiden happens to own one of the greatest tanks ever built, a Russian T-34, and they had him on this awesome show driving his very own tank through a mud field! The show even listed him on the title bar as "Rock Star/Tank Owner."

Cool stuff.

Then again, Bruce Dickinson himself is just pretty cool all around, including having a decent second career as a pilot.

Worst music video ever?

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The claim may be spot on.



The badness is galactic.

Tower afternoon

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High rise, green and blue.

Protrusion evening

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The functional meets the decorative and the natural, fuzzy.

Listening to Alexander Nevsky

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My previous post mentioned Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky as a means to explain how I had come across a musical piece that had been in my CD collection for many years but that I hadn't actually listened to until just a week ago. Now I'd like to look more closely at Nevsky itself.

The work is a cantata that was taken from the musical score Prokofiev wrote for a 1938 film of the same name directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Rather than rehash all the great descriptions of the work that are already floating around out there, I thought I would just reproduce an excerpt from the liner notes of the Chicago Symphony recording that was done under the direction of Fritz Reiner:

Alexander Nevsky deals with the Russian defense of Novgorod in 1242 against the invading Knights of the Teutonic Order. Prince Alexander Nevsky, through the power of his personality alone, gathered an enormous army and met the enemy on the frozen waters of Lake Chud. There he dealt them a humiliating defeat, thus saving his country from the brutality threatened by the German horde. (The film was made one year before the signing of the Soviet-Nazi pact, and sentiment in Russia was at that time violently anti-German.) With this epic and heroic tale as a pivot, Prokofiev created a score that equaled in every degree the dynamism and vitality of Eisenstein's movie.

That's a pretty good description of the work. And now, here are some bits from each movement that should give you a good sample of what Nevsky is all about. (These excerpts are from the recording of Charles Dutoit leading the Montreal Symphony.)


I. Russia Under the Mongolian Yoke
This movement is intended to depict a battered landscape, a Russia that has been devastated by the Mongols. The music is desolate and sear, suggesting hopelessness and despair. Interesting that the piece opens with this mood.





II. Song About Alexander Nevsky
The Russians sing of past military glory, and they call on the people to prepare for the next threat. A very martial sound, stirring and inspiring. Appropriate for a call to arms.





III. The Crusaders in Pskov
The Teutonic Knights enter Pskov to the sound of ominous, doom-filled music. Imagine Darth Vader in medieval armor riding a dark horse, make it darker, and then you will have pretty decent picture to go along with such threatening music. The lyrics here are in Latin to reflect the Roman Church's influence over the knights, and their English translation is (roughly) "As a foreigner, I expected my feet to be shod with cymbals."





IV. Arise, Ye Russian People
Now with the invaders in Pskov, the Russian folk are urged to run to battle. Patriotic and grand, the music underscores the urgent call to defend the motherland.





V. The Battle on the Ice
The battle begins, and the forces clash on a frozen lake. Chaos and mayhem rule, and the Teutonic (German) theme comes back to duel with the Alexander Nevsky (Russian) theme first presented in second movement. The Russians are victorious, and the Teutons sink beneath the frigid waters of the lake.





VI. Field of the Dead
After the battle, a lonely woman walks the field of the dead. She mourns the passing of the brave soldiers, but she also praises their fighting spirit, and the music is appropriately somber. Strange that this is called the Field of the Dead given that the battle took place on a frozen lake.





VII. Alexander's Entry into Pskov
Victorious, Alexander Nevsky returns to Pskov to receive the praise and adulations of the people. The music is celebratory as the Russians sing songs of rejoicing.





A grand piece, and one of my favorites. If you like this kind of robust, boisterous classical music, I suggest you get your own copy of Alexander Nevsky and listen to it over and over again. I don't think you will be disappointed.

P.S.: Just remember to get a recording where the lyrics are sung in Russian! Much better than that weird version by Fritz Reiner where they sing in English!

Finding a gem

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I recently came across a gem in my music collection, a little treasure that I didn't even know I had. Here is a sample:



That is the overture to Russlan & Ludmila, an opera by Mikhail Glinka. It's not the most inspired piece in the repertoire, but it is fun to listen to, as many overtures are.

So, why didn't I know that I had this piece? Because it is an extra on a CD that I bought a long time ago, a disk that was made to showcase another, grander work that I decided I didn't care for enough to even finish listening to the rest of the CD.

Allow me to explain:

Many years back I discovered a piece by Sergei Prokofiev called Alexander Nevsky. This work is a cantata put together by Prokofiev and based on music he composed for a 1938 Russian film of the same name. I’ve never seen the movie, but the cantata is breathtaking. After hearing some of the music on a sampler, I went out and bought this CD featuring the Montreal Symphony performing under the direction of Charles Dutoit.



I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, and I still do.

But I needed another recording. You see, I have a habit of buying at least one other recording of a piece I enjoy very much just to get a different interpretation of it. Different conductors, performers, and orchestrations imbue new character to familiar pieces, and I feel I get to know a work better by hearing it in a new version. So I bought this CD, which is Fritz Reiner’s take on Alexander Nevsky using the Chicago Symphony.



And I was sorely disappointed.

For one main reason: the lyrics were in English!

My concern may be nit-picky, but the work is about a Russian figure, and it was written by a Russian composer, and my first exposures to it featured Russian lyrics. To me, Alexander Nevsky should be sung in Russian, and I found it oddly unsettling to hear the lyrics in a language I understood! It’s weird, but I was totally turned off to Reiner’s version, and I put aside the CD in a fit of pique and forgot about it.

But, in doing so, I missed out on the Glinka overture!

See, in the world of classical music recordings, albums that feature longer, broader works are often rounded out with a “bonus” work, a short piece that is somewhat in the same character and really just functions as filler for the end of the recording. These are often overtures for ballets or operas, and that’s what RCA Victor chose to put at the end of the Reiner recording. But, since I had never listened to the whole CD all the way through, I never actually heard the piece.

Until this past weekend.

I came across this CD again while going through my collection, and for some reason I decided to listen to the whole thing. To my surprise, the English lyrics didn’t bother me as much as they used to, and I found myself liking this version just as much as the original CD I bought. But even more pleasing than that is I got all the way through to the last track and listened to the Russlan and Ludmila overture for the first time. And I was happy to hear it.

I didn’t write this long post to say how great the Glinka piece is. It’s fun, but it’s not spectacular. No, I wrote this to remind myself that I need to pay a little more attention to things and to not write off the whole for one bad bit. You never know what gems you will find that way.

Victoria Crater

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Here is a new image of Victoria Crater on Mars taken by HiRISE.



Stunning.

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. Story at Space.com here.

Musing on panspermia

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Leave it to T-Rex to find the silly in serious science. (Click to expand comic.)



A crazy Friday night, indeed. Especially when aliens are involved.

Looking at a meteorite

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On Mars.



Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

That rock is called Block Island, and NASA has just confirmed that it is, indeed, a meteorite.

Sunday sonnet: John Donne

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John Donne was a very religious man. And he was a spectacular writer who put together poetry that was groundbreaking in his day and still ripe for analysis in this age. Here, today, is one of his Holy Sonnets, one of many complex pieces that illustrate his relationship with God.

This poem was written in 1633. The placements of the commas and apostrophes are accurate, and they demonstrate how poets used to struggle to maintain meter in their works. In this case, as in many poems of the age, the meter is iambic pentameter.


14

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me,'and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to'another due,
Labor to'admit You, but O, to no end;
Reason, Your viceroy'in me, me should defend,
But is captíved, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love You,'and would be lovéd fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

Rhyme scheme: abba abba cd cd ee

Vintage ad: 1993

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Do you remember digital compact cassettes?



I don't. But if this old advertisement from the early 1990s is any indication, apparently someone thought this would be a good format to compete with the compact disc.

Obviously, the DCC never did take hold. It was just one of those experimental formats that got crowded out by another format or that never really appealed to the masses. Seeing this ad reminded me of a time (probably about the same time) when I went to an electronics store to buy a replacement home CD player for one that had died. I knew what I wanted -- a carousel with at least five trays so I could get a decent randomization that would play for a few hours -- and I said as much to the store employee that asked if he could help me find something. So, I was a little surprised when he said (I'm paraphrasing as best as I can remember), "Oh, no. What you want to get is a MiniDisc player."

I said, "What?"

He said, "The MiniDisc. It's the new format, and it's the direction that the industry is going. You'd be wise to go ahead and get it because compact discs are on their way out."

Now I had already undergone a format conversion some years prior. When my old turntable died, vinyl had pretty much been disappearing from local record stores, and I decided to make the wholesale switch to digital music by buying a CD player. Shortly after, I sold off my LPs and singles and used the money to buy a bunch of compact discs. So, when my first CD player gave up the ghost, I was more than willing to get another one. In fact, I was upgrading from a single-drawer model to a carousel with a random-play feature.

And here was this guy telling me that's not what I wanted. He was telling me I wanted something else, something that played a format I was unfamiliar with, something that would require me to get rid of -- and rebuild -- my music collection all over again.

So I told him, "No, I think I'm going to stay with a CD player." I was being polite.

I was rewarded with a snort. "You can do that, but no one's going to be producing CDs anymore."

I was a little miffed. I said, "So, what, they're going to be making nothing but these mini-disks from now on?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think so. I think this is just a flash in the pan."

Now he was miffed. "What? This is something that's being embraced by musicians and afficionados because of its superior quality. It provides a much better audio experience, and it does blah-blah-blah, and yackity-smackity, and technobabble ... and all that ... ..."

"But," I interrupted, "that's not what's out there. Stores sell nothing but compact discs right now. Perhaps if the mini-disk catches on, I might consider switching. But I have a whole bunch of CDs, and the record stores sell CDs, and if the mini-disk goes the way of the 8-track, I will still have my CDs. So, I need a CD player. With a carousel that holds at least five disks. And no mini-disk player."

Very few times have I seen someone hired to help paying customers actually show open, glaring contempt toward a person who is willing to spend money in that particular store. But that's what I got that day. He looked at me for a couple of seconds, and I could read all of his thoughts. "Fine," he finally said. "The CD players are over there." And he walked off without another word.

Now, I don't know why I didn't say something that day. I should have asked for the store manager and expressed my disapproval of the condescending attitude I got. I should have just left the store and spent my money elsewhere. But I didn't. I found the CD player I wanted, I paid for it (and the checkout lady was very nice to me), and I got many years of enjoyment out of it.

And, guess what? I still have all of my CDs. Sure, they're all ripped to my computer, and I listen to most of my music on an MP3 player now, but I still have them. And I don't have a single MiniDisc in my collection.

Feeding the sharks

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Despite our best efforts to love cute animals, nature can be so cruel, dashing our feelings at every turn.

Dunham, a juvenile male dolphin, was released Tuesday morning after eight months in rehab recovering from pneumonia.

Jeni Hatter, spokeswoman for the Clearwater [Florida] Marine Aquarium, said the dolphin was attacked twice by at least two different sharks. Hatter said experts nearby were monitoring the dolphin with a VHF radio transmitter at the time of the attack.

Hatter said experts rushed to the dolphin and euthanized him because of the life-threatening injuries.

Animals eat other animals. It's not very pretty.

Most redundant headline of the day

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"DPS Choppers Help Aid Local Agencies"

What I just finished reading

This is the second book of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy: Perelandra.

Since I had already read the first book in the series, Out of the Silent Planet, and since I had bought the third one (That Hideous Strength) because it was on sale for four dollars, and since I held a Barnes and Noble gift card with twenty dollars on it, I thought I would go ahead and get Perelandra to round things out. And, since I had already read the first one, I naturally gave the second one a chance.

In short, this story is not bad. But if you're thinking of reading it, be warned: it is entirely about religion, more so than the first book. As Alan from Blogonomicon said here, the only thing science fictiony about Perelandra is that it takes place on Venus rather than Earth. This seems to be Lewis's attempt to write an explanation of how he sees the Christian religion, to "justify the ways of God to men," as John Milton described his reason for writing the classic poem, Paradise Lost.

In Lewis's work, Ransom, the protagonist from Out of the Silent Planet, travels by angel power to Venus, called Perelandra. There he meets that planet's Adam and Eve figures, and he literally battles Satan to keep him out of the still-young paradise. The story starts off kind of slow, but it picks up when Ransom and the Devil start beating the crap out of each other and engage in a pursuit across the ocean and underground where magma flows and strange beasts lurk. Unfortunately, this isn't until page 128 of a 190-page book.

But it's not a bad read. If you like this kind of stuff, give it a try. It's not a long book. But if you're turned off by religious tales or if you're not Christian and therefore might be unfamiliar with some of the religion's finer points, you might want to give it a pass because some of the references might seem obscure.

Hopefully soon I will start on the next book, That Hideous Strength. I'm curious to see where Ransom will go from here.

Forty years of footprints

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May they last forever.



[Music from The Eagle Has Landed by Saxon]

Plumbing in space

No matter how exotic or awesome space travel may seem, it still has its problems, especially when the commodes start acting up.

One of two toilets on the International Space Station is apparently broken, NASA announced Sunday.

It's too early to tell if the toilet has a serious problem, or can be fixed quickly, space station flight director Brian Smith said.

The station is currently host to 13 people - a record number of crewmembers onboard at once. While that toilet, which is in the U.S. Destiny laboratory, is down, astronauts can use the other almost identical facility in the Russian Zvezda service module, as well as the toilet onboard the space shuttle Endeavour, which has been docked since Friday.

"We don't yet know the extent of the problem," Smith said. "It could turn out to be of no consequence at all. It could turn out to be significant."

(from Space.com)

Naming

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Do you hate your name? It could be worse. You could actually have a name so bad that you end up on Oddee's list of "13 Most Unfortunate Names for their Jobs".

Here's #11:



Do you think he knows?

Most eye-catching headline of the day

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"Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies"

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

So, is this the rise of the machines, or the rise of the zombies? Or both?

You decide.

Sunday sonnet: Gerard Manley Hopkins

More dense expression from Mr. Hopkins, an 1877 poem about the wonders of the deity.


"God's Grandeur"

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
- It will flame out, like the shining from shook foil;
- It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
- An all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
- And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
- There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
- Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs---
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
- World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


Rhyme scheme: abba abba cdcdcd

Answering the RNC

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Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent me a letter. And a survey. I'm not sure why he did it; I'm not a member of any political party, and my voting record -- just by virtue of living in a city where most of the politicians are Democrats -- probably includes more Democrats than Republicans. But he did, and if he went to all that trouble, then surely I can spare a few moments to respond to his survey.

Of course, the letter and survey are really nothing more than fund-raising devices, so I'm pretty sure they were meant for actual members of the Republican Party and not just little old me. But I'm going to fill out the survey anyway. I'm not sending the GOP any money, but I think I will send them my opinions, just for the heck of it.

The survey is called the "2009 Obama Agenda Survey." It includes fifteen questions, and I'm supposed to answer each one yes, no, or no opinion. There are no blanks for me to fill out explaining my answers, so the GOP won't know why I'm answering them the way I am, but I would like someone else to know besides me. So I will explain them here.


1. Do you agree with Barack Obama's budget plan that will lead to a $23.1 trillion deficit over the next ten years?

No. I don't like any plan that increases spending or adds or expands programs. The U.S. government spends way too much as it is, and it never does enough to cut spending, if at all.


2. Do you believe the federal government has gone too far in bailing out failing banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry?

Yes. And in all fairness this horrible parade of bailouts began with George W. Bush. The first dollar of any bailout for a bank or insurance company or car company was going too far for me, and all that started before Obama took over. He just picked up the ball and ran like hell with it once he was sworn in.


3. Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?

No. Not generally. Specific cases might require some leniency, but blanket amnesty is a bad idea.


4. Should English be the official language of the United States?

No. I assume Steele is talking about a Congressional decree. By default, English already is the official language of our country, and I don't think we need Congress making a law saying that it is. Besides, if you legally acknowledge English as the official language of the U.S., then you're going to have to start making lists of recognized second languages, and if you start down that path you might as well recognize all languages because someone somewhere is going to claim even the most obscure tongue as the language they speak at home. Including Klingon. Or [gasp!] Esparanto!


5. Are you in favor of granting retroactive Social Security eligibility to illegal immigrants who gain U.S. citizenship through an amnesty program?

Yes. I don't agree with amnesty, but, hey, if our government decides to make someone a citizen of the United States, then that person deserves all the rights and privileges that other citizens have, including access to Social Security. I don't know what the "retroactive" term means here, but if you've gone and provided amnesty, and you've provided citizenship, and you've provided Social Security benefits, then making some "retroactive" determination seems like pointless nitpicking.


6. Are you in favor of the expanded welfare benefits and unlimited eligibility (no time, education or work requirements) that Democrats in Congress are pushing to pass?

No. Going back to question 1, I think government should be looking at ways to cut back on programs, not expand them.


7. Do you believe that Barack Obama's nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestionably approved for their lifetime appointments by the U.S. Senate?

No. Of course not. Lively debate is good.


8. Do you believe that the best way to increase the quality and effectiveness of public education in the U.S. is to rapidly expand federal funding while eliminating performance standards and accountability?

No. See question 1.


9. Do you support the creation of a national health insurance plan that would be administered by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?

No. That's just more federal spending.


10. Do you believe that the quality and availability of healthcare will increase if the federal government dictates pricing to doctors and hospitals?

No. It might, but I don't think it will.


11. Are you confident that new medicines and medical treatments will continue to be developed if the federal government controls prescription drug prices and sets profit margins for research and phamaceutical companies?

Yes. Advancements will be made. They may be government-driven, and they may not be done as well as in the private sector, but I am certain that new medicines and treatments will continue to be developed.


12. Are you in favor of creating a government-funded "Citizen Volunteer Corps" that would pay young people to do work now done by churches and charities, earning Corps Members the same pay and benefits given to military veterans?

No. The charities are doing their jobs, and the members of the military are doing theirs. We don't need another spending program.


13. Are you in favor of reinstituting the military draft, as Democrats in Congress have proposed?

No. The military is working fine as it is. There's no point in a draft.


14. Do you believe that the federal government should allow the unionization of Department of Homeland Security employees who serve in positions critical to the safety and security of our nation?

No. The need for unions is no longer what it once was. We don't need more unionization of our workforce.


15. Do you support Democrats' drive to eliminate workers' right to a private ballot when considering unionization of their place of employment?

No. Open ballots lead to voter intimidation. In almost all circumstances. The secret ballot is a valuable component of a democracy.


That's it. I answered my questions, and I'm sending them to the Republican National Committee, sans contribution. My responses will probably get tossed since I didn't enclose a check, but at least I got a good, long blog post out of it. And I feel as if I've done a little bit of my civic duty.

Do you think that will get me out of my next jury summons?