English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2020-01-17

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1:39 AM

@Gigili Well, everyone winds up paying, one way or another. And of course it's not fair that those who are innocent are among those who suffer.

2:21 AM

@skillpatrol I'm sorry to hear it.

@Robusto A war in which many nuclear bombs are detonated would indeed be devastating for humanity.

An existential threat, almost.

So it should be our priority to keep nuclear bombs out of the hands of the truly insane.

We don't want IS to get its hands on 200 big nuclear bombs.

2:45 AM

@Cerberus That ship has sailed, I'm afraid. See: Trump, Donald

@Robusto You're mixing metaphors!

Is he a ship or a bomb?

9 hours later…

11:33 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad ip for hostname in body, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, pattern-matching product name in body, +4 more (690): How to take Bluoxyn Male Enhancement Pills? by user372348 on english.SE

11:48 AM

@Cerberus A ship full of bombs!

0

Q: What is the precise semantic difference between 'patient' and 'casualty'?

In my experience, the terms 'patient' and 'casualty' tend to be used pretty interchangeably when referring to people in need of medical attention. However, I feel like there's definitely a semantic difference between the two - I just can't quite figure out what it is. I think any difference migh...

differences semantics medical

In terms of subtlety, this is right up there with the difference between "firefighter" and "husband". Some firefighters are husbands, and some husbands are firefighters. But that's not where the commonalities begin; that's where they end. — RegDwigнt ♦ 1 min ago

Like for reals tho.

Or a bomb full of sheep

How about a bomb full of bombs.

Das ist nicht mein Ding.

@Robusto yes but I must say I disagree with the bit where he jumps to the conclusion that that's why people watched Tchernobyl.

That's not why people watched Tchernobyl.

Much rather, people watched Tchernobyl because there was fuck all else to watch.

This writer wishes to humbly remind everyone that just a couple months before a shit ton of people watched Birdbox for much the same reason.

Oh and P.S.: the left wing has failed to learn the lesson you quote just as much as the right wing did.

The left wing, too, is getting lied to, and is lying to themselves.

That's why when I say "stay the fuck out of politics", I literally mean "stay the fuck out of politics", and not "just pick one wing that you like most".

Matt E. Эллен

12:35 PM

the spicy hot wing ain't lied to me yet

2

3 hours later…

3:10 PM

@Gigili Such a lovely metaphor.

3:27 PM

@RegDwigнt I don't think he said that, at least not as glibly as you did. He said that this is what ultimately resonated with people watching. That is different from "why they watched it."

@RegDwigнt Perhaps, but right now the world is steering toward the rocks on the right side, so we can perhaps be forgiven if we wish to tack left for a time.

It's too late for Russia, perhaps, now that Putin has rewritten your constitution, but the US still has a chance.

1 hour later…

4:42 PM

And now this: Lego's new market: stressed-out adults.

5 hours later…

9:24 PM

@Robusto the video is literally titled, and I quote, "why we couldn't stop watching Chernobyl".

This is YouTube, like. I am easily the least glib person on there.

@Robusto yeah Europe maybe. I'll give you that. The world, I honestly don't know.

Russia is incredibly leftist to this day. Certainly by US standards.

Conversely, the US has never had a left to begin with, so no change there.

Donald is a child. He ain't got nothing on McCarthy. Or Rumsfeld. Or even the Bushes.

If I had to pick McCarthy or Trump, I'd pick Trump ten times out of ten.

(Which is why us Russian hackers collectively voted for him.)

Russia is medieval. I don't know a single person who has so much as read the Constitution. I certainly haven't.

I've read the German one and that of the US. Never read a word of the Russian one.

You just go with the customs. And these haven't changed in the last five hundred years really.

@RegDwigнt It's also called something else in the subtitle. But, this being YouTube, titles are maybe the most misleading things of all.

Well yes. Exhibit A: myself. I've only ever read the title and that's all I'm basing my judgment on.

"We couldn't stop watching Chernobyl" and "How Chernobyl preys on our ignorance" set up a fine cognitive dissonance there.

And now this:

Chernobyl Doctor Fact Checks the HBO Series | Vanity Fair

Turns out some of the graphic scenes of radiation effects are at variance with the truth.

Still, the actual effects were horrific enough to not need the tonnage of body paint the show used.

A worse effect might have been me answering the question on EL&U that I was born (or at least trained) to answer and not getting any notice at all.

9:41 PM

ELU is just a number on the Internet that you watch go up. Or don't.

But ... but ... but ... a question on Wallace Stevens ... one of my favorite poems ...

Fuck all that rep shit. I am almost uniquely qualified to answer this question.

Dude, literally nobody even knows the name. Of course you won't get no points.

Answer a question about bike sheds.

0

A: Interpretation of "For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."

Without getting too wrapped up in a literary analysis, which is not the purview of this site, I have to mention that Stevens was a poet whose entire subject was, in his words, "the poem of the act of the mind." Note that it is the act of the mind that concerns him, not just the mind itself. It i...

@RegDwigнt But Wallace Stevens wrote no poems about bike sheds.

Well go watch that number for a second.

@Robusto see, that's why nobody likes him. He totally should've.

@RegDwigнt I do love being pandered to.

9:44 PM

There must be some sort of clever wordplay on pandering and pandemics.

You can have one for $3000.

That's affordable.

I can give you $3000 for only ten easy payments of $3000.

I'll have to submit a purchase order req.

Sure, sure. Due process. Take your time.

So a week ago I started copying Duruflé's Requiem, and now I'm somewhat realizing what a gargantuanly stupid idea that was.

But now it's too late because I'm like one third in.

Only two-thirds left to go. Rock on.

9:48 PM

Incidentally that's why I'm here to begin with. Taking a short break.

Kinda takes the fun out of a mass for the dead, huh?

Hah.

How many hours in are you?

But yeah well no not really. I sort of tested the waters with shorter pieces. Mozart's Ave Verum, which is like only two pages. Bach's third Motet, which is like 35. Dunaevsky's Ouverture to The Children of Captain Grant. Which is I don't even know how many notes that was.

Sounds like a lot.

9:50 PM

So I sort of know both my speed as well as how much I can manage before giving up.

BTW, in case you missed it:

5 hours ago, by Robusto

And now this: Lego's new market: stressed-out adults.

I kinda thought that described you.

@Robusto Have a listen. It's a fantastic piece.

musescore.com/user/27897310/scores/5691818

Borrows a leaf from Schubert's opening of the Arpeggione Sonata.

@RegDwigнt Spins, doesn't start.

Yeah. The Internet can't handle that many notes.

Too many notes?

9:53 PM

Try reloading the page and then waiting for a bit before clicking play.

@Robusto I wouldn't be much surprised if them were OVER 9000.

Waiting ...

Gonna try a different browser.

Thank you, Firefox.

Yeah I uninstalled all of mine.

But this last 32-bit version of Chrome, which is literally 5 years old now, works fine.

Definitely sounds Russian.

9:58 PM

Watch the flute part. Some insane scales there.

Scales are our daily bread.

Yeah but I can't even read them notes like.

Can't even name the scale.

We constantly get rafts of scales chock-a-block with accidentals.

Goes with the territory.

So who was Captain Grant?

> Needless to say, it's been a blast transcribing this in MuseScore. Seeing all his tricks first hand. What he does, and how he does it.

Exactly right.

Which is why I was then able to do a reduction of that whole thing for a single violin and piano.

And which is why I'm doing the Duruflé.

Funnily enough, when my eye came upon blast in this context my brain wanted to interpret it as a Russian word.

10:03 PM

Obviously you don't learn all the notes by heart or anything. Your familiarity with the piece afterwards is about as superfluous as before. But something is different alright.

Not that I know what it is. Maybe just takes off the edge of the angst.

Well, yeah. It's like when you perform an orchestral piece instead of merely hearing it.

It's like you really hear it for the first time.

You get in there and tinker with the engine.

Learn how the valves work, etc.

The Requiem, I'm transcribing his own reduction for the organ there, and it has like seven voices in places. I don't have enough fingers to play even half of that.

At least that's what I would've said a week ago.

But now I've played this bit or that and it's just a tiny bit less scarier.

Once I'm finished with this, I am planning to do a piano reduction of my own, for that is all we have to work with in the rehearsals.

Good. Keep at it.

Yes, sir. Shall do.

I think reductions are harder. You have to be merciless about cutting things.

10:07 PM

I am in a unique position for that.

I hate cutting things.

Because I'm shit at playing. So I naturally throw half the staff out.

I'm a musical pack rat.

Like even if play Chopin or Liszt. I will just leave out a dozen notes here or there.

The trick is to know which notes can go without anyone noticing.

See, when I play Liszt I just leave all the notes out. Much simpler that way. Less stress.

10:08 PM

Exactly. Now we're talking. Welcome to my world.

Anyway, after doing like 300 arrangements for two violins, I've seen it all.

You can throw any chord at me, and I'll be able to identify just the two notes in it that are essential.

I had my fill of arrangements for flute and piano, enough to last me a lifetime. Makes me feel like a cheater.

Flute is also brilliant. Basically any melodic instrument.

When you're forced to reduce to just one note and one note only, well. You're forced to.

@RegDwigнt But that puts me more strongly in touch with its limitations.

@RegDwigнt There's still the option of not doing it at all.

But as an intellectual exercise ... I suppose that works.

Yeah but we've already agreed that I must keep at it. Sorry.

No backsies.

Oh, that. Well, if you must ...

10:12 PM

So anyway, to catch up on your questions in order, I've not bought any LEGO in three years like.

I'm talking about the flute literature that consists of transcriptions from the violin. What do you do when you come to double stops?

Only got one giant set for Christmas with the Mickey Mouse and the Chipmunks.

So you must be stress-free.

And as to too many notes in Mozart, and before him Bach, and after him Chopin, that's the whole point innit. You can leave out half of them, and you're still left with a solid scaffolding that sounds gorgeous.

The shorter the note value, the literally less important the note.

Well, until you miss one of those sixteenths. Then it bleeds out over everything.

And you realize just how important that accidental that you ignored was.

10:15 PM

Kids these days don't understand that. I see it on MuseScore every day. They copy Chopin by playing 50 notes in the first bar. With trioles and mordents and whatnot. And they think that's Chopin. But the underlying harmony progression definitely is not. If there is any progression at all.

It's the kids. They don't know nothin' and they don't wanna learn nothin'.

Reminds me of Roger Ebert's review of Battlefield Earth. Where he said that the director has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he never learned when or why.

Same here. All those tricks they use, they are all Chopin's tricks alright. But that's not how and when and why he uses them.

@RegDwigнt Heh. Good old Rog.

rogerebert.com/reviews/battlefield-earth-2000

It's a brilliant review really.

Like, to write the first sentence alone, what I would give for that.

But yeah, I've left writing behind me. In the next life, maybe. In this one, I'm taking what I've learned from that and apply it to music instead.

@RegDwigнt He was a master. He and Pauline Kael were my favorite movie reviewers of all time.

10:23 PM

That's honestly not a name I've heard before.

I smell binge reading ahead.

She reviewed for The New Yorker back when it was worth reading.

But you still have your subscription, don't you. So it can't be all bad.

Well ...

BTW, Roger Ebert adored her.

> She left a lasting impression on several prominent film critics. Roger Ebert argued in an obituary that Kael "had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades."
Kael, he said, "had no theory, no rules, no guidelines, no objective standards. You couldn't apply her 'approach' to a film. With her it was all personal."[4] Owen Gleiberman said she "was more than a great critic. She reinvented the form, and pioneered an entire aesthetic of writing."

Yeah. I want to be Kael when I grow up. No theory no rules no guidelines. All personal.

Van Morrison "In The Garden" from the album "No Guru No Method No Teacher"

A wonderful song, too.

Ah, Van Morrison ... how can you go wrong?

10:27 PM

Not with this album you can't.

And that's the song it's got its title from.

> According to Kael, after reading her negative review of Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands, [New Yorker editor William] Shawn said, "I guess you didn't know that Terry is like a son to me." Kael responded, "Tough shit, Bill," and her review was printed unchanged.

I'm scrolling through her reviews now. Too bad there's so few films on there that I've actually watched.

Well, yeah. She died in 1991, so ...

And the ones I did are actually brilliant, and she offers no disagreement.

@Robusto yeah I'm more like saying, for someone who's watched every movie in existence, I haven't watched nearly enough movies.

Thanks for the Van Morrison, though. Of all the pop singers, he's the one you listen to when you just want to feel all right with the world.

10:34 PM

Yeah. Though I probably wouldn't pick that particular song, myself. It's quite somber, to me.

Doesn't help that I got that album as a present from a friend who passed away.

But yeah I see exactly what you mean.

He's never somber to me. He always just soothes my nerves.

Well yes. When I'm sad listening to Bach, it's not crushing sadness, it's peaceful. Always.

Yeah.

This is the first song I ever heard by Van Morrison, some 53 years ago:

Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl (Audio)

2

Well that's like pure sunshine. All the sunshine all the time.

ayup

That was the first only because they wouldn't play Morrison's band's version of "Gloria" ... it got covered for the Chicago market by The Shadows of Knight, who cut the "suggestive" lyrics.

10:38 PM

Yeah that rings a bell.

Maybe we even talked about it before actually.

Possibly.

I've stopped trying to use the search.

It never searches my head. It always searches something else.

It sucks egregiously.

Didn't used to be that way.

Van Morrison - Days Like This

10:40 PM

Another classic for sure.

I just opened a different video of his that minute, and the top comment said "for some of you there is therapy.. for the rest of us , there is Music"

We might not share the orthography but we share the sentiment.

@RegDwigнt That's so good it should have been mine.

Van Morrison - The healing Game

Here it is. Great song, too.

I have said the same thing in different ways over the years.

Amazing, a YouTube comment that nails a truth about life.

Van Morrison will do that to you.

Few others will. Paul Simon maybe. You'll stop and think about what you've only just heard. You won't do that for everyone.

What I've said from time to time is that whenever you feel deserted in all the important ways, music just somehow comes back like an old friend who never leaves.

@RegDwigнt Aye.

10:48 PM

Music has dug me out of the deepest hole of my life. In which I was totally willing to spend the rest of my life, however short that would have been.

Maths didn't. Cooking didn't. LEGO didn't. Music did.

It's the only one that could, at least for me.

BTW, the backing horns in "The healing game" at some points play a melody from "I Can't Get Started" ... I wonder if it's conscious.

Lessee if I can find a good example for you.

I Can`t Get Started - ELLA FITZGERALD AND NELSON RIDDLE

Ah, can't do much better than Ella.

Music is a reassurance that there is still beauty in the world.

@Robusto might or might not be. He certainly quotes a lot of Irish music. Or music in general.

Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.

I'm sure he's heard that tune, so I'd be willing to bet it was a conscious quote.

Yeah. Either from him or the players, mind. He has some world-class players in his entourage.

Lotta people wanna play with Van. Small wonder.

10:56 PM

It's like Joel Spolsky wrote back when people would still read him. Back when he'd still write.

Yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

Joel Spolsky, writer.

Always surround yourself with A-class talent. They will get you in an ever bigger group of A-class talent.

/nod

If you roll with B-class, what they'll get on board will be C-class.

Like the old saying, "If you find someone better than you are, hire them."

10:59 PM

Well yes, marry up not down.

And all that.

Sorry, just gotta hear that voice a little bit more.

Ella Fitzgerald - These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)

Jesus, that riff at t=193 ...

I'm only at 56.

Chills.

Oh yeah. Dem blu notes.

user image

The view out my front door a couple days ago.

11:05 PM

Dies irae, dies illa.

Solvet saeclum in favilla

Yeah I always laugh at the favela.

You descend to hell and lo, a favela.

Interestingly Duruflé leaves it out.

The whole requiem is like that. No wrath. All peace.

Something to be said for that.

Every movement comes from a triple piano, and ends in a triple piano.

Like the Sanctus from the Berlioz Requiem. A balm for the wound.

11:11 PM

And mind you, there's lots of ff and even fff, but every single time he puts it on words like "libera" or "lux aeterna".

So it's like sunshine coming in.

Noice.

And it all ends in a seven(!)-voice floating chord marked "très long".

Really quite unique.

I'll have to give it a listen.

I posted it earlier somewhere. Lemme see.

Jan 5 at 9:41, by RegDwigнt

✥ DURUFLÉ - Requiem ✥

Thanks. We're going out soon, but I'll listen later tonight.

11:15 PM

Yes. I must be off to bed as well. Maybe I'll transcribe another couple bars before that.

Got a new piano student tomorrow.

Had literally no time left to put him in other than Saturday at noon.

I'm running out of days. I long have.

Forces you out of bed on the weekend at least.

Yeah that's something I've stopped seeking to prevent.

Well then. Thank you for the company and all the wonderful music.

Have fun.

You too.

And likewise.

We really must get together and drink sometime.

Preferably where there is a music source.

Anyway, laterz.

Yes. And yes.

Good night.

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