Yes! His hero does appear in C minor. However, this post will not include Ludwig van Beethoven’s hero, but rather his whole discography which is certainly heroic as is his third.  Beethoven was a wonderfully prodigious composer who not only made nine symphonies of the huge classical kind but also wrote sixteen string quartets; incidentally he’s also got a lot of piano compositions. We’re talking massive symphonies that last about a half hour or more. If you even dare to bring up Mozart’s forty symphonies, well, let us just say that Mozart’s are constructed from a general plan and didn’t defy, break, and define convention for symphonies. Also, Mozart’s symphonies aren’t an architectural construction amounting to building a skyscraper. Mozart built huts compared to Beethoven. Aside from that, every other composer after Beethoven has struggled to make nine symphonies as large and world-shattering as his, but most have died before they even get to a ninth or are racked with such indecision and nervousness they are unable to finish composing it.

 So, I’m sure or I hope most of you are informed enough to know that Beethoven grew deaf as he grew older and progressively crazier (he was already decently crazy to begin with). I believe most of his best work is when he has already been deaf and become a more unsettled version of himself. They speak to a certain release of his inhibitions. Dissonance abounds and he combines sonata, theme and variation, and any other major form you can think of. He also happens to just write music occasionally in no known form. Essentially, this whole post spawned because I wanted to share one of his most wonderful yet insane pieces. It is the Grosse Fuge in B flat Op.133. A good copy of the score if you want to follow along can be found here. I definitely recommend following along with the score either first or immediately after the first listen to truly understand how hard to play and difficult the quartet piece is.

Aside from the Grosse Fuge, my favorite Beethoven symphony is his third symphony otherwise known as Eroica (Symphony No. 3 in E flat Op. 55). A copy of the score can be found here. It is the beginning of Beethoven completely changing his method of symphonic composition. This, ladies and gentlemen, is literally the symphony that may have started it all. Michael Tilson Thomas and PBS have made this wonderful series of hour-long shows called Keeping Score that showcase certain classical pieces and coincidentally have one on Eroica. The flash site they have set up to lead you through the history and the music is wonderfully well done. I definitely would use it as the beginner’s guide to Eroica. His third symphony is uplifting, glorious, and a monument to doing what you want to do to succeed. Listen to it I say!

A post full of Beethoven wouldn’t be complete without a paragraph chock full of links to Beethoven. For several books on Beethoven that would be a good read we have:

·         Beethoven: The Music and Life

·         The Beethoven Quartets

·         The Beethoven Quartet Companion

·         Beethoven and the Construction of Genius

·         Conducting Beethoven: Volume 1: The Symphonies

·         A Critical Study of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies

o   Special mention for the last one: It was written by Hector Berlioz. Another famous composer, so it’s a more contemporary dissection of Beethoven.

The last thing for Beethoven is a collection of piano lectures. All of these links are of course, brought to you by Metafilter. Check it out, it might just blow your mind. That is all.

Cesare e pazzo!

P.S. It is a funny little fact that in theory circles this is widely held to be true. Whenever Beethoven writes in C minor, it is him as a hero breaking through everything that stops him. Hence the Fifth Symphony. Can you guess what key it is in?

So, I had a dream recently and it was quite absolutely insane. It really had the qualities for me of a Debussy piece combined with the controlled insanity of an atonal/twelve-tone Schoenberg piece. Therefore, I have described and explained our beloved title for today. Oh man, I’m going to run out of composers if I do two at a time, but oh well. Here is the dream. I have transcribed it from my memory as best I could.

I was riding my bike down a dirt road. It was a normal ride albeit a bit dusty as it was quite dry. Suddenly, my fortunes change, time is forgotten, I am now in car. In the front seats, there are a man and a woman. They are mostly faceless and speak not at all. However, they do not feel menacing instead they just seem to be a part of it all. In the backseat, I watch as we drive onwards towards this pearly white luminescent bridge.  This bridge seems to have a key-swipe machine near the entrance on the left side. Our driver approaches it with her car and proceeds to swipe a keycard.  Suddenly, the bridge starts to part in the middle and each end starts to rise up towards the sky.

                I look down at the river, and I notice my lonely bike stranded and stuck in a tree growing from the bottom of the river. Swiftly I move into action and call out, “Fuck that, we aren’t leave my bike behind, let’s go get it!” The woman doesn’t respond except to swipe her keycard in a different area and the bridge begins to reverse its trajectory. Finally, it finishes its downward movement into the river…

                We’re swimming now. The water is dirty and murky and the river itself is surprisingly shallow – at most 7 ft deep. From this angle, it is almost impossible to tell where my bicycle is in reference to where we are now. I start floating towards the shore where I think it might be around the line of it. A bloated, dead body suddenly emerges and floats away from me. I gesticulate to my silent partners and the man solemnly points at another dead body just around the corner. Interesting, I think, but obsessed as I am with the goal of finding my bicycle, I do not ponder these corpses for more than a second. Instantly, I am being turned over and over underwater. I struggle to breathe and kick at the man, who is now consistently rotating me. I swallow more of the dirty water than I would like to. Why would anyone do this? This isn’t enjoyable! It’s frustrating and annoying. Then, he lets me go and as if nothing happened, we’re in the car and heading elsewhere…

                Johnny Delta’s house. It’s a surprisingly cozy house with a nice porch. Mostly wood and well-decorated. There are a lot of people here who would not even know Johnny Delta, he works at the airport in the baggage claim office. I don’t even know him that well to be in his house at all. Still, I am here and so does it appear is Tiffany and a couple of other faces I recognize but cannot place. Essentially, we party, mostly just drinking, dancing, and debauchery. At some point, we’re sitting down to eat. During the course of the meal, I proceed to puke all over myself, my food, and the floor.  Everyone immediately comments that it must be the dirty river water and gives it no second thought. Tiffany helps me to the shower as I am weak in the legs, and I proceed to wash myself of all the puke of which there was quite a bit…

                Back in the house’s living room, except instead of clothed and showered, I am showered but I am not clothed. No, I remain fully naked and once again sitting down to eat without a care in the world. Nobody seems to mind my nudity or even pay it any attention. This wouldn’t be so odd if it weren’t for the fact that Tiffany has also joined me in shuffling off her clothes at some point. Once again, neither of us is treated oddly nor is there any commentary about it. It just is. I start walking towards the front door…

                I am outside now smoking my last cigarette from my pack. There are four or five young men lounging about on Johnny’s porch. They’re smoking and talking and generally joking about.  They seem like thugs and gang members of various racial types – Mexicans, African-Americans, and Cubans seem to be predominant. One black male is chatting on a headset, but I can’t quite remember what he is saying. However, I quickly piece together that apparently he and his gang are about to infiltrate Johnny’s house…but why would they want to? I turn my head and look inside. Several new party goers have arrived, and they are all in full Navy uniform and clearly part of the gang.

                Turning back around, I find that the men around me have started to mobilize. One of them with a fairly large sub machinegun turns his attention upon me. I begin to run away with another original member of the party. They give chase but the sub machinegun is heavy and causes him to slow down. I notice his struggle and attempt to depose him of the weapon. His friend helped him out and managed to make me lose my grip, so I decided to just keep running…

                Whereupon, I awaken from the mists on top of a skyscraper and a friend is firing a bazooka down at this apparently small army-sized gang. I reach the top and ask him if there are any more weapons. He replies that no there are not. I wonder exactly what it is I should do if the people ever get up those ladders or even come up the elevator — the way I presumably came. When the almost identical gang members reach the top, I have not yet decided what to do. I am amused by their appearance. They are only of two very distinct types: one is a jolly, fat man and the other is a grinning, gangly man. All of them are one of the two types and never any other different physique. Finally, I proceed to toss one of the gangly men over the edge of the roof. Seeing a slight reaction, I continue to push or throw the gang members off the roof. One of them starts to ask me not to throw him off, and on a whim, I ask him if he has cigarettes. He did have cigarettes. I ask the assembled members if anyone else had cigarettes. All those with packs raised them in the air and held them high…all three of them. I proceeded, I assume, to throw everyone else off the roof, for the mists were once again claiming me…

                I was once again at Johnny’s house. It was more or less a mess but not so much as it could have been. There seemed to be relatively little damage and the only really significant change was that Johnny seemed to have switched to contacts. There was a rather large, shifty black male hanging out on one of Johnny’s couches. Johnny introduced him to me as Tony. He seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite place him or his manner of speaking. Regardless, he was leaving soon in his fancy, black Mercedes, and I knew I just had to get a ride with him. He quickly agreed and we made for his car.

                When we got there, I had a flash of insight. We could go rescue my bicycle if he knew where that luminescent bridge was. I asked Tony whether he knew about the bridge. He replied that indeed he did, but if I wanted to go to the bridge then he would not be driving. I quickly took the keys and began to drive. Going through this backcountry, dirt roads I barely avoided stop signs and other vehicles but still managed to make good time. After having asked Tony if the road was mostly straight, to which he replied that it was mostly straight shooting, I continued. A fork in the road comes up: to the right we go upwards and to the left we go down. Tony, all of a sudden, yells out that the right exit is to the left and I swerve into that “lane” if lane it can be called in a dirt road. So, while swerving to regain control I notice the police officer standing in the middle of the road. I manage to avoid hitting the cop, but I fail to not graze one of his dogs. Regardless, I veer out of control for a bit and finally end up resting in a parking lot awaiting the police officers. They finally show up at which time a dog just jumps into my lap and is happily, in essence, cuddling me. Relief pours through me to know that the dog is all right. One of the officers approaches the car and starts talking, “Well, since the dog is okay it doesn’t matter, but I hope you can explain this.” “Explain what, officer? Everything seems to be ok,” I reply. “What!? Do you mean to tell me you can’t see what’s happening?” questions the officer. Perplexed, I continue, “No, not at all…what is it that you mean?” Amazingly shocked, the police officer then points out that I have been driving from the backseat. There does seem to be a steering wheel there, but no pedals. I hurry to rectify the situation and soon we’re on our way to the bridge again…

                We’re here! We’re at the bridge and I can see my bike just at the bottom. However, we can’t lower or raise the bridge ourselves. Tony helps me find a ladder and I climb down to the bottom and once again swim in the river. However, this time I don’t have anyone to push me under. I reach my bike and just then Tony asks, “How are you going to get it up here?” Good question. I hadn’t thought of that, but I decided I’d try to get it up the ladder I came. That wouldn’t be necessary, however, because the original couple that had been a part of losing the bike reappear. Silent as ever, the woman lowers the drawbridge to help me get up, and I just get on my bike and ride away…

…and that’s all of the dream. It’s kinda surprising that it closes up as it does. Any comments? Suggestions? Insanities? Feel free to leave ‘em behind around here somewhere.

Ciao,

Cesare.

So, I know the title is rather uninspiring, but that’s what I get for wanting to write a new post RIGHT after the last one. This is about all the cool links I have spent reading today on the ‘net.

First up is a dissection of Fight Club as really Calvin & Hobbes grown up. It may be quite a stretch, but man is it an interesting read. It definitely speaks to me in a lot of ways which may be why I really enjoy it. You might wanna try it for a read it’s quite interesting. Continuing on the Calvin and Hobbes line which will eventually veer away we see them as grown-ups in this delightful drawing. Now, we can go and veer off towards Peanuts.

In our beloved Peanuts world, I have discovered so many awesome links today it will be hard to synthesize them all. Of my favorites I have but two. This one in particular combines my love of Peanuts and anime. Finally, coming at the right time for The Watchmen movie’s release on March 6 is one cool version of the Peanuts cast as The Watchmen. We will all watch this movie to prepare to be disappointed, but I just ask you all — just enjoy it for being able to see the Watchmen with really awesome graphic effects.

A nice short read that makes you think because we all read sentences that are way too long is this post that linked me to Sci-Fi stories in six words. Other Sci-Fi that is longer, but I will gladly give props to is Tad Williams’ Otherland series, Herbert’s Dune, and anything by Philip K. Dick.

Interesting article that combines the usefulness of internet activism and the insanity of lolcats cuteness/banality. I won’t pretend to analyze the article here nor will I. I expect all of my readers to be used to doing analysis on their own, and in fact, if they want my analysis will ask for it personally. Either way, this article was intensely interesting.

All of these wonderful posts come from MetaFilter, a wonderful community weblog. You have to pay $5 to post for the rest of your life and register, but it’s more than worth it. So much information has come my way from MeFi that it’s insane. On the other hand, don’t be an ass. It’s for intellegent commenting and such. Anyways, here are the links: Peanuts, Six Word Stories, LOLCats Activism.

Ciao for the second time today,

Cesare.

P.S. I should really learn to stop absentmindedly closing windows and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for autosave.

P.P.S. Also, Satie is the last name of one Erik who wrote what he titled “furniture music.” The reason he’s part of my Sunday is well his last name is alliterative, and that’s what I’ve mostly been doing today…furniture writing.

So, I get to now write my first blog post. I decided finally that instead of constantly burdening my friends and relatives with anything that I was so excited to read, see, or hear they can just check my blog for my thoughts and occasionally, well just random cool stuff. Hope I don’t stop annoying you, but at least you get to be less annoyed by me so constantly.

Also, if you’ve never talked to me on MSN the title won’t make sense and even if you have it might not make any sense. The story behind it is that I was sitting with Angel, Hassan, and another I forget at a table at Stop N’ Go in Condado. This drunk guy sits down at our table with our stack of Medalla Lights and decides to regale us with tales and stories. At the end, he looks at each of us individually gives us a title and then says why it fits us. I felt that his title for me made sense. In English,  it would translate to “a piglet with a perfect mind” (better translation courtesy of Zorty). Now, I don’t necessarily think I have a perfect mind, but I do consider myself smart at the very least. Also, I’m greedy for information and music hence the little piggy. This is why I feel it should be my blog title. Now enough explaining myself to the plebes back to procastination I go! Enjoy.

Ciao,

Cesare. 

P.S. I will try as often as possible to make my titles references to classical music for the hell of it. This first one is a reference to Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 whereupon he wrote in the final movement during the introductory chords - Muß es sein? (Must it be?). Only to be followed later when the movement fully blossoms into more Beethovenian (we should so make that a real word meaning beating a dead horse over and over and over again) craziness and writes Es muß sein! (It must be!). So it shall be with me and my blog. Wow, I got to be informative huh? Longer than my actual post too, but that’s just how I work.