English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Robusto while I was answering that, I listened to Pulcinella. But it is long finished, and YouTube autoplay put me on The Isle of the Dead in the mean time.

Robusto

I disable autoplay.

RegDwigнt

I don't mind Rachmaninoff.

I would have minded if it played Nikki Minaj. But it never does.

Robusto

I didn't say I disable Rachmaninoff, just autoplay.

RegDwigнt

9:22 PM

@Robusto but that is entirely because of its register, not sound power. A piccolo is incredibly weak if you look at the actual Watts.

Robusto

If you ever have to practice a piccolo in an unpadded practice room, you'd know it wasn't any 85 dB, either. More like 110.

RegDwigнt

Like, a pp grand flute will be heard against a contrabasoon, too. But that is cheating.

@Robusto I didn't post any figures on the piccolo. Because that is beside the point.

Like, you might as well recommend they just play trombone.

Robusto

All I know is my right ear is still ringing, and I haven't played a picc in decades.

And if you think a concert flute is quiet, try an alto or a bass flute.

I only played a bass flute once, and even I had trouble hearing it in a quiet room.

Maybe I only dreamt I was playing it?

It's also cumbersome as a motherfucker.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto Oh I watched a nice little piece about just that only today. Hold on a sec.

Robusto

But you're right about whose job it is to make the instruments sound. What that lonely flutist was suffering from was a composer/arranger/conductor's inadequacies.

RegDwigнt

9:28 PM

Flute Sonata No. 1 "Aquatic", Op. 10 - Jordan M. Holloway

►

Dig this.

> Indigo Fischer - flute, piccolo, alto flute, bass flute

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Her intonation could use a little work. Hard to start quiet while keeping the pitch up.

RegDwigнt

Well I believe this is a music-school setting.

Robusto

Sure.

RegDwigнt

It's a fresh piece by someone learning composition, played by someone learning to play the flute/piano.

Robusto

Not bad, all around.

I always have a soft spot in my heart for composers who want to give flutists a reason to be on stage.

RegDwigнt

9:33 PM

Well he writes quite a bit for woodwinds. I recall a saxophone sextet and a prelude for alto flute solo.

Robusto

Nice tone on the alto.

RegDwigнt

Prelude for Alto Flute, Op. 4 - Jordan M Holloway

►

And look ma, it was actually the same girl apparently.

Robusto

I never had access to a curved alto, only the straight ones.

RegDwigнt

That is one gorgeous instrument.

Robusto

And look how the piano is scored for accompanying the bass flute. Extreme bass, una corda.

RegDwigнt

9:36 PM

Yeah. I think 16 French horn would be more in order.

Last night on MuseScore some funny guy said he was composing his first piece for horn. The piece was in Bb and he wondered why the software would change the key for the horn and how he could change it back.

Robusto

lol wut?

RegDwigнt

And people started explaining transposing instruments to him. And I was, hah, nope guys. You really don't get it, either.

And sure enough they didn't. Because next thing he says, yeah I know it's transposing, but look at Beethoven's 9th, it's in d minor but the horn is in C. So surely for my Bb major piece it should be in F.

And I was just like "I suggest you take a minute to check out what key the horn is written in in any of Beethoven's other symphonies. Or in any symphony by anyone else."

Haven't heard back from him since.

I need more beer.

Robusto

The horn is really hard to play, and to play in tune. At least that's what horn players told me.

I have no reason to doubt them.

I could get decent sounds out of a trumpet and a trombone, but when I tried the horn I thought I was going to have a stroke.

RegDwigнt

Well Mozart wrote a whole piece about that.

I regularly see it pop up every April 1st on some music channel or other.

Ein musikalischer Scherz or whatever it's called.

Robusto

Spaß

RegDwigнt

9:45 PM

Spaß, not Scherz.

Robusto

jinx

Although to be fair, scherzo means joke, so ...

RegDwigнt

I just drank the last coke in the house. You will have to take the Pepsi.

Robusto

RegDwigнt

Very apropos. I read just a couple weeks ago how they had to interrupt a parliament sitting because it was raining through the roof.

The article said the whole building was going to shit, and had been for centuries.

It said they wouldn't turn off the heating for the fear of not being able to ever turn it on again.

But nobody's pledging EUR 650 million for that. Yay Brexit.

Robusto

And I thought Trump was a colossal fuck-up. The UK looks like it's trying to grab attention for being even dumber.

RegDwigнt

9:52 PM

They don't call it US's lap dog for no reason.

Robusto

THe game show is called "Who can send their country down the shitter faster!"

RegDwigнt

Imagine being the Queen. Think back to when she became the Queen. How much of the world was still Britain even at the time.

Robusto

That was, what, '52? '53?

RegDwigнt

We're but looking at the coda. She had to sit through the entire piece.

Mitch

Imagine being Peppa Pig.

You're flat and pink and when you were born four years ago none of this crao was even imaginable.

RegDwigнt

9:55 PM

@Robusto I wouldn't really know but I am pretty sure she still owned like Trinidad and Tobago and shit like that. And India and Hong Kong. And everything else.

Robusto

India went away in the late '40s.

Mitch

I don't know who Peppa Pig is. Is that a kid's cartoon about William's sister-in-law?

Robusto

You call yourself well-informed and you don't know who Peppa Pig is?

Mitch

Bahamas was 1973

That was a year

Cerberus

@Robusto Hah.

RegDwigнt

9:57 PM

@Robusto well yeah but I'm not looking at the inauguration per se. Like, she didn't become Queen at the age of five, you know what I'm saying.

Cerberus

But Big Ben would not be quite so important.

It's just a 19th-century building, from the industrial age.

Robusto

Also no religious overtones.

Cerberus

I don't care about the dramatic irony of God destroying her own houses of worship.

RegDwigнt

It's not dramatic, is it. God as the actor is very much in the know.

Cerberus

If I had to choose between the Old Church (my neighbourhood) and the Buildings of Parliament at the Hague, both Mediaeval, I would definitely choose to save Parliament.

Mitch

9:59 PM

What if there were no god, and it's just a building where there was an unfortunate accident?

Robusto

@RegDwigнt: I have to tell you that listening to that alto flute solo while watching her hands fucks me up. Because the pitches don't match the fingerings. Which fucked me up when I had to play it too.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Deus ex machina is hardly an actor; he is the playwright.

@Mitch How likely does that seem to you!??

Mitch

Pretty crazy.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto I wouldn't know. Though I am happy to report that I did practice the flute again today.

Cerberus

Yeah.

Mitch

10:00 PM

Even the smallest pebble has agency.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Such a good boy.

Cerberus

It is no accident that fires always begin on or near the roof of a church. There must be a Reason.

God is mad.

Mitch

a big building like that? It did something wrong and got what it deserved.

RegDwigнt

What is this "God" thingie Cerberus won't shut up about?

Cerberus

Or it's more like the Devil Toby.

Rowan Atkinson.

@RegDwigнt A cheap plot device.

RegDwigнt

10:02 PM

It's Good Friday, haven't you checked. And we call it good because that's the day we killed God.

Mitch

no machina

i'd rather a macchiato

Cerberus

Oh, it is indeed.

Robusto

Deus ex machinations.

RegDwigнt

Due sex masturbations.

Mitch

Deus out of the automobile

Cerberus

10:03 PM

I was just watching the Sekszusjes, the Sex Sisters.

Mitch

nice

Cerberus

They made clay copies of their Vaginae and showed them to people on the street (along with a few other models), asking their opinion.

One of the sisters blushed quite a bit!

But they're fun.

Robusto

@Cerberus "Hmm, not a bad vagina, but it looks a little dry."

Cerberus

The "lesson" is of course that you don't need a surgically altered, porn vagina.

Robusto

I sure don't.

Cerberus

10:05 PM

@Robusto I'm sure the clay had dried in all!

RegDwigнt

I overheard today they wanted to start "rebuilding" the cathedral by holding a contest what to replace the spire with. WTF gives. Just you watch, those damn French will put a glass pyramid on top of it.

Cerberus

Yeah, that was weird.

Mitch

@Robusto You were quick to answer that way

Cerberus

God, I hope they won't do that.

Like the weird Germans and their Reichstag.

RegDwigнt

That was a Brit.

Cerberus

10:07 PM

Either rebuild the 19th-century spire, or leave it off.

RegDwigнt

He also designed the tram stations in this tiny little town I live in.

Mitch

They could do one of those 'architectural' cloud installations

Cerberus

And?

Robusto

Well, of course they'd start with the purist arguments.

There is nothing under the sun that is ever unequivocal, is there?

Cerberus

I like all kinds of architecture, except modernism.

Mitch

10:08 PM

@RegDwigнt Viollet-le-Duc?

Cerberus

But that isn't the point.

The point is that you restore damage, not change the building entirely after a fire.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch Sir Norman Foster IIRC.

Cerberus

I do hope UNESCO will pressure them.

Robusto

I think they should build a Burger King there instead.

RegDwigнt

Yeah like they pressured Leipzig lol.

Cerberus

10:09 PM

And, may God punish me, the billionaires who have pledged money for the restauration.

RegDwigнt

UNESCO can't pressure shit.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Oh. Reichstag, not Notre Dame

Robusto

In the US, Notre Dame is Irish. And they're a bunch of belligerent pricks.

RegDwigнt

All UNESCO can do is threaten to take their ball and go home.

Robusto

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division I in all sports, with many teams competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Notre Dame is one of only 16 universities in the United States that plays Division I FBS football and Division I men's ice hockey. The school colors are Gold and Blue and the mascot is the Leprechaun. == History of the Fighting Irish == === Moniker === Just exactly where the...

RegDwigнt

10:09 PM

Which is what they did in Leipzig. And lo and behold, Leipzig said, mkay, then do just that.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt UNESCO pressured Amsterdam when we had a ton of ads on 'construction works' on buildings—which would take years because of the money they made from the ads.

RegDwigнt

That is the single most ugliest logo I have seen in quite some time.

Cerberus

Then the ads were forbidden.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Wait...what did who do in Leipzig?

Cerberus

I think UNESCO's pressure helped.

Robusto

10:10 PM

@RegDwigнt What do you expect from such people? Art?

RegDwigнt

@Mitch Sorry, Dresden, not Leipzig. Same difference.

Dresden Elbe Valley

The Dresden Elbe Valley is a cultural landscape and former World Heritage Site stretching along the Elbe river in Dresden, the state capital of Saxony, Germany. The valley, extending for some 20 kilometres (12 mi) and passing through the Dresden Basin, is one of two major cultural landscapes built up over the centuries along the Central European river Elbe, along with the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm downstream. With respect to its scenic and architectural values, including the Dresden urban area as well as natural river banks and slopes, the Elbe Valley was entered on the World Heritage Site list...

Mitch

haha. but wait.. smae question?

RegDwigнt

> With respect to its scenic and architectural values, including the Dresden urban area as well as natural river banks and slopes, the Elbe Valley was entered on the World Heritage Site list of the UNESCO in 2004. However, in July 2006 it was designated a World Heritage in Danger and finally delisted in June 2009, in the course of the construction of the Waldschlösschen Bridge river crossing.

Robusto

I think they should rebuild Notre Dame out of Lego.

6

RegDwigнt

Unesco said, this here valley I like, here's a plaque. Dresden said, yeah but we want to drive around in cars. Unesco said oh noes but then we will take away the plaque. Dresden was like, um yeah, and?

Robusto

10:12 PM

Hey, I go to the dentist to get rid of plaque. I didn't know you could get Unesco to do it for free.

Mitch

They were planning that bridge for ever.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto I think we shall find that some neckbeard long did.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I'm sure of it.

RegDwigнt

Probably cost him on the scale of EUR 650 million, too.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I didn't say pressure from UNESCO cannot be resisted. But it counts. They also probably lost subsidies from the EU.

Robusto

10:14 PM

@RegDwigнt Haha, true. That shit is expensive.

RegDwigнt

I believe you will find that entire countries will fight very hard just to lose all subsidies from the EU.

Robusto

@Cerberus What is that an example of?

Cerberus

@Robusto This is what many large buildings in the city used to look like. Fake construction works just for the ad money. And the city council got its share. It ended soon after UNESCO upped the rpessure.

Now it's illegal.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto tell me about it. I am sitting in a room worth a frankly embarrasing amount of dosh, and it's not the musical instruments, I can tell you that.

Robusto

UNESCO should have been called LKETWIWGDI.

"Lets keep everything the way it was, god damn it!"

Cerberus

10:17 PM

And right they are.

Robusto

So now we have to go through a whole two days till Christ is risen. Awww, geez ... might as well watch porn, ne?

Cerberus

You didn't mean TheChrist aka Tchrist?

RegDwigнt

Robusto

No. @tchrist may be godlike in Perl, but in Latin he is only human.

@RegDwigнt Deine Schlafzimmer?

Oder Wohnzimmer.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto more like "Shitposting-im-Internet-Zimmer".

Robusto

10:22 PM

Das ist aber besser.

RegDwigнt

Well anyway. You get the point.

And that's like, a year ago.

Robusto

Yeah. My son had thousands of dollars worth of Lego blocks and I never could walk into his bedroom without slippers on.

Mitch

So you've cleaned up since then?

RegDwigнt

The room or the local LEGO store?

Robusto

Looks like several stores' worth.

Cerberus

10:25 PM

Oh, I know, I know! Lego lives there.

@RegDwigнt What's the difference??

RegDwigнt

2 days ago, by RegDwigнt

It's a paradise if you're like five. But it's a mess if you're pretending to be an adult.

Robusto

ANyway, gotta run. Have fun. Laterz all.

RegDwigнt

CU

Cerberus

Bai.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch I did actually make some room for the flute that I bought.

But you have to know the flute is tiny. Can't say the same of LEGO.

LEGO needs a lot of room.

Exhibit A. Violin for scale.

And that's just a hundred pieces. I have 4000 hundreds more.

RegDwigнt

10:53 PM

Apparently I just learned a new word. Garrulousness.

Mitch

You should do the Sydney Opera House in Duplo

@RegDwigнt Proloxity

Loquaiciosity

RegDwigнt

I probably could at my godsons' house. They have as much Duplo as I have LEGO.

It would have to be mostly non-white, tho.

@Mitch I do not know any of these words. If they are words.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt some are

wait

I misspelled one

RegDwigнt

I think you spelled "one" correctly.

Not sure about proloquaxity.

Mitch

none of the words I've used are actual words

prolixity

that's a word

RegDwigнt

10:58 PM

What about "Reichstag"? You used that one earlier.

Mitch

how dare you

RegDwigнt

I don't know what that means. Is that even French?

Mitch

that was me?

RegDwigнt

50 mins ago, by Mitch

@RegDwigнt Oh. Reichstag, not Notre Dame

It says "Mitch". Then it says a bunch of things that are not words.

Not actual words anyway.

Mitch

What are you, Bob Mueller?

RegDwigнt

10:59 PM

Like WTF is a @RegDwigнt.

And did you know that father Charles goes down and ends battle?

Though some sources say that battle ends and down goes Charles' father.

I blame the spelling reform.

Lel I just got a bluescreen of death just now.

Must be a sign from God himself to do something else with this Friday.

Like going to bed.

See you tomorrow, when I hope I can finally borrow a couple of bucks from you.

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