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

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

Heh, you perhaps underrate opera.

I am talking from the composer's standpoint alone.

How hard that thing would be to write.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Well, she spoke to me with her singing.

And then there's ballet dancers.

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.

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

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.

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

Good things never last.

That's a lovely song, too.

I didn't have the energy for that relationship.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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".

Sounds like something I would say.

And later that you whistled the tune in the shower.

Ah. Yes, I remember that one.

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

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.

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

See, I react to music. Wherever, whenever.

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.

nods

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.

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.

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" ...

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.

I do not know of such an EUR 4000 harmonica.

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

Ah. I don't remember.

Amazon ads network.

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.

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."

Not even Amazon Prime free shipping, eh?

@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?

@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.

Hilarious. And I'm actually laughing.

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

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

woof

Let me see...

That's not a very drooly sound.

Computer drool is dryer than normal drool.

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

Because he can.

I sure would.

He without a bollock toss the first stone.

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!)

Uh-oh. Too late.

Thou hast summoned up the god of fonts.

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

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

This year I'll be planting some again.

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

The terrace is full of pots already.

Hmm do they grow fast?

Do you take them inside in winter?

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

@Cerberus I do not know that reference.

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

@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.

Gotta go help with dinner. Laterz all.

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.

@RegDwigнt Odd.

I watched every episode fifty times.

I am not sure why.

There are like 600 of them.

Ah, I never knew they were annual.

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

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

Most?

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.

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.

I am sure Tchrist will ellucidate us all.

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

Quite possibly!

Oh, so very early!

Goodnight.

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

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

Yikes.

Why?

Spring depression?

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

Umm.

Still fell asleep several hours before my usual.

I see.

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.

Did you manage to remain asleep long enough?

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.

Doorhalen?

Yes.

Makes sense.

Why over Easter?

It's not very wholesome...

@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?

Ding!

Wekker in Dutch.

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

I don't understand.

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

Hmm I wish it worked like that for me.

Well my inner clock has 27.5 hours to a day.

Well, good luck!

Still not quite 40.

Mine has a similar number of hours.

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

If it works for you, then do it.

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.

20 minutes!

I might.

Adieu.