English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwigнt

21:00

Anyway, Zauberflöte is no Jupiter, with all due respect. You can get there alright.

Now, Sacre du Printemps, I don't think so.

Robusto

Heh, you perhaps underrate opera.

RegDwigнt

I am talking from the composer's standpoint alone.

How hard that thing would be to write.

Robusto

That is the key to understanding Mozart, by the way. All his pieces were little operas and operettas, or at least lieder.

Except the ones that were big operas, etc.

RegDwigнt

I do underrate opera a great deal at this point in life. Like, as a kid, I'd listen to a live performance in a giant theatre like once a month?

I can't even remember the last opera I heard.

I think it was The Love for Three Oranges.

But I might be mistaken.

It's all orchestral and solo pieces right now.

Robusto

I don't usually have time for opera, but I do find a treasure in them when I do.

RegDwigнt

21:04

Opera is a whole world of its own. In every sense. I can't be opening all cans at once.

I know very few singers, and even that is an exaggeration. But they live in a completely closed-off la-la-land all of their own. Completely segregated.

Robusto

I had an affair with a soprano once. She was really good, her singing knocked me off my feet, but the relationship was untenable over the long term. Too. Much. Drama.

RegDwigнt

You could be a pianist or a violinist or a conductor even, but talking to a singer is like you're a truck driver and have to talk to a shoemaker.

It's not that you have nothing to talk about, it's that you're coming from such different angles you can't even call them angles anymore.

They are separate multidimensions in a superdimensional space.

Robusto

Well, she spoke to me with her singing.

RegDwigнt

And then there's ballet dancers.

Robusto

I asked her at a party to sing something she thought I'd like, and she asked my pianist friend if he knew the following song. She fucking nailed it.

Anne Sofie von Otter; "My Ship"; Lady in the Dark; Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin

►

I'd be embarrassed to report what I said to her after she finished.

RegDwigнt

21:11

You don't have to unless you so choose.

These things are always embarrassing in hindsight. If only to yourself.

And I do not know that song.

That's sweet. The words are fine. Depends on the delivery. But I have trust in you.

Robusto

I pretty much nailed it, because we slept in the same bed that night, and for about four months afterwards.

RegDwigнt

Good things never last.

That's a lovely song, too.

Robusto

I didn't have the energy for that relationship.

RegDwigнt

I played Weill more at the age of ten than I do now.

No sure why. His style does connect with me a great deal.

But there's just so many other things out there.

Robusto

True. And while he's interesting and even sometimes profound, it's more musical theater than opera.

RegDwigнt

21:18

Yeah but to me that's the thing. That's what makes it so special. This whole cabaret flavour.

Oh well. Add that to the list of things to keep in mind when composing: whenever a musician plays a note you wrote, they are not playing some other note written by someone else. And by God are there so many other notes to pick from. Yours better be fucking gorgeous.

Robusto

And I bet that sometimes he plays it better than you thought it was.

Musicians are always trying to make music of whatever you write. Trying really hard.

RegDwigнt

They always fucking do. Those pesky musicians. Every goddamn time.

Robusto

Even if what you write sucks, you may find they redeem it somehow.

RegDwigнt

Well that's my saving grace right now. Look at the notes, they're nothing. But a musician can make them work.

And I know that firsthand in my capacity as a musician myself.

I can take my shit and actualyl make it sound passable.

So there's no reason why others shouldn't. Especially professionals unlike myself.

Robusto

Good. And you enjoy it, so that's the important thing.

RegDwigнt

21:24

Well come to think of it, that's how it all began a year ago. You right there tossed me into it all. By saying one of my chords didn't work. So I had to move my drunk ass over to the piano and show you.

Robusto

I don't recall whether you did show me, or if the chord didn't work.

RegDwigнt

I put up a piece on SoundSlice last summer. On my birthday. There was a Cmaj7 chord in there. You listened to the MIDI and did not approve.

Then you listened to my piano and said something to the extent of "here's to actual musicians at actual instruments".

Robusto

Sounds like something I would say.

RegDwigнt

And later that you whistled the tune in the shower.

Robusto

Ah. Yes, I remember that one.

MIDI puts the "dead" in "dead-on" ...

RegDwigнt

21:26

Well I sure do twice over. Because to this day I'd be thinking I wasn't physically capable of writing a melody.

That word would still have sounded like a scary creature from a mythical world.

Robusto

Happy I could help. But I wasn't really helping, just reacting.

See, I react to music. Wherever, whenever.

RegDwigнt

Well you reinforced ideas that may be obvious but never suffer from being reinforced.

Like, you can't write music while not at an instrument.

Things like that.

Robusto

nods

RegDwigнt

Last week I was seriously contemplating if I should rent a bassoon.

I sure as fuck ain't buying myself a whole orchestra.

Though at this point I just as well might.

I really need a harp. And a celesta would be lovely. Alas. In next life, maybe.

Jun 16 '18 at 14:11, by Robusto

@RegDwigнt Yeah, that works. Hooray for real instruments and musicians. Rock on.

I did want to quote you as saying "hooray" at first. And then I reconsidered. But lo and behold, that was the word.

I thought I'd be overgermanizing things again.

Robusto

And I stand by that advice to this day. Even with the hooray.

@RegDwigнt A harmonica is cheaper. And you can still call it a "harp" ...

RegDwigнt

21:36

Well, you can't mimick how air really moves by using a computer. Not even by directly accessing its fan in assembly.

@Robusto everywhere I go on the Internet, they now shove adverts for that EUR 4000 harmonica in my face.

"Remember how you wanted to buy this on Amazon?" Yeah no I really did not want to.

Robusto

I do not know of such an EUR 4000 harmonica.

RegDwigнt

I showed you. Which is why they are now showing it to me.

Robusto

Ah. I don't remember.

RegDwigнt

Amazon ads network.

Robusto

Yeah. I once bought my wife earrings on Amazon, about 15 years ago I guess it was. Took them 10 years to stop showing me women's fashions.

RegDwigнt

21:38

Mar 11 at 21:41, by RegDwigнt

https://www.amazon.de/Suzuki-Fabulous-Chromatisches-Ausrichtung-Mundharmonika/dp‌/B00G9Y3H1U/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=mundhar‌monika&qid=1552340494&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Oh haha WTF someone bought it?

Says out of stock and shows no price.

Nice try suckers, all documented in this chat now. "Four fucking thousand fucking Euro. Plus shipping luls."

Robusto

Not even Amazon Prime free shipping, eh?

RegDwigнt

@Robusto I really like how they do that with things like kitchen appliances like. "We saw you bought a fridge, so now we're thinking you're the kind of person who wants to buy more fridges now".

How about you show them earrings to people who have not bought earrings in quite some time?

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Yeah. That happened to me when I bought a firewood rack. All I could see on any page I ever went to on the Interwebs was "Hey, how about one of these firewood racks you just bought!" Wagging it's little tail and drooling like a computer doggie.

RegDwigнt

Hilarious. And I'm actually laughing.

Robusto

Computer doggies do drool, btw. Just ask @Cerberus.

RegDwigнt

21:43

I asked him something two hours ago, but he must've drowned in drool or something.

Cerberus

woof

Let me see...

RegDwigнt

That's not a very drooly sound.

Robusto

Computer drool is dryer than normal drool.

RegDwigнt

It's not that, it's that he's been drying it off on his bollocks again.

Robusto

Because he can.

RegDwigнt

21:45

I sure would.

He without a bollock toss the first stone.

Cerberus

Such is the canine privilege.

Although the reach of owls is also legendary.

What with your 360⁰ neck.

(Don't let @tchrist see the awful Unicode sin I committed there!)

Robusto

Uh-oh. Too late.

Thou hast summoned up the god of fonts.

Cerberus

I'm sure he smelled it like Silvia Fine does the assembly of hamburger and bun from two floors down.

RegDwigнt

All good by me. I haven't talked about tomatoes for a while.

This year I'll be planting some again.

Cerberus

(In case you watched The Nanny when you were young, as we did.)

RegDwigнt

21:48

The terrace is full of pots already.

Cerberus

Hmm do they grow fast?

Do you take them inside in winter?

RegDwigнt

Not really. It's almost too late in the year now, but it's freezing cold. Below zero.

Robusto

@Cerberus I do not know that reference.

Cerberus

About those Commies, yes, they were bad as well, just like the Nazis, revolutionaries, and basically most people before the age of monumentalism.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus you take the fruits inside in winter. And eat them. Then save the seeds and plant them all over again next year.

Last night I actually looked through the window at the terrace and there was some large dark amorphous blob and I spent a full ten seconds stupefied, trying to understand WTF that was. Then I realized it was the combined shadow from all the pots.

Then I realized there was an ever so faint moon. Just enough to cast a shadow, but not bright enough to make its presence obvious.

Normally the garden is either pitch dark, or clearly moonlit.

Robusto

21:54

Gotta go help with dinner. Laterz all.

RegDwigнt

Nice talking to you. Have fun.

I am concerned Cerberus knows nothing about tomatoes being annuals. What with Holland being the prime supplier of them for all of Europe.

I guess he only eats tulips and cheese.

Anyway, the plant grows quite fast but is very weak and needs support very soon, even before blooming, let alone carrying fruit.

Then you harvest the fruit and throw the plant away.

I believe wild tomatoes are actually perennials. But I don't grow those.

And they wouldn't like the climate.

Cerberus

@Robusto Oh, you didn't watch The Nanny?

The Nanny: Sylvia steals the cake

►

@RegDwigнt Odd.

RegDwigнt

I watched every episode fifty times.

I am not sure why.

There are like 600 of them.

Cerberus

Ah, I never knew they were annual.

@RegDwigнt Because it was all there was on television when we were young?

RegDwigнt

Well most plants are, aren't they. One or two years.

Cerberus

22:02

Most?

RegDwigнt

Actually it's the ones that live for two years that leave me scratching my head.

Like, if you're going to go two, why not three. Why not five.

Cerberus

Yes, the two years have always surprised me.

If they can stand winter, why give up next year?

That would be a nice question for bio.SE.

RegDwigнt

I am sure Tchrist will ellucidate us all.

But I have take my leave now, noticing how it's midnight.

Cerberus

Quite possibly!

Oh, so very early!

Goodnight.

Like Sylvia, I think I'm going to have a nibble.

RegDwigнt

Yeah. Actually the last couple weeks I went to bed at like 10 or even 8.

Cerberus

22:03

Yikes.

Why?

Spring depression?

RegDwigнt

Then played the Switch for three hours while watching YouTube, but that's beside the point.

Cerberus

Umm.

RegDwigнt

Still fell asleep several hours before my usual.

Cerberus

I see.

RegDwigнt

Which was good, got a whole lot of shit done in the mornings, which was very much in order recently.

But now I'm drifting back to my usual schedule.

Cerberus

22:05

Did you manage to remain asleep long enough?

RegDwigнt

And I'm guessing over Easter I'll just, what's the word in Dutch, the Germans say durchmachen.

When you stay awake for so long, you just don't go to bed at all.

Cerberus

Doorhalen?

Yes.

RegDwigнt

Makes sense.

Cerberus

Why over Easter?

It's not very wholesome...

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus yes, I slept a whole damn lot. And woke up before the reveille-matin.

I can't speak any language anymore. What's the English word for Wecker.

Alarm clock?

Cerberus

22:06

Ding!

Wekker in Dutch.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus no, I mean it's because holidays. And for so many consecutive days.

Cerberus

I don't understand.

RegDwigнt

So I run the risk for staying up on even just one night, and that'll be enough to put me back to my usual schedule

Cerberus

Hmm I wish it worked like that for me.

RegDwigнt

Well my inner clock has 27.5 hours to a day.

Cerberus

22:07

Well, good luck!

Still not quite 40.

Mine has a similar number of hours.

RegDwigнt

I am surprised I was able to pull this off for two weeks now. Pretending that a day actually has 24 hours, I mean.

Cerberus

If it works for you, then do it.

RegDwigнt

Yeah. So I guess I'll go watch some YouTube in bed and hopefully fall asleep in 20 minutes. So I can get shit done tomorrow before it's even noon.

You go catch up on all the Beethoven now. There's a lot of him to catch up on up above.

Nighty-night.

Cerberus

20 minutes!

I might.

Adieu.

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