The Reading Room

2:05 AM

Looks like we'll have a pretty good election!

2 hours later…

4:25 AM

A: Time signatures and music

The question is worded a bit strangely, it really depends on what exactly the question is asking. I think the better way to ask the question is "When is the usage of a time signature change inappropriate", since it's easier to explain when a time signature change is non-standard, rather than "are...

Shameless plug: My first answer on SE in a very, very long time

5:21 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr I enjoyed reading it and listening to the example

Q: What kind of failures of merchants does Thoreau describe in this passage?

@verbose Hehe, thank you

More shameless plugging: if you're interested in checking out some actual compositions of mine, you can listen to one here

5 hours later…

Bookworm

10:20 AM

In the first chapter of Walden; or Life in the Woods, Thoreau says: What has been said of the merchants, that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them says pertinently that a great ...

1 hour later…

11:38 AM

The Arthur Koestler topic challenge ended yesterday.

Ongoing topic challenges: Hayy ibn Yaqdhan / Philosophus Autodidactus and Abdulrazak Gurnah.

12:27 PM

@Randal'Thor best-of?

6 hours later…

6:27 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Time signatures: that always makes me think of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (one of the works performed at the first concert I ever attended).

@Tsundoku ah, yes, that's quite notorious

Before that, most of the classical music I had heard was from the 18th and 19th centuries, so The Rite of Spring really blew my socks off.

Of the first 15 CDs I bought (remember, that was the 1990s), 7 or 8 were Stravinsky recordings :-D

I'm sure! Rite of Springs is one of my all time favorite compositions ever

It's one of those works that I wish I could "unhear" so I could get blown over by it again.

It truly is a beautiful piece of work

I love the engaging auditory storytelling that Stravinsky constructs

6:34 PM

He also does that in a number of other works, such as Petrushka and The Firebird.

His Oedipus Rex, which is less well known, is also rather special.

3 hours later…

9:48 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Thanks! I enjoyed listening to that one too.

@verbose Thanks!

What's Starling Quasar?

That's my pseudonym I used for this piece

oic

It's a pun on the title because like

"Star"ling sounds like Sterling, and Quasar is some astronomy related term

9:51 PM

Twinkling and star?

what does Sterling have to do with it? I do not comprehend :(

Oh nothing

Unless you get paid royalties in UK currency

Sterling is just a name of someone I know and Starling sounded like Sterling, so yeah

I fear a quasar's royalties would disappear into a black hole.

Hehe

Into the unknowwwwwwwwn

Q: Announcing the May–June 2023 topic challenge: the works of Robert Louis Stevenson

9:56 PM

Where no man has gone before...

Librarian

In accordance with our meta agreement to have topic challenges and a later meta agreement to have topic challenges lasting for two months and overlapping by one month, it is time to announce the May–June 2023 topic challenge. Based on the number of votes (+7, -2), our 68th topic challenge will be...

discussion topic-challenge

@Librarian Also the last community event created by me.

No :(

sad

@Tsundoku 😢

Because only mods can create community events ...

10:02 PM

But alas, many lasts can lead to great new beginnings :)

I can still create meta posts for the topic challenges; I also did that before the previous election. I just won't be able to create community events, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

On a tangent question, Area 51 seems to be really dying

It's dying in the sense that new suggestions just don't reach the Beta stage anymore. You need an existing community that is willing to move to Stack Exchange, otherwise the proposal goes nowhere.

Mm, I see